People driving in their cars who whistle, cat call, or yell at people walking on the street

I don’t know if this happens to guys, but I’m guessing that the majority of girls have had this happen to them – while walking down the street, minding their own business, a girl or group of girls have been whistled, cat called, or yelled at by a guy or group of guys driving by. Now, here’s what I’ve always wondered – guy or group of guys, how does this help you? Does it just make you feel better to get that off your chest? It’s not like I’m running after you, begging you to stop your car so we can meet. So what’s the point?

Those little stick figure stickers people put on their cars

First of all – I don’t care how many people are in your family, whether your kids are boys or girls, or if you have cats or dogs.
 
Second of all – You are telling stalkers, kidnappers, and all sorts of other criminals way too many details about your family… why are you doing that? ESPECIALLY you people who put the names of each family member underneath their respective stick figure.

People who don’t pick up after their dogs

Disclaimer: Do not read if you cannot handle frank discussion about bowel movements

Now that that’s out of the way…

My neighborhood is full of apartments. And since many of the landlords are dog-friendly (or unaware their tenants have dogs), there are lots of dogs with no backyards of their own in which to relieve themselves. This means that their owners must take them on walks to do their business. But instead of being responsible and considerate, these people just let their dogs leave piles of poop on the sidewalk or in front yards and beltways without picking it up. So when I walk my dog, I must keep my eyes glued to the sidewalk lest I step in shit or my dog stops to sniff it.

There are SO many easy solutions to this problem, people who don’t pick up after their dogs:

1.    Buy a waste pick-up dispenser with pick-up bags – Petco sells them plus refill rolls for as little as $6.79. If you have enough money to take care of a dog, you certainly have enough money for a waste pick-up dispenser.

2.    Reuse plastic grocery bags – If the first option is just too expensive for you, you dirty cheap ass hipster North Park resident, tie a plastic grocery bag to your dog’s leash before you leave the house. Then you can also feel like you’re doing your part to be green by minding the mantra “Reduce Reuse Recycle.”

3.    Go to the park and get a pick-up bag provided by the city – That’s right, North Park provides pick-up bags free of charge in multiple dispensers throughout the local park. If you don’t have plastic grocery bags in your home because you use canvas bags, you still have options! You can go grab one that the city supplies for the specific reason of keeping the neighborhood excrement-free. You’re already walking your dog anyway, walk by the park and pick a bag so you can pick up your dog’s doodoo.

 
Seriously people, I doubt you would like if I took a big dump right in front of your doorstep. So why are you letting your dog do it to your neighbors?

Food photographers

I never know I’m craving pizza with breadsticks as crusts/a slice of 6-layer red velvet cake/a burger with cheese, bacon, avocado and ranch until I see it on TV looking more amazing than physically possible. Seriously, how do food photographers make the food look that appealing? They are so good at their jobs, I want to eat almost everything I see on TV. And we all know why that is not helpful.

Freeway on-ramp traffic lights

In traveling back and forth to the gym on the freeway during morning rush hour, I happen to hit on-ramp traffic lights both ways. As a result, I’ve been thinking a lot about this question – what is the purpose of freeway on-ramp traffic lights? I was always under the impression that a driver was supposed to use the freeway on-ramp to accelerate in order to reach (as closely as possible) the speed of the other cars on the freeway. So why install a traffic light at the point where the on-ramp meets the right-hand freeway lane? This means a driver accelerates, slows down to stop at the red light, and then attempts to merge into the flow of traffic at 10-20 miles an hour. Why? Unlike regular street traffic lights, it’s not like freeway on-ramp traffic lights help to regulate cross-traffic; everyone is going the same direction! It’s also not like freeway on-ramp traffic lights help to decrease the number of cars on the freeway; everyone gets on the freeway eventually, now they’re just merging in at a slower speed and more likely to get into an accident with drivers not paying attention as they cut across five lanes so as not to miss their right-hand exit. They seem counter-intuitive, freeway on-ramp traffic lights. Let’s have them uninstalled! More work for the never-ending road development workers, just how the government likes it.

Geriatric sportscasters

Now, I love me some college football and basketball. For the entire fall and winter, and part of spring, I can always expect there will be something exciting to watch on a Saturday. I even prefer the collegiate level to the pros for each – since the teams are not all composed entirely of the country’s/world’s strongest/fastest/tallest athletes, you actually get to see the games as they were meant to be played because the players have to use their skills and talent to run plays rather than just push or jam a ball into an end zone or basket.
 
Unfortunately, with each sport comes its requisite old man sportscaster – Lou Holtz for football and Dick Vitale for basketball. And since they’ve both been around since dinosaurs walked the earth, they get to call the best games, making them unavoidable! While the two men are very different, they are both terribly annoying in their own special way.
 
First, because he is the more aggravating of the two for me, is Lou Holtz. Now, this man is 75 years old but you’d swear he was 175 years old because he has the biggest ears I’ve ever seen (noses and ears are the parts of the body that keep growing throughout your entire life). But his ears are not the problem, since he is a sportscaster and not a beauty pageant contestant after all. No, this man speaks not only with a lisp, but a crazy, juicy, spit-infused lisp! Honestly, the man spends more time on air sucking back spit than he does producing words. If your job is talking, you should actually be able to do it. I’m pretty sure they should have reassigned Mr. Holtz to the back room with the analysts and statisticians a long time ago. He might have a lot of knowledge about the game, but that doesn’t meant he should be on my TV telling me his knowledge with his own mouth if his speech is unintelligible.
 
Then there’s Dick Vitale, also known as Dickie V. I must give credit to ole’ Dick, at least he has good diction. Unfortunately, along with this, we get an obnoxiously loud and grating voice combined with commentary so riddled with made-up catch phrases and nicknames you’d think they were going out of style. If you’ve never heard Dick Vitale speak before, try plugging your nose and screaming sports terms at the top of your lungs. Now you know what this crazy old man sounds like. Better yet, try shouting “It’s serendipity baby!” (to him this means everything is coming together on the court just right) or “Now that’s what I call a diaper dandy!” (Dick’s way of describing an outstanding freshman player). Apparently the guy was diagnosed with lesions on his vocal cords in 2007 (gosh, I wonder why). Luckily for us, the surgery was successful and he was back at work just three short months later. As per usual, he will be all over the tournament. And with UCLA nowhere in sight, I might just have to avoid watching until the Final Four or so… less games seen equals less Dickie V, baby!

It’s weird, in the large majority of professions you are encouraged/forced to retire when you can no longer perform the skill you were once able to perform, but for some reason this doesn’t apply to talking on television. Even Dick Clark is still allowed to host the New Years’ Eve ball drop, and he had a stroke that left him incomprehensible. Now we’ve got Ryan Seacrest sitting next to him and repeating everything he says for viewers’ sake, while (I like to think) secretly counting the seconds until he can take over this Dick’s hosting duties until the end of time.

Babymoons

According to Wikipedia, the word “babymoon” has several meanings:
 

-       The original meaning is a period of time that parents spend bonding with a recently-born baby.

-       More recently, the term has come to be used to describe a vacation taken by a couple that is expecting a baby so that they can “enjoy one last trip together” before the baby is born.

-       Babymoon can also be used for a trip taken by a couple even before they get pregnant (whaaaaat?!?!). As long as the trip is intended to be a final romantic fling before venturing into parenthood, the term babymoon applies. (This sounds like a shallow excuse for a regular old vacation to me, but what do I know.)

Now, I think the original usage of the word is incredibly sweet. In the same way that a honeymoon (the word from which babymoon is derived) is the period just after the wedding when the newlywed couple “enjoys each other’s company” (*wink wink), a babymoon is the period just after the birth when the parents begin bonding with their new child. Of course, just as honeymoons have become synonymous with “let’s go somewhere romantic and far away (read: expensive),” babymoons have as well. Except this doesn’t make sense, because only the parents (okay, and their unborn child) are going!

 
Aren’t soon-to-be parents supposed to be happy that their baby is coming? Then why are they taking “one last vacation together” before the baby is born? This seems incongruous, as in “we are so happy our baby is coming, let’s celebrate our last moments of childlessness!”
 
Do I want couples to enjoy each other while they are without children? Of course. (And with children too but I know it’s not the same.) But don’t use having kids as an excuse to go on vacation. Because I will tell your kids "your parents went on vacation before you were born specifically to celebrate the fact that you weren't born yet" and then they will have a complex.