This summer I have been judging yearbooks from across the country. It’s an interesting experience, to say the least. Despite each staff’s desire to see itself as unique, the story ideas are pretty much the same from book to book. Of course this year, each school devoted a double page spread to September 11. While some merely recorded events in New York and Washington, most reflected the response of their own student body. Although I don’t read every school’s coverage about fashion, I have read each of these of tributes to the American spirit. Some have been very touching.
In sharp contrast, I came across one school’s story on pet peeves. The staff had interviewed a number of students about their personal pet peeves and merely recorded the responses. Most were pretty typical, “A plastic cooler rubbing against something in the back of the car causing a squeaking noise” or “someone tapping a pencil on a desk.” These sounds can annoy any of us.
However, in light of all the patriotic salutes to the country that I had read, one response disturbed me. A sophomore from New Jersey wrote, “My pet peeve is when people untie their shoes when they take them off. It’s so annoying! They waste so much time by first untying them and then slipping them off. Can’t they just slip them on and off? It’s so much easier!”
Of course, the English teacher in me wanted to mark the grammatically incorrect structure “is when” with a red pencil. However, the American in me wanted to say to the young person, “Unless the odor from his feet nauseates you, what difference does it make how someone else takes off his shoes?” True, it may be impolite to take one’s shoes off in company and it’s certainly rude if he throws them across the room, but the manner by which he removes his shoes is of no concern to anyone else.
I’m sure that sophomore would have been very offended if another person had claimed as his pet peeve, people who never untie their shoes to remove them. I might even fall into that category. As surely as my grandchildren kick off their tennis shoes while they are staying with me, it falls to me to untie those aggravating double knots to help them put their shoes back on. Whenever we want to dictate the specifics of each minor routine activity, we’re begging for trouble. Talk about personal freedom.
Right now, with everyone so tense about another terrorist attack, we’re weighing personal freedoms against public safety. At times I feel as if we are the bowling pins in an inexperienced juggler’s hands. Most of us are willing to make some sacrifices to feel safer; others dig in their heels to say if we give up one little freedom, we’ll forfeit the whole country. Finding the right balance doesn’t appear to be easy. With so much at stake, we all must be alert, but none of us needs to slip into the false security of trying to make everyone live in exactly the same manner we do. Even in subdivisions where every floor plan is the same, residents change the facade and the landscaping to make theirs different.
Most of us find the actions of another person annoying at times. People who always speed up to a stop sign, then slam on brakes scare me. I would appreciate it more if they showed their intention of stopping sooner. At such times, I just wait at the intersection until I know the other car will stop. With such caution, I probably irritate someone behind me.
The term “pet peeve” has always intrigued me. A peeve is a grievance, something that may cause resentment. Most are usually put aside eventually. But a pet peeve is a grudge that we nurture, one that we stroke like we do our own household dogs and cats. We feed it regularly so that we can make it grow. It feels very comfortable in our house. The sad thing about such a relationship is that the more at home that the pet peeve feels, the more discomfort we experience. As long as we put our own shoes on our own two feet, does it really matter how we do it?
2002
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