69. Pet Peeves: What Do Our Biggest Annoyances Say About Us?

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Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

Hello to our wonderful people.

Hello, you know?

I wasn't talking to you.

I was talking to the listeners.

Oh, oh.

But also,

you.

Do you want to know something that I found out today?

Oh.

Uh-oh.

I think soft rock is my favorite kind of music.

Oh my God.

Are you listening to that new soft rock station?

Who put it on the car?

I don't know.

Somebody found it.

And

I, every song, I'm like, oh, yeah, let's go.

Yesterday, I was driving Emma home from school.

Papa Don't Preach came in.

He says that he's going to marry me

and we can raise a little family.

Yes.

I mean, so good.

I'm so glad you're digging it.

What else has come up?

Well, you know,

I can't remember any songs or anything that just happened other than the moment I'm in right now.

So I was just in the car five minutes ago and I was singing to a lovely song.

You don't know what it was?

Uh-uh.

Honey.

Speaking of Papa, don't preach.

Do you remember when we used to get together with all the cousins in Ohio

and

we would do talent shows?

And do you please remember the year that

we decided to pick like a virgin?

for our to perform for we were like seven and eight and nine and we had no idea what the hell it meant but we came down all of the aunts all of the uncles my very parents very irish catholic grandmother waited for us and we came down and fully performed like a virgin, touched for the very first time.

Like a virgin.

And do you remember the move?

For her Jen.

Yes.

I remember the move.

I remember we'd all put out our left hand and go, touched for the very first time

and touch our arm back and forth.

Oh, we were, we were amazing.

Yeah.

Just dance.

And do you remember the faces?

Their faces, they just were like stone-faced, just staring at us.

I was like, wow, we are really really impressive.

They are speechless,

bluing their minds.

So.

Yeah, that was my like two cents for today.

Thank you, babe.

Random thought

for all.

Which is a good segue because I feel like soft rock might be a lot of people's best.

Yes.

Yes.

Ooh.

So we are in this year of our Lord 2022.

We have decided for us, you do you, but we have decided for us that 2022 so far is the year where we just

we're out of giddy up.

We're out of all, we're all fresh out of giddy up.

We are, we are no longer Rosie the Riveters.

We

are no longer full of resilience.

We used all that up.

And so this is the year where we survive by going largely dead inside.

It's an army crawl, a full full-on, it was, it was a

go get them, cowgirls, and now it's just an army crawl, inch by inch.

Yes.

Yeah.

You know, it's that thing that you see on the interwebs where it's just like people ask you how you are and you just gesture vaguely.

Yeah, I love the gesture vaguely tweeting at everything.

Just

so we have, though, figured out that there's one vibe of 2022

that we can embrace and that might save us.

And that is absurdity.

Okay.

I think that I am like punch drunk.

Like I'm, I'm dead inside.

I don't care about much.

But then like my kid falls in the kitchen, like down on the ground.

Now that will get me through an entire hour.

Like

anything that is silly or nonsensical or absurd is really helping me this year.

And that's what we're going to embrace.

Okay.

So to that end, this week, we decided to put

out

to you

an episode full of joy and love and positivity and absurdity about the things that piss us off.

Okay.

I have, I don't know if I've been as excited to record a podcast.

Really?

Yeah.

There's just something about saying the things out loud

that makes me very excited.

Okay.

This is part of the absurdity of 2022.

No, no, no, no.

About me?

No, it's nothing that you don't know.

It's nothing that I don't haven't said.

But it's just like, it's fun to talk about the shit that pisses us off.

Yeah,

it's so fun.

Because I feel like right now, I mean, we do this whole thing where we talk about the super hard, legit things, like, oh, we need to talk about these deep pains and naming them is helpful but we feel like these little peevish things that just annoy us are our

little problems but i think naming them and having other people be like yes because we are all on the solitary last nerve it's like we had all the nerves the camel was unburdened and now after two years of pandemic the camel it's too much straw and the nerves are one and so this is why right now it's like we could take we could take 18 months of the people in our house slurping up their cereal but on the 19th month it's done now it is done we are finished yeah well because and we also cared about the reason we didn't say anything or lose our before is because we still cared about making it through well

like we felt like if there's an end line yeah we could we were gonna have our moment where it was gonna be over and people would look at us and our family and say say, wow.

You did it.

You were an angel in the house.

Like you just

wait for servant.

You have done this.

What a wonderful warrior you were.

But now we've realized that's not going to happen.

We don't even see an end line.

So we no longer care what people think of us in our home.

Like we just want to stop hating everybody.

So we're going to do what it takes to make the things stop that bother us.

Okay.

So

every woman for themselves in the house.

Everybody for themselves.

So today we're talking about pet peeves.

Okay.

And so

a pet peeve, it's something that annoys the hell out of you.

But the pet part of it is like it's particular, you believe at least that it's particular to you.

It's something that insults your soul.

The Whitman thing.

Like it deeply insults your own soul.

But you're not sure that anyone else's soul is insulted by it.

It's like a talent or like a special gift that's been given just to you to protect your soul

by giving you this thing that you hate

about the world or other people.

Do you feel that's correct about what a pet peeve is?

I do.

This is where I think it's confusing because if you research it, there's all of these things that are categorized as pet peeves that are actually just

suboptimal behaviors, like

not acceptable behaviors, like

talking with your mouth full, you know,

staring at people.

Like, I don't think these are appropriately categorized as pet peeves because it's just like people stop doing that.

Like a pet peeve is some idiosyncratic thing

that annoys you

and that might not annoy other people to the extent it annoys you.

So it has something to do with you specifically,

whereas somebody else's pet peeve might not bother you at all.

Okay.

So what are

like, what are pet peeves that are super general to all of us?

Before we get into the specific

specifics of ours.

So common ones are, you know, cracking knuckles, scraping a plate with a fork and knife, like that sound.

Okay.

The sound of styrofoam against styrofoam.

Ooh, yeah.

I don't like that one.

People who talk about themselves in the third person.

Oh, Glennon hates that.

Yeah.

Overuse of literally, like, it's literally raining cats and dogs.

It is not.

It's not, in fact, literally raining cats and dogs.

Everyone in this house literally does that every four seconds.

When did literally start?

Was it the Kardashians?

Like, who did literally to us?

I don't know.

Literally, actually.

I'm literally falling apart right now.

Like, I'm literally, my insides are literally on fire.

It's okay.

Yeah.

It's your like, it actually means directly the opposite of that, what you're trying to say.

So slow walkers, losing socks in the dryer, you know, talking to people while you still have your AirPods in, people do not like this.

People not standing to the right side of the escalator, the sound of slurping, you know, things like this.

These are, and then there's this whole other category of things that.

people call their pet peeves, but I think we're just giving humanity like a little too low of a bar to call these pet pet peeves.

Like, I think we should, Lovey would say, just do better, world.

Things like saying no offense right before you say something offensive.

No, just do better.

Or after, right?

Or after, or after, right.

Standing too close to people, being a close talker, clipping your nails in public, interrupting, being like

people who don't pick up after their dog,

receiving a non-apology.

Hold on, I got to go back to the clipping your nails in public.

That's a thing.

It's a thing that people say is a pet peeve of theirs.

Any self-grooming in public.

People are not.

Clipping their nails in public.

Okay.

So I do think that there's this is a distinct difference because saying that's my pet peeve, the people give a non-apology, is taking responsibility for something that is actually everyone else's responsibility.

Like that's not a pet peeve.

That's just like

wisdom.

Right.

It's just like we're trying to have a civilization here, people.

Stop doing these things.

Yeah.

Like we understand it wasn't written down.

Like you didn't get a contract that said we, the people, in order to form a less disgusting union,

will not clip our freaking nails in public.

But we just thought it was understood.

Right.

So like dude on the train.

Sorry, it's just my pet peeve that people don't clip their toenails next to me.

Like, no.

Do better.

Right.

So that's why we're not talking really about those today because we just insist upon a higher standard of the union.

But it's the little things that say something more about you

that

bothers you and other people's behavior.

Okay.

So,

okay.

I can talk about some of my, my biggest personal pet peeve category.

Do you want me to start?

Yeah, I can't wait.

Well, I think you would know what it is.

I know everything.

I know everything.

And I know all of these things are relating specifically to me also.

No, no, that's not true.

All of these things annoyed me long before you.

Okay, that's good.

Okay.

You just kind of embodied them all in me.

No, baby, I'm joking.

Okay.

So, what I have thought about for the last bit in

trying to figure out what my pet peeves are is that they have a category.

Most of my pet peeves have to do with sound.

Oh, yeah.

It's like

loudness, like people who for no reason

just speak in a voice that is so loud in general.

First of all, it's just, I don't understand.

Like, no one's told them that everyone's close and can hear.

Okay.

So, general loudness.

What if they're just trying to get their point across?

Public

spaces where people have no auditorial yield.

Like, I just feel like when we are in public spaces, again, we have gotten this

memo

about forming a more perfect union where we are going to kind of understand that we're not going to use voices that encroach upon other people's space.

But you're saying public.

You're in public.

No.

This is a public space.

Okay, well, you know, you're not allowed to scream fire in public.

You're not allowed to like, okay, you're not allowed to just walk up to me and smack me.

But when you stand next to me with your damn FaceTime or your effing speakerphone and you have a conversation about your business, like your business is the most important thing on earth, and you are almost always

a man and you are speaking so freaking loudly next to me.

It is as if you have auditorially slapped me.

Okay.

It's

noise pollution.

The guy that you were having a FaceTime call in public and he was having a FaceTime call in public and he was yelling.

He was properly yelling on the phone.

Well, no, I was hiding in a corner in a hotel.

And you asked him, you said, could you please, you know, could you please be a little more quiet?

We're doing the same thing.

And he just goes, I was here first.

Yeah, and he wasn't.

And then he stayed.

He got louder and louder and louder to prove a point to me.

He just kept doing all of his calls.

I was here first.

Yeah.

So anyway.

I mean, it is like noise pollution.

It's like, say, someone came and was, and like had a bunch of their stuff, and then they just, they just like threw it, threw it at you.

It's like, it's like,

you're not allowed to throw your trash at someone's person, but you can throw your noise all over other people's experiences.

It's weird.

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How about the people that purposefully

spend extra money to make their cars louder?

That's something I can't understand.

So that I have a freaking heart attack.

Every time their car drives by, I, it is as if I have to recover.

And it's like, did you, did you not get enough attention as a child?

Like, what?

Why?

With the loud cars.

What about the noise?

Upsets you.

Okay.

Why is it upsetting?

Well, because I.

No judgment.

Like, why is it upsetting?

Well, I mean, I think that there are some people who are probably more highly sensitive to noise, right?

I'm clearly.

always been a highly sensitive person.

So noise makes me, I mean, you know, when you sneeze or when the doorbell rings,

it is as if I have been attacked by enemy fire.

Like, my body doesn't know how to,

I can break out in a cold sweat.

You know that.

I know.

It's terrifying to me.

I've gotten the look like I've actually hurt you after I've just done something my body naturally does.

She looks at me with death eyes and I'm like, I'm sorry.

I, I, and also it's a sneeze.

I can't warn you.

It just happens.

Like, there's no warning.

Hey, babe, I'm about to sneeze.

You know,

do you know?

I'm a third person.

It's an attention.

Another reason why I think your

kind of like FaceTime and speaker

phone conversations in public,

why it's universally annoying to a lot of people, they did studies of this where

it's the fact that your brain's job is to have closure on things.

Your brain can't like shut off that conversation.

They call it a half-alog.

Your brain is hearing half of the conversation.

And first of all, you're annoyed that it is intruded on your space, but now your brain is doing the work of figuring out like, whoa, is he being rude to that person?

Or what are they negotiating?

Or what is happening over there?

And your brain is trying to figure it out.

And, but you're not getting all the information.

And so it frustrates your brain.

And that leads to

another level of annoyance.

That makes sense to me because I'm such an internal person.

So I'm always thinking things through.

I'm not, I'm not really in the outside world anyway.

I'm internal.

So when you come in and with all your noise, it's like you've entered my brain.

You've interrupted.

Yeah, you've interrupted me.

It's basically, even though I'm by myself and not speaking to anyone, you have completely interrupted me.

Right.

So it's like Ed

in my brain.

Like now you're giving my brain a job to do that my brain didn't have before.

Now I have to figure out, you know, I don't know.

Are they going to get through this?

Is this a breakup?

It's, it's going to happen right now.

And I have to, now I'm, my brain is involved in what you're doing.

Yes, my brain is involved in your business call.

And I do just feel like there's something that insults my soul also about it.

Like you really don't see anyone else around you.

Right.

Like the fact that you, like on a plane,

and then the dude is having a,

he's using his outside voice.

to have a business call.

And he actually believes this is the most important thing, not to him, but to everyone else in this cabin.

There's just something that really.

Well, it's like vocal man spreading.

It's like you're taking vocal man spreading.

And then it turns into a hostage situation.

And we're all in a hostage situation.

And you know what else bothers me is that we all have agreed that we will just all be uncomfortable and annoyed, but we won't

interrupt the guy who's interrupting all of us.

We won't say to him, dude, are you effing kidding me?

We just all have to suffer silently.

So

my category of pet peeve

is sound boundaries, which I'm going to now call soundries.

For however long we have been knowing each other and together and married,

this is this is the thing, right?

This is your thing.

And so, I wonder, and I actually, this is an honest question.

This is not like trying to be snarky in any way.

Right.

Is there any part of this that is your responsibility to train your brain to not be interrupted?

I don't know if I can not be interrupted, but I fully believe that my obsession with quiet is a slice of insanity on this earth that I am living on with other people and machines.

Yes, I hear you.

I do understand that.

But because it's so problematic for you in your life, in almost every public arena and even in your private life living with me,

is there then a cause to like, let's try and work on

maybe not having this thing affect you in such a negative way?

Is there a way that we can work on loud noises not being so interruptive to you in your brain?

I wonder.

I would love that.

I'm not against progress.

Okay.

And I also would love to have peace and I would love to not be so upset by noise.

What do you think, babe?

What's your pet peeve?

Is it having to hold and sneezes?

Yeah, having to hold and sneezes.

That's not just a, that's not a pet peeve.

That's just painful.

Okay, so I've got a couple.

Number one, like slow walkers, like anybody doing

walking slow.

I don't get it.

I have to text her in airports sometimes because she's so far ahead of me that I can't

hear me.

So I have to text her and say, I'm back here.

I've stopped for a coffee.

Yeah.

Or just like, in general, anybody kind of doing things at a snail's pace.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

I know.

But the bigger one, I think, for me isn't necessarily like sound barriers or boundaries.

It's just overall, like my stuff.

Ah, yes.

You know, being the youngest of seven kids,

I don't like it when people like, for instance, Amma just came into my room this morning and she's like, can I borrow your tweezers?

And I was like, you You know what?

Just have them

because it's so sad to have hope that she's going to return them.

I've got two here and I don't want to be upset

because I know that those tweezers are going to come back and there's going to be like a little ding in one of them.

If they even come back, if they come, they never come back.

What am I kidding?

Like, I got to go search for them.

So, it's just like, you just take it

borrowing my clothes because I know that nobody will take care of those clothes quite like me.

And when it comes back, see, I'm just doing it to protect people

because I know that nobody, like if somebody gives me something of mine back and it is dirty or less than, I'm pissed at that person.

Right.

So you're protecting your relationship.

That's actually very good boundary engagement.

I'm like annoyed.

I'm like,

get this.

You know, I do that with people and information.

There's so many people who say things to their, to their friend that they know can't keep a secret.

And then they say, please don't share this with anyone.

And then, of course, because everybody knows that that friend can't keep a secret, they then do disclose it.

And then you're mad at them.

But I'm like,

you,

you should be mad at you.

Yes.

You gave that friend information that they could not handle.

That's on you.

It was your self-control problem.

You knew what you were getting into.

So you're protecting because our family doesn't have any boundaries with things.

Nobody.

I have not taught that.

Zero.

No, we just walk into each other's shit and just grab things.

And like for all the step parents out there, or the bonus parents, like we call it, like, that's a thing.

Like, that was hard for me to

get used to at first.

When the kids started to actually like me, there was like a lack of boundaries with body, like the way that they crawl on you

and the way that they use your shit

without ever asking.

And then the way that like...

Parasites.

Yeah, I just couldn't understand it.

I was like, no, this is adult stuff.

Like, this is an adult shirt.

You're not allowed to wear an adult shirt.

Our children walk into our room.

They get in our bed.

They get out of our bed.

They go into our closet.

They go through our cry.

I've never, ever taught.

stuff boundaries.

I mean, the middle of the night bed sleeping.

I didn't get this.

I mean, I came in.

Amma was eight, so I get it more with her, but Tish was 10.

Jays was 13.

And like, there were times where, like, all three of them were in our bedroom sleeping, somewhere on the floor, somewhere in the bed.

And I'm just like, I guess this is what life is.

No?

Like, not only are the boundaries of my personal shit gone, like

the boundaries of space and stuff.

And like, you know.

I don't know.

And Abby has cool clothes.

So, and they fit our kids.

So everybody at our, I will look around the dinner table at night, and every single person at the table, including Craig,

will have Abby's shit on.

Yeah,

that's something.

So, do you think that that was a gradual?

Because when you put it like that, that sounds crazy.

But then, I feel like

I feel like for people who maybe were with the baby since they were born, it's just a gradual breaking down of any kind of dignity or personal integrity or any idea that stuff is sacred or anything belongs to you.

I had dignity.

I came in with dignity.

Do you feel like you still love it?

Like, or have you gone dead inside about it?

No, it's gone.

Okay.

It's gone.

That's good.

I mean, literally,

Tish wore a sweatshirt.

She came.

I mean, luckily, now they know it pisses me off so much that they at least ask before they take like something that they know that I like or I just got.

Like her favorite thing.

Like my new favorite sweatshirt I just got.

She's like, can I wear this?

And I'm like, fine.

She's like, thank you.

It is one of your things.

And it makes perfect sense as the youngest of seven and not going through the

slippery slope of loss of dignity with coming in late to parenting.

Yeah.

And

you want the things put back

where they belong.

And also,

there's a little nugget here.

I'm going to digress.

The little thing that's just like me personal, I think.

Are you going to talk about the sink?

Glenn was really leaning into the borrowing because it didn't affect her.

Okay, so the sink that we have, the sink that we've always had, the sink that all people have.

The sink that all people have has a hole.

Some sinks have a disposal thing that, you know, you get to wash the food down and then you press a button or you flip a switch and the disposal, you know, it gets all of the food.

Are you saying disposal?

Disposal.

Disposal.

It's like

it's a garbage, you know, that

wait.

Disposal.

A disposal.

I think it, I think I call it a disposal.

It disposes all.

No.

All food.

And

my family seems to think that the disposal is just for when food goes down the drain,

not to rinse food that is in on the bottom of the sink.

Dishes need to get done by the folks in our family the way we do it.

The dish folks are the ones who have not done anything to cook the food.

Right.

So I don't cook dishes.

I go sit down and I get to play on my phone for 10 lovely minutes by myself after dinner.

And almost every single time I walk back into the kitchen to get my tea and I look down at the bottom of the sink and there is

all of what was left on everyone's plate that night at dinner on the bottom of the sink.

It has been disposed none.

I repeat not, I repeat.

It's a disposed nun.

It's a disposed none sink.

And

it's so upsetting.

The kind of rage.

I'm like, the job is not finished.

You have given entire speeches.

First of all,

when you finish your job of, let's say, you rinse the stuff off in the sink and then you put your dish in the dishwasher.

Who doesn't look in the sink?

Like, what kind of a person do you have to be to not look at the sink

to see that?

Because guess what happens?

That food dries on the bottom of that sink.

Right.

Okay.

So this is your, this is your pet peeve is the bottom of the sink.

So upsetting to me.

Right.

I just want to explain one thing to you that I

feel in the house that I have sort of a theory of work.

Okay.

And I call that in my heart and mind, I call it the 9010.

Okay.

I start big projects.

I do really a lot of things.

You know, but I don't, I start them.

I organize.

I putter.

I do all the things, but I really get tired at the end.

Okay.

So what I feel like is if I'm starting a project in the house, that I can take it to 90%.

I can take it to 90%, but then I'm going to leave the extra 10.

So like if there's going to be

boxes in the hallway that need to go out to the thing, to the garage, or there's going to be trash bags that need to go out to the trash, or there's going to be some food at the bottom of the sink.

But what I want is for my partner to come look at that 10% and say,

well,

she did 90%.

I actually don't mind when you start a big project and all, like, you're, you're, because that makes you happy.

And also, not having to finish something is that feels like an actual gift, an act of service that I can do for you.

Okay, like, that's something that I love because I'm a starter and you're a finisher.

Yes.

However,

this theory, if applied to your soundries,

it would be like 10 of the time i just

like

knowingly ignore the thing that pisses you off the most and i don't knowingly do that

i also feel like the 90 rule that the i'm a non-finisher rule should only apply to tasks that take longer than 30 minutes.

Okay.

Okay.

I don't feel like that.

A huge closet organization.

Great.

Non-finisher rule.

I'm going to leave all this crap around here because I've done my contribution.

But the non-finisher rule cannot apply to the 10-minute cleanup after dinner.

I just feel like actually

here's what we're actually talking about, sister.

It is not a 10-minute situation.

This is a five-second

deal.

This is grabbing the sprayer,

turning the faucet on, spraying water for five seconds, turning it off, and their job is done.

Okay, so finishing, not putting in effort is really pisses you off because you also, I would say another of your pet peeves

is when we're watching the sports.

Oh, don't get me started on people who jog places.

Right.

You don't ever take a fucking play or moment off.

Like ever.

To me, that's like character.

When someone is not showing their best hustle,

she stands up off the couch, gets very close to the television and makes us watch the person over over and over and over again.

She rewinds, watch, rewinds.

That guy, that guy.

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Sissy, what do you think?

What is your category?

If Abby's no hustle,

her pet peeve is no hustle.

My pet peeve is no yield.

If you're not yielding auditorially, if you're not yielding on the street, if you're not yielding in spirit,

you insult my soul.

It's almost like we're opposites.

Almost.

Like you're opposites.

I have some common ones, like,

even thinking right now about chalk makes me want to, like, I, it hurts my teeth.

Why does it hurt our teeth?

I don't know.

I don't know.

It's very upsetting.

I don't know.

I can't, I can't hold chalk.

I was never able to do sidewatch chalk with my kids.

I'm like, I.

No, thank you very much.

Of course, like loud chewing, all the things.

Then I have ones that I don't know if they're ones that bother people, but you know, like people who stand too close to the baggage claim when it's coming around.

I don't understand that.

Why do we need to crowd the baggage claim?

We could all just stand around.

We could all see the bags.

We could all go forward when our bags come and take them away, but instead we're all like jostling for front row seats on the baggage claim.

I don't understand that.

Say we're doing dinner and then the dinner's all ready.

And then

we have some delay because, of course, we have 1400 delays every time.

Someone's going to wash their hands.

That takes 15 minutes.

And then,

and then now it's time to eat.

And the like beautiful prepared meal is now cold.

And my darling husband will just take it and eat it.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, that's, that's cold now.

And he's like, it's fine.

And that insults my soul because I'm like, this is supposed to be a warm meal.

We just made a warm meal.

We have, we have hot machines right there in our house.

We can just put it in the hot machine and then eat it as God intended it.

And he's like, yeah, it's fine.

And I don't, I don't understand.

I don't understand.

He's trying to be polite.

And also he's like from a big family.

Like we, we ate lukewarm food forever.

But also,

sorry.

No, no hustle, no yield.

You're no fine.

You don't like fine.

Don't give, don't give sister fine.

That is what I'm saying.

Don't give sister fine.

Fine.

People saying fine about anything.

How is it?

It's fine.

You might as well say

you

are

just average and fairly

fine makes you like throw up in my mouth.

This is the word.

Yes.

Any version of

acceptance of mediocrity, of not caring.

Oh, no, no.

Of fineness is your, in any form, form,

is your pet peeve, is one of your biggest categories, your categories.

I also have another totally random one that I don't know.

It's weird, but the

phrase, I didn't have time.

I didn't have time to do that.

I didn't have time

to get to that.

This one

has always,

always bothered me.

And I don't,

I just feel like it's not intellectually honest because

there's no having of the time.

There's just spending of the time.

And

we choose what we spend our time on.

And I want to say very clearly that like, I, this is the opposite of that whole meme, like,

Beyonce has the same 24 hours in a day as you have.

Like, no, no, she doesn't.

Like, that's completely ableist and classist and shaming and ridiculous.

Like, I realize that I have the resources of, you know, a professional woman who cleans my house, a professional therapist who cleans my brain, a very involved partner, a mom down the street who is there for any emergencies.

Like, I don't have the same amount of time as somebody else.

I have more of it.

And maybe passivity is kind of my kryptonite too.

It's like mediocrity and passivity.

I feel like not just saying I don't have time is basically suggesting that time will either arrive and giveth unto you or it will not.

But that's not how time works.

So for me, I don't say it because it allows me to actually realign my values.

Like it's either

I haven't made time.

Or I haven't prioritized that yet, or I'm going to invest the time next week in that, or

that's not a priority for me.

It gives me the agency of it to not suggest that, like, oh, there's just a dearth of time and I am expected to do all of this and I can't.

It's like, no, you can do whatever

within your

resources as they are for any given person.

do with your time what you place the highest and best value on.

Yeah.

That's not to say that you you should maximize every bit of time.

That's the opposite of what I'm saying.

I perfectly respect people who are saying,

I invested a lot of time this week in my family.

I'm prioritizing my kids' practices.

I'm going to make time for that next week.

I respect that more because you're saying, you're claiming what your time is.

I just want to clarify that I'm not saying optimize and make your time most efficient.

It's like actually be honest about what you're doing.

And in fact, nobody has time for everything.

So

but you, but you are making time and you're investing time's time in other shit.

Yep.

I get that.

What else?

Do you have any other ones to see?

I mean, I really don't like a passive aggressive CC on an email.

Do you ever notice that?

Where people think they're

like telling on you or something by CCing someone on the email and you're like,

nope, nope, nope.

We're not doing that here.

Yeah, passive-aggressive CC.

Yes, I have experienced those, and I'm sure I have done those.

Yes, yes, yes.

Oh, done those.

Okay, let's talk about the things that we do that are annoying to other people.

I know I have a shit ton of things that are so annoying.

I wonder if I have a lot of them.

Um,

I

um ask questions incessantly during uh TV shows shows and movies.

Oh my God.

That's a freaking, that's illegal.

Actually, I do know that about you.

We don't, you know, we barely ever watch TV with you because you are, you know, trying not to be mediocre.

And so I pretend when you're with me that I don't watch TV all day, which is what I actually do.

You know, I'm obsessed with reality TV and

I've tried to watch it with you and it is, it's so awful.

You can't understand.

You can't understand what they're doing.

You can't accept the housewives for who they are to ask me questions as if any of it's logical.

Why is she doing that?

Why is she screaming?

Why?

Why is she behaving?

Who is so-and-so?

Why does she dress that way?

What do you mean, why?

We don't ask why.

The real housewives are not to ask why, too.

And also, you're not 10.

Right.

Just keep thinking.

Just be quiet and keep thinking and just keep reading.

You know, like when you read and you just keep reading and you get context.

Yeah.

It makes John want to stab

his eyes out.

Of course.

He's just, he looks at me like,

I can't believe, I can't believe I love you.

You're horrible.

You're horrible.

I can't, I don't know why.

I can't stop.

I'm like, do you think she's really going to, they're not going to let her die in this movie, are they?

I can't.

All the time, can't stop asking.

I also do this very annoying thing where I say in a very passive aggressive way, like,

we should do X, you know, like we need to take out the recycling.

We need to, but I 100% for sure mean

I would like you to.

Yeah, but or even more, you mean, why the hell haven't you yet?

That's what you mean.

But I think if I say, we,

oh, God, it's so bad.

I, um, yeah, I do that.

And then,

oh, I

um

I'm late and I

view my lateness why um because I um chronically

um

I start going places later than I should

now that is intellectually honest.

Thank you, but I always in my head am like oh that was situational.

Oh my god, can you believe?

Except that every single time it takes me 20 longer than i give myself but then i act like that 20 is a complete surprise

every time

that's interesting i would say that

yeah what are you i think it's interesting that you have lateness as one of your annoying things and lateness to me is a pet peeve Oh, no, it's not a pet.

It's like a phobia of yours.

It's like a deeply rooted, scary thing for you.

Yeah, it's very upsetting to me.

And I think it's because of my addiction years, because I was so didn't show up for so much and I disappointed so many people that I'm being late now.

It really triggers something in me.

Well, either way, it's the right way to live.

Well, except that it's also, I have learned from a lot of people that like being supremely annoyed about other people's lateness is actually has a lot of ableism in it.

There's a lot of issues related to neurodiversity that lead to lateness.

um and also that there's a lot of like capitalistic patriarchal whiteness and like everyone has to be aunt it's very like that's right central american and you know all of that i actually asked we we pulled our family last night about what is the most annoying things that we do yeah we asked our kids

and i think

It's interesting that what you said to me about the most annoying thing about me is how

easily annoyed I get.

That like actually having

so many

things that disturb me

is the most disturbing thing about me.

Because

that's awesome.

Yeah.

Because it's, it's like, first of all, just annoying, but there's like a serious thing about it, which I think that probably anybody who lives with somebody with anxiety or deals with the ripple effects of that, which is that it affects the whole family's experience all the time because everyone's feeling like in public places, they have to like protect this person, or they are now hypersensitive of everyone's volume and everyone's

because this person has rippled their anxiety into the rest of the family.

So I think being so easily annoyed is something that is annoying.

Yeah.

And by the way, I just want to like make sure the pod squatters know that

Glenn and I talk

at law at length about this.

And this is something she also understands and accepts as part of who she is.

Totally.

I'm not trying to like point and get her and point something out.

Although we should do an episode like that.

I love

surprise attack.

Glennon's sensitivity is one of the things that I love about her the most.

And it's also, it makes it the hardest in moments to like live with her.

And I would bet our family feels that way, but I'm not attacking you.

I think that this is who you are.

And I have to come to accept this about you.

But sometimes it's just like when a sports game is on and I scream

because there was a play, there was this moment that was amazing.

And I'm like, oh my gosh.

And I'm on the floor in the kitchen.

Like, how are we being attacked?

Are there, are the kids okay?

And then you realize, like, this is sports.

This is thing.

So we have this, like, there's a moment in time where, where we fight this, like,

invisible battle, I suppose, that is like, I'm doing the right thing, and also you're doing the right thing.

And it's just a good thing.

It's marriage.

It's like, oh, here we are again, where you're being you, and I'm being me, and there's nothing we can do about it ever.

And there's like, no, there's no point of saying sorry.

Yeah.

Cause nobody's freaking changing.

Right.

Like, if we love each other madly, if we could have, we would have for each other no

abby's gonna keep being loud and and

surprising

i am gonna keep being ridiculously sensitive about that loudness and surprises and we're just gonna keep staring at each other forever just being like here we are again you being you me being me and i think accepting that moment right like that that invisible irkness that invisible moment where we're both like i can't believe like accepting like oh that is is who you are.

What's your annoying thing?

Well, I'm pretty perfect.

Can we talk about sneezing?

Yes,

the sneezing, the loudness, the sneezing, and the coughing that I don't,

first of all, I don't muzzle or mute myself.

You're unyielding.

quite like the way that you would want.

And I sometimes forget to cover my mouth.

I just want to say that.

This is a very common one, but I do not.

I suggest it goes on the do better list, not on the petty list.

Yeah, this is right.

This is right.

I am a former preschool and third grade teacher, and I know that everyone gets taught that we the people, in order to form a less virusy union,

freaking put our arms over our mouths when we sneeze as an act of service but babe now you too could be a patriot abby

exactly the masks now i'm just like i'm good i'm just like i just cover the sides make sure doesn't come out to be fair but have you always done that or did you before our marriage feel like it was okay just to sneeze out loud in a room i felt like it was fine yeah and it's i know it's not i know in my mind it's not but i also the sneeze comes at me quick and powerfully i just want to say at the end of this pet cube conversation.

Yeah, how are you feeling?

You pissed at me?

No, I just love you so much.

I love you too.

Thanks.

And I know you're going to be Abby and I'm going to be Glenn and sister's going to be sister.

And this is the way that we continue moving forward in our marriage is just like the,

you know, because the beginning parts of relationships, it's just like, oh my gosh, everything is so new and you're amazing.

And then it turns into deeper loving and all the things.

And then it's just like, basically, we just got to accept each other.

Well, and don't you think that the thing that attracts you to each other is like, I'm sure that one of the things that attracted me to you was your like

living largeness, was your taking up space, was your boldness.

And that's what drew me to you.

Okay.

So

what is our next right thing?

I don't know.

Tell us your pet peeves.

Yeah.

I want to hear from the pod squad what your pet peeves.

are.

And I think the next right thing isn't just that.

I think it also needs to be about

what are we doing?

Because we know we, having said these pet peeves out loud, I think that now it's like, oh, is there a way I can kind of

lessen the ones that are, that are annoying other people around me and also work on the ones that annoy me?

Because I'm the one that's suffering over here.

So it's like, is going dead inside about people borrowing my shit?

what I need to do so as to not suffer myself.

Right.

So going dead inside as a strategy, full circle, how can we go dead inside about these pet peeves and which ones are in the do better list?

Because,

you know, one of the best things that ever happened to me is when one of my friends gave me a stack of business cards that say nothing but stop talking.

And you can go around the airport

and to the man who's doing the very loud business call.

You can just hand him a card that says stop talking.

I've never actually done it.

Yeah, I'm like, but they're in my purse.

Right.

And they feel good being there.

That would be so fucking amazing.

In case of emergency, we forgot to mention man spreading on a plane.

Oh, Jesus.

I want you to know, pod squad, that as an act of service for all of us,

if someone is man spreading next to me on a plane, I,

and perhaps this is a good metaphor for the way that I react to pet peeves, I will put both of my arms on, I will, I will spend six hours on a flight spreading out as much as humanly possible so that i am in pain just to prove my point that that dude does not get any of my space oh my god okay it's upsetting for sure

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Okay, let's hear from the opposite of our pet peeves, our pet loves, our pod squatter of the week, Emily.

Hi, Glenn and Abby and sister.

My name is Emily.

When you were talking about teachers being superheroes, like that, you know, whole discussion hit me like a brick because I am a high school teacher.

And, you know, one of the things, and I don't know, you know, if this is applicable for other people and like whatever but I always think like make it tangible so like when everyone's like teachers should be paid a billion dollars I'm like no one's gonna pay teachers a billion dollars but if everyone said teachers should be paid eighty thousand dollars

then actual change would happen So like that's my big pet peeve and like feeling of like a way we could make change is by changing the way we talk about things like that and making real

actual changes that we think people should earn, you know, things along those lines.

What have they earned and being specific and not hyperbolic?

Because that's the only way that we can get change.

That's exactly right, Emily.

That's exactly right.

And we've talked about that before in terms of whenever we throw those things at people, oh, she's a superhero.

They're superheroes.

That's just a way of pandering that is more virtue signaling of the person who's saying it

than anything that's beneficial to the person you're saying it about.

And in fact, detrimental because we're saying they're superheroes, they can and should, in fact, continue doing unreasonable levels of work, which they can do because they're superheroes.

Normal people should not be expected to do that, but they should.

That's right.

Yes.

Yeah.

So like instead of a little graphic that says teachers are superheroes and they should be paid a billion dollars, like make a political call that actually

states what teachers need, which is more money, more benefits, better

paternity leave, all of those things that people who are actually humans and not superheroes need.

Also, on the pet thief note, can I just throw out another one?

Because as we're talking, it really churns me with the teacher thing.

Can we just make a minor suggestion that as you're considering teacher appreciation gifts and thank yous to teachers holiday gifts and stuff maybe

less of like the mug with your kids face on it or the ornament with your kids face on it maybe more

cash money maybe more gift cards like because i'm pretty sure they're seeing a lot of your kids face

lots of hours of the day, but what they're not really seeing is those dollar bills.

Just

amen.

That's right.

And as a former teacher, I will tell you that there was one year

when I wanted those things.

That was the first year that I taught.

And I was so in love with those kids that I did want,

you know, your little lollipop doll that you made with your kid's face on it.

But just, I think it is, it is a good rule in general to remember as a parent that no one loves your child like you do.

No one in the whole world.

No one, not even their teacher.

And

if you're considering a gift with your kid's face on it, really for anyone else,

cash instead.

And with that,

We Can Do Hard Things.

We'll see you next week.

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