Peevish people are one of my pet peeves, so I will try not to sound like one. People who throw litter out of cars and people who blare music from their cars get on my nerves. Keep it down! I don't care how great your speakers and woofers and sonic gizmos are. Listening to a machine telling me how important my call is when I am growing old on hold makes me mad. Don't tell me you'd like to get together sometime if you don't mean it. And last but not least, I hate padded headboards!

People who walk close behind me.

Now, I understand that is "Pet Peeve" of mine is quite...odd...to say the least.

And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things I despise: open-mouthed chewing, clicking pens and the smell of bananas just to name a few.

But people, more specifically strangers, walking behind me is what really gets my blood boiling.

I'm always quite tense when someone is right behind me. I can feel the hairs on my neck stand up and suddenly I'm hyper-aware of every movement the other person is making until I'm so distracted by their presence, I crash into a wall or lose my balance on the stairs, both of which have happened just in this past week.

I've been hit in the back of my head more times than I can count. It's usually just with harmless items, like a ball gone astray or a friend's joking hand, but despite that, it still manages to put me on edge.

But I guess that's nothing in comparison to my pure, adultered rage when I'm walking behind someone slow.

My greatest Pet Peeve? People who use, ‘well I was raised that way’ as an excuse to justify their bad behavior or dismiss it when people call them out for saying/making racist, sexist, homophobic remarks and/or gestures.

Saying you do it because you were raised in an environment where it was common, at the time, or not frowned upon, as it is today, is no excuse.

None.

I was born and raised and live in the deep south, but you start using racial slurs, make sexist comments or insult anyone with THE GLBTQ Community and I will call you out on it and if you don’t like it, get out of my home and my life.

Regardless of how or where you were raised and what you were exposed to as a child, we all reach an age when right and wrong is obvious and you have to accept the fact that some (maybe all) of what you were surrounded by and taught as a child was wrong.

How you were raised isn’t an excuse for being a hatful bigot; you may have been exposed to that behavior, but you have the power to change yourself and you have the power to teach your children and grandchildren and others around you, that there is a better way.

#PetPeeves #Enough #NoMoreExcuse