Shelter for Pet Peeves

Brian Casey, Founder/Owner/Caretaker

A bunch of varmints currently inhabit my shelter. I’ll list them by cell block/cage below. Care to contribute your pets? If they’re properly documented and approved, I’ll house yours in the appropriate cell block, too.

Language Block

Punctuation Cage

• the over-uses, under-uses, misuses, and other abuses of apostrophes (people whose last names end with “s,” in particular, need to learn how to form plurals, possessives, and plural possessives)
• the placing of periods and commas outside quotation marks
• confusion of hyphens and dashes
• using semicolons where colons belong (e.g., after a salutation in a business letter)
• using colons after verbs (i.e., “Please note:” without phrasing such as “Please note the following:”)

General Cage

• misspelled public signs
• the punctuatory vandalism of both the Microsoft corporation and the journalistic profession (e.g., the move from two spaces to one space after periods and colons, and the removal of the second of double consonants in words such as “travelled,” “worshipped,” and “benefitted”)

Traffic & Transportation Block

Laws Cage

• laws that require special seats for children (think of all the fuel waste and inconvenience that has been forced on young families simply because of requiring car safety seats … for Nader’s sake, as a kid, my two siblings and I traveled all the way from Delaware to Disneyworld in the back seat of a Dodge Omni, and today, it would take a Hummer, at least … that’s OK, when I struggle with the straps of my son’s car seat, and he gets uncomfortable, I tell him, “I know, I know … I’m sorry, son … it’s those darned legislators.”)
• laws against cell phone usage (the potential inconsistency is limitless: think of all the other things whose use would have to be limited! . . . makeup, combs and brushes, car stereos, to-go food from fast food restaurants, travel mugs and cup holders, billboards, forced-air blowers, cigarettes, children’s car seats, and children themselves, to name a few—people simply must be assumed to know their own limitations, and accidents shouldn’t be parlayed into sweeping legislation)
• left-turn red arrows on traffic signal lights (3 out of 4 are unnecessary, frustrating impediments to free-flowing traffic)

Misc. Species Cage

• vehicles that I can’t see around
• the purchasing of new vehicles
• at a stop sign, pulling up “flush” with another vehicle, thereby blocking the other driver’s view, while waiting to turn in the other direction
• gas stations that refuse to replace broken “catches” for automatic pump handles
• aiming car A/C blower vents up toward the ceiling, under the mistaken impression that this will somehow direct air to the back seat
• drivers who drive 1-3 MPH below the speed limit
• drivers who drive more than a few MPH above the speed limit

Church & Religion Block

• any notion or manifestation of a clergy/laity system
• Christianese (it’s a language, and, unfortunately, not a dead one)
• habits that obscure meaning, hinder worship, or put up barriers to relational development
• having two different assemblies (e.g., Sun. morning and Sun. night) on the same day
• skipping beats at ends of phrases and stanzas (and other symptoms of arrhythmia)
• using all contemporary music for the sake of being “contemporary”
• using all old music for the sake of being “traditional”
• overbearing masses of musical sound
• rote, dispassionate oral readings of scripture
• the King James Version except for maybe poetic readings from Proverbs and Psalms (but I love those old fools-for-Christ, the Gideons, who simply refuse to realize what a disservice they’re doing to the people that receive their copies of the Bible)
• careless, thoughtless approaches to worship and the Christian assembly
• formal liturgies
• invitation songs/altar and other calls for obligatory action
• the overuse of the greeting crutch “Good morning!” (By the time the greeter or “caller-to-worship,” the worship leader, the first prayer leader, the scripture reader, the sermonizer, and two communion prayer leaders have said “good morning” to the gathered saints before they perform (ahem . . .) their assigned duties, doesn’t it seem a little ridiculous to break the ice yet again when you’re making announcements after the sermon at 11:52 a.m. with another “good morning”?)
• visitor cards and obligatory “follow-up letters”
• the phrase “keep him/her in your prayers” (the keeping of someone “in our prayers” is sometimes offered as though “our prayers” is a holy vat of enchanted prayer elixir that somehow immerses the person who has the need, in mystical hope and healing)
• the general linking of any political party’s views with Christianity
• the idea that it’s OK to kill someone when functioning as an arm of the government
• the misplaced transference of the practice of tithing into the Christian age (where were the dependent Levites living, last you heard? see first item in this category—there shouldn’t even be a clergy, anyway)
• over-emphasis of any scripture or concept to the detriment of a balanced theology
• under-emphasis of any scripture or concept to the detriment of the Christian’s obedience
• national flags or other such emblems in houses of worship
• the inability to distinguish significant doctrine from mere tradition
• the concept that church affiliation is more significant than personal devotion to God
• the concept that church affiliation and involvement are unimportant
• the concept that church affiliation is inherited, not chosen

General Block

Groups Cage

• vegetarians
• eco-nazis who take paper towels out of public restrooms in favor of the less sanitary, more time-wasting conditions created by electric hand dryers (beware the apparent righteousness—read arrogance and naïvete—of global warming activists who presumably get some of it right but who exhibit ignorance of the larger epochal, ecological, and economic pictures, and who play on the fears of the public)
• Republicans
• Democrats
• any jump-on-the-bandwagon behavior (a/k/a mob mentality)

Corporate Cage

• the large-scale waste that occurs most damnably in large corporations (see annual corporate meetings, global flights to attend meetings, food for meetings, etc.)
• meetings (two-thirds of them, anyway)
• retail clerks who talk about their breaks and work schedules in front of customers
• large corporations (not sure which is funnier, but both Dilbert and The Office present way too much reality)
• obscenely inflated salaries and bonuses
• big business executives
• entertainers
• sports figures

Misc. Species Cage

• video games (get me away from the computer for recreation)
• low-flow toilets
• any ostensibly scientific studies presented as the authoritative, final answer (see statement on global warming above)people who waste, in general (not turning off lights when you’re not in the room, leaving vehicles running, etc.)
• reality TV shows that really aren’t (isn’t that most of them, with the exception of the equally annoying contest-type shows?)radio and TV talk shows
• white foods (cottage cheese, Cool Whip, sour cream, cream cheese, mayonnaise)parents who blame all of their parenting inadequacies and inconsistencies on their children’s sugar intake
• children who haven’t been trained to speak when spoken to
• parents who allow their children to rule the home (either by spoiled bratness and tantrums or by worrying so much about their development as little humans that all other activities take a back seat to the perceived needs of the child . . . my goodness, you weren’t treated like a kinglet or queenlet when you were a kid, and you turned out OK