TTAM = Things That Annoy Me

I get little messages all the time with just initials. You know, LMHO, ROTFL, TMI, etc etc. Now why in the name of heaven would a perfectly sane, intelligent, upright mostly, human, think I have time or any interest at all, in trying to figure out what those letters are meant to covey? Do they make the writer feel really good, like I imagine so-called uppers would? Oh hey, MAIAD so I’ll use some of those letters and my spirits will soar like the Goodyear Blimp. Now that I think about it, the blimp didn’t really soar. It just got to one spot, like over Sanford Stadium, and kind of squatted, a high squat, mind you, but definitely a prolonged squat. Guess the driver wanted to watch the games.


Reading is mostly what I do for pleasure, these days. Every now and then, I try a new author and it doesn’t take long to discover their prejudices. One that often creeps in, is “m’am” as in, “yes m’am, I ate the last piece of possum.” Now, the speaker says something like, Well, I am not THAT old! Oh, lawsy, one should be over eighty to be called, M’AM? Guess that’s the way it is up north or maybe in California. Down here in the real world, we call any female m’am, even tiny ones. I can remember telling my toddler,”Yes m’am, you will wear shoes to church.” [She still hates shoes]

When we first moved to Tennessee, my eleven or twelve year old son was told he would get a spanking if he continued to call his obviously very yankee teacher, m’am. She was possibly in her midthirties. DYC [email me if you want to know what that stands for!]

This morning, I was reading about a character who actually disliked another woman because she called the character, hon, as in “Hon, may I set the table for lunch?” Ooooo , guess that’s a real bad’un! Well, land sakes alive, I call everyone hon, or honey, or honey baby, or honey bugs. When I can’t think of someone’s name, I just call them something sweet. Sometimes, I look right at my beautiful granddaughter and call her Coco [our dog.] Then Mike fails to help the situation by saying,” No, Granny, the blonde is Alesia.”

My very bright mother in law used to look at any one of her daughters in law, and say “DiddyEvalynElva!” She knew she’d get one of us right, that way….. Guess my book character would have peed her trousers at that. We thought it was funny.

Other annoyances…

Sometimes when we invite a friend for a meal, they say something like, “I’ll try to come or if I get off in time I’ll come” etc. Wow, this doesn’t work for me. I always want to say, just forget it. Just say yes or no and make sure you are on time. However, these are usually people we are close to, good manners should prevail. One should be as courteous to family as to others. MYMH

DSP or pew on yew ! We joined a Methodist church, near our home, about three years ago. For me, it was a very strange experience. I’ve been to church all my life and have sung in most of the old downtown Atlanta churches, all denominations. But at this new church, I just could not connect. We did all the right things; went to Sunday School, Wednesday night dinners; Dee joined the choir; the children went to youth activities; Dee taught Bible school, I went to the Seniors’ luncheon etc. The next step of actually making friends just never happened. I was new to this area also.

For me, the kind of last straw came one Sunday when Alesia and I sat down in a pew and got all fixed with the program, hymnal, and our wraps. I turned and kind of nodded to some beautifully dressed, middle-aged women sitting behind us. With a strong feeling that something was amiss, I turned back to them and asked, how are you? One of them said, well the truth is that you’ve taken Mrs. Smith’s pew. I was stunned but then, we gathered our gear and moved to the very opposite side of the church. I wanted to cry but wouldn’t let myself. We couldn’t just walk out because Dee was singing in the choir. There were other difficult experiences too but this one kind of says it all. Don’t Save Pews, ever, except for your immediate family. We are no longer members of that church, although that wasn’t the only reason we left.

This morning, I was talking to Mike about this blog and he reminded me about LOL. Ya know, I do kind of like those letters - better than ROTFLMAO at least. To my way of thinking, one can have a nice chuckle over something without laughing as hard as those other letters indicate.

I have a darling friend, a teacher, who began sending messages to me some time back. These messages were kind of short usually but terribly misspelled. I was so worried about her. Could she have had a small stroke, TIA? I really hated to sound so prissy but I finally made a small comment about hearing from this person and Dee said yes, she text messages. I was so thankful she was OK but still have questions. Would it be impolite to return her message via email? Should I try to misspell words so she won’t feel bad? I am a poor speller anyway so that would not cause any problem for me.

Everyone has some kind of hang up or prejudice though not all will admit it. Recently, we’ve seen the tragedy of people fearing to be politically incorrect. People in Texas lost lives because no one would speak out against the person planning to kill them. What has happened to plain, old fashioned, gumption? If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck etc… People sometimes do terrible things because they are evil, not because they are crazy.

At first, people hesitated to say anything negative about our president because they didn’t want to be called racist. But, hey, people have always criticized the president, and that is a good thing. It still doesn’t keep them honest but in some cases it may keep them from thinking they are a god. My mother in law could not stand President Eisenhower and she did not hesitate to say so. Would she have been so vocal if he’d been black? Yeah, probably! However, there are those who’d have called her racist.

I really do try not “to sweat the small stuff” so does that mean I can be allowed to sweat the big stuff? People say not to worry about what you can’t change but how do we know we can’t change it unless we try???!?