Annoying habits. We all have and subject people to them. Without exception, we have to endure other peoples, which are always more annoying than ours (cough, cough)!
My personal pesky foibles include grinding my jaw to such an extent I wouldn’t look out of place in a gurning competition, tapping on the arms of the chair when watching TV and occasionally conversing in a preposterous whistling language.
In the latter, I intentionally toot through my teeth on ever occasion I use of the letter ‘s’ in my dialogue……. Yes, you’re right, it’s a chuffing miracle how I’ve remained married for just shy of 30 years!
The whistling language seems to stir the wrath of family and friends the most out of the three habits. Especially, when I whistle my way through sentences I’ve deliberately packed with the letter ‘s’.
An example of this foolishness would be:- “Ssssshortly, I’m going ssssshopping at the Sssssainsburysss ssssstore to buy ssssseasoned ssssausages for sssssandwiches…… Sssssshould I alssssso sssssplash out on ssssssome brown sssssauce?”
I can pretty much guarantee that utilising the above two sentences would send my wife and daughter into some confrontational response or other…… Yes, I have honestly been married for nearly 30 years!
I (deservedly) have been on the receiving end of many a barbed diatribe or other for my eccentric tooting communication technique. It isn’t just the elongating of the letter ‘s’ that seems to annoy individuals, it also vexes them that I whistle them at a deliberately piercing volume.
Using the teeth tooting language is an act of pure self-indulgence to amuse myself. It isn’t like the other two main bad habits, which I undertake subconsciously. I openly admit that I deliberately indulge in this silliness to ‘wind people up’, so I deservedly suffer the chagrin of my spouse and offspring as a consequence.
It has to be said, I do get a worrying amount of pleasure from breaking the living room silence by announcing to all and sundry that “It’ssssss a ssssssplendid ssssssunny sssssituation on Sssssskegness sssssands.”
Is such intentional inanity/insanity (delete where applicable) really worth antagonising my daughter to the extent she’s drawn to threaten to knock my tooting teeth out?!……. Of course it is!!….. I love it!!
The reason I’m moved to write about bad habits is, of late, I’ve become aware my tolerance to other individuals foibles has diminished markedly. Additionally, I seem to notice these habitual idiosyncrasies more than I ever used to.
For example, a family member (not my wife or daughter) has recently taken to slurping imperial mints loudly, in addition to making an almost inaudible popping sound through their lips, when sat next to me in my car. Despite it being almost inaudible, the noise is just loud enough to distract, especially now that I’m listening for it!
I love this person to bits and I’m convinced they aren’t deliberately playing on my dwindling tolerance levels. Even if they were, which is alien to their nature, I could hardly gripe about it as it’s something I do regularly to amuse myself. That being the case, I’ve a strategy to keep my mouth shut about their recently acquired quirks.
So, next time I drive them anywhere, if this popping and slurping manifests itself, I will hold my counsel, concentrate on the road ahead and ssssssssuffer in sssssssilence!
