Recently another blogger admitted he took delight in trying to annoy me, and considered himself something of a 'success' in that endeavor.  His exact, self-congratulatory words were as follows:

But I get a kick out of driving her nuts and watching her pull every insult she can come up with and barely put a scratch on me.

For the record, I don't interact with this blogger often but he seems to place far more importance on our occasional interactions than I do.  My response to this rather long post was simple and to the point.

You flatter yourself.

And that's enough time spent on him, although I did want to mention it because the above remark inspired this article.

You really wanna know what drives me nuts?  Ok, here we go!

1) Leg cramps.  Although I've rarely experienced them before, over the past 36 hours I've had no less than SIX charlie-horses of unimaginable intensity, four in my calf and two in the back of my thigh on the same leg. OMG they hurt so bad I scream out loud, I'm lucky no one called the po-po yesterday morning, when they first hit me, one after the other because I'm sure it sounded like I was being murdered.  I'm going to chat with the pharmacist later today and see if anything I'm taking could be causing this, and if I have any more today at all, I'll give one of my doctors a call.

2) Asshole drivers who aggressively jockey for position on heavily trafficked secondary roads, as if getting to the next red-light 3 seconds before me actually does them any good.

3) People who call needing a ride but can't give directions for shit!  This happened to me yesterday, my friend Rod is playing 'dodge-the-repo-man' right now but I needed him to come do some yardwork for me, so he parked elsewhere in the 'hood (his father in law lives next door to me and is a likely place for the repo man to be staking out) and called to tell me where I could come pick him up.  Except he couldn't tell me.  Didn't know street names, didn't know the name of the apt complex he was sitting in, "I'm at them apartments down the street" he tells me.   WHICH APARTMENTS, ROD?  ON WHICH STREET?  Gah...it got so confusing I ended up making him drive to the gas station, where I met him and then followed him to 'them apartments down the street.'

4) People in public places allowing their obviously contagious toddlers free run of the place so they can spread their snot and sneeze and drool around on every available surface for all to enjoy later on.  Hey assholes, I'm a walking auto-immune disaster, and taking drugs to supress my overactive and self-destructive warrior cells, and what that means is your child's 'common cold' can land me in the hospital with full blown pneumonia.  Keep 'em corralled already!

5) Cleaning up bird remains when one of my critters manages to bring me this exalted gift. (Usually late at night when I'm sleeping. This ensures maximum time to make my kitchen look like something out of a low-budget horror flick.)  More fun is trying to catch the occasional live one that's gotten away and is now flying insanely through the house, crashing into everything in panic and generally causing a great ruckus.  I save the ones I can, of course, by running around throwing towels at them in an effort to capture.  It must be amusing to watch, but its not so amusing to do.  Or clean up after.

6) Dog Shiite.  Do the math.  I have two large dogs, Frankie weighs in at about 65lbs and the last time we got Ceasar on a scale he tipped in at 105.  They eat a lot.  They crap a lot.  At least two piles a day from each of them.  I think they crap more, though, just to make my life more challenging, so let's say three times a day to be on the safe side.  Times two dogs, that's six large steaming piles per day, every day, or 42 per week.  THAT'S A LOT OF SHIITE and yeah, it drives me nuts.

7) Automated telemarketing/bill collecting calls.  In the first place, they put people out of work.  You wanna talk to me?  HIRE a real PERSON to make that call and I'll hear whatever you have to say.  But there's nothing like jumping up off the shitter to grab the phone, or leaving your groceries on the porch (for the above mentioned dogs to investigate and molest) to run in and catch it on that last ring only to hear some disembodied voice say: "We are trying to reach you about a VERY important business matter!  Please return our call immediately at 1-800-WE-SUCK and reference file #666.  It's imperative that you return this call promptly, the number again is blah-blah-blah-de-blah."  If it's that important, hire a human, ok?  And quit eating up my voicemail space with these messages too, it's a pain in the ass to delete them.

8)  Doctors drive me nuts.  'Nuff said about that.

9) People (like landlords) who think that just because I'm on disability I should make myself and my home available to them at a moment's notice at any time of the day or evening.  What part of 'please give me a day's notice and you can come in anytime' don't you understand, lady?  By the way, it's also THE LAW.  I do *not* have to let you in if your visit is unexpected, and guess what, I won't...just out of principle.  You will make a proper appointment with me and you will arrive on time, just like our rent arrives on time each month, or you shall find yourself abruptly asked to leave.

10) Watching weekend marathons on TV.  I enjoy these because I never 'keep up' with these reality shows during their first runs, but I will admit to the guilty pleasure of spending an entire afternoon watching Top Chef or America's Next Top Model on occasion.  What drives me NUTS about it is that most of these marathons seem to have only a single sponsor, like that god-awful acne commercial which insists on showing us oozing close-ups of celebrity zits over and over and over and over.  And who can forget the image of a pale, fat and shirtless Tony Orlando hawking a diet plan?  I'll never look at a yellow ribbon (or hear the song) again without having that image pop up right alongside it.  Gross.

11)  Having about a gazillion other things to add to this list but being too sore to add them now.  There's always the comments section though, and please, dear readers, feel free to add a few of your own.

What drives you nuts?