A Few Negatives

My days, I love my life. I am exactly where I want to be and on track to do what I want to do. But there are a few things I have encountered here that drive me up the wall. My neighbors happen to make the list of things that drive me nuts. I live next to a family with four kids with the youngest being a little girl that loves to hear herself scream at all hours of the night and kick her little legs against the wall. The three older boys are pretty quiet though I feel bad for them as they live in the garage and wet basement since it is only a two bedroom duplex. Then there are the parents: the high cholesterol, diabetic twins. Every one to two hours, they go out on their front porch to smoke their cigarettes. This includes the nighttime hours. Often their daughter accompanies them out and is surrounded by their plume of smoke. Now the little girl isn't my favorite person in the world due to all the screaming and kicking, but it is a huge pet peeve of mine when parents smoke around their kids. Last night, during their 1 am smoking venture, some friends of the wife showed up and were outrageously loud. At this time of year, I leave my window open since the a/c doesn't reach the upstairs very well so I got the lovely smell of smoke along with the loud cackling until 4 in the morning.

A second thing that drives me up the wall is having to go grocery shopping here. I don't like shopping in general but here I put off the experience as long as I possibly can. Pulling into the parking lot I sometimes just sit in my car and have to convince myself to go in. Once in the door I go as fast as I can without looking totally insane to get the items on my premade list and get to the checkout line. It is the people in Walmart that drive me insane. You get the overalls with no shirt, missing teeth, people who argue with the cashier about how they have a coupon and it wasn't deducted from their total, etc.... Walking into this place I feel like I am looking at peopleofwalmart.com in 3D. I just want to be able to go in, get what I need, and get out. I don't want to be run into by kids playing bumper cars with the carts, I don't want to be hit on by the classy townies, I don't want to be glared at by women just because I went out of the house in a clean outfit that doesn't reveal skin at the top, middle, and bottom as well as places in between. The checkout lines offer the chance to overhear the crazy conspiracy theories of the locals. Yesterday I learned that Michael Jackson was killed by the Chinese government because he was a US spy. I generally attempt to hit up the 24 hour Walmart after 9pm to avoid the people but that means I have to encounter my neighbor who is a cashier in the evenings. Lucky me.