Teenagers

They hang around in our shopping malls like stray dogs. They mope and slouch on the side streets and corners. They are moody and do drugs and listen to terrible music. The paint graffiti and ruin our public spaces with the clatter and racket of their skateboards. They are terrible drivers and binge drinkers. And a lot of them have acne. Yuck.

The Elderly

Old Folks are one of the greatest disappointments of my life. When I was a child I was told that the elderly were wise and kind and could share all the lessons learned in a lifetime of experience. In truth, the elderly are like spoiled children. They are greedy and selfish. They complain about everything. They hate any kind of change and reject progress of all sorts. They cannot be taught how to use a DVD player, or a Computer. They drive slowly and badly and don’t know how to work the turn signals. How annoying.

Fratboys

It’s not just the binge drinking and screaming “WOOOOO”, it’s not just the always being shirtless, not just the tradition of Homophobia and Date-rape, it is all of these things and something more. The thing that I find the most annoying about the Fratboy is the smug sense of entitlement. They know that they can behave as badly as they want, and get away with it, because Daddy is a partner at some firm, or Grandpa is chair of the Alumni Fund. I shudder when I think that these drunken apes are the bright future of America.

The Homeless

I know that poverty is a crisis. I know that homelessness is a tragedy. When I think of a child going to bed hungry, or a mother losing her home, it breaks my heart. Having said that, you have to admit that the homeless are really annoying. No one likes being begged at. Begging is awful. We train our dogs and our children not to do it. It is unacceptable. And yet, at every major intersection on your drive to work, there stands a sun-chapped and filthy man with a cardboard sign, looking drunk and making a hang-dog face at every passing motorist. They often stop me on the street and ask me for my change. My Change, from My Money. Asking me to pay them for bothering me. It’s ridiculous. And many of them are crazy. Really nuts. I have seen them on the bus chatting to invisible friends. Come on!

New Parents

I am aware that if we plan to continue having people on earth then we must, at times, make some new people and those new people tend to come in the form of Babies. Babies themselves, while sort of smelly and very bad airline passengers, are not so bad. It’s the New Parents that I can’t stand. They are so boring. They have strollers and car seats, and strange little trolleys that they pull behind bicycles. They talk about their baby like it is the first one that has ever been created. They become hyper-protective and scheme to remove all the risk from the world, padding things, and passing helmet laws and smoking bans. And they take their babies everywhere and lavishly introduce it like some sort of shrunken celebrity. They need to stop.

LARPers

Larping stands for Live Action Role Playing. These are people that wish that the Renaissance Festival was real life. They dress up as Elves and Orcs and Centaurs and get together in parks and pastures and hit each other with foam-rubber swords. They say things like “Prithee fair wench, bringeth me a flaggon of Mead”. They play World of Warcraft on the computer while they are working, when they should be booking your airline reservation or coming to your cubicle to get Vista off your PC and re-install XP. They are so annoying. What’s worse is they don’t seem to care, even when you point it out to them.

The Religious Fringe

I am not trying to single out any particular group here. I am annoyed by religious nuts of all faiths. I’m talking about people who stand on the street and hold up signs telling you what God thinks of you. People who come by your front door at 8 in the morning to give you a pamphlet about the Kingdom of heaven. People who have bumperstickers on the back of their car encouraging you to get your soul in order in time for the Rapture. People who reject science and progress in favor of fear and superstition. These people are annoying. And if they read this, they will pray for me. And that is really annoying.

Models

Being good-looking is not a good enough reason to be famous. If you are vapid, shallow, vain, stupid, and selfish, being good -looking should not be enough to get you off the hook. And yet, people worship these animated mannequinns. And they worship themselves. I really can’t stand models.

The Rich

They have sailboats and fancy cars and sleek clothing. They buy ponies for their children and send them to exclusive schools. They have big mouths full of straight white teeth and, no matter how ugly or flabby they are, they date beautiful women. They play golf at country clubs and take vacations that cost more than a brand new Toyota Camry. And, the worst part, they always get their way. And to them, you don’t even exist. 

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