Pet Peeves

Prompt: The Daily Topic: "Why wasn't it first on your list? List five or six of your pet peeves. Write about one of the later peeves on your list."

Some of my greatest annoyances (in decreasing order) are:

- Anyone digging their nose
- When I am speaking with a friend, someone else speaks in between – a friend’s perpetual problem
- Anyone who dips their biscuit in tea
- If clothes are scattered all over the house
- I arrange the drawing room, and the next minute my daughter pulls everything apart

There are times when I get exhausted doing the household chores. My last job usually is to organize things in the drawing room incase there is a visitor - usually all my daughter’s toys are all over the floor, sofa, anywhere u name it. But the minute my task is complete, my daughter invariably begins hers. She starts throwing down everything from the shelves, one by one till it is empty. She scatters everything on the floor till she believes that there is absolutely nothing left which looks good in the drawing room. All items arranged on the sofa to the center table are on the floor too. Imagine her throwing a handkerchief (if there in one by mistake) from the sofa only to make place for her to sit.

But is there anything I can do apart from either yelling or pulling my hair? NO. Because she just won’t listen. She feels it’s her duty to create a mess. After some stares at each other appears her smile. Her proud smile of satisfaction. It seems to give her immense pleasure in irritating me. But she’s a darling after all. My daughter, just two years old, is the sweetest person on earth. I guess that’s the way all parents feel about their kid. Her naughtiness, her pranks, her unintentional acts… are all so adorable, that I just can’t let myself scream at her. Her eyes look at me as if they are telling me that it’s an achievement, a feat accomplished and “see, I have helped you clean the entire drawing room and you can't even say Thanks!”

Do I really need all that help? Well, sometimes I wonder why I even got in that situation in the first place. Why did I have to set things right and wait for my daughter to mess it all, not once but innumerable times. But I really have no answer. I have to at least try and tidy up her favorite spot – the drawing room.

All I know is that it cannot be at the first position in the list of my pet peeves. Her innocent smile takes away all that credit. I would rather get more annoyed at other situations than this.