In The Beginning

Pam's Pet Peeves.

We all have them, right?

I wonder, when do they first slither into our grey matter?

For me, I think at birth.

Basically, I am an upbeat and positive individual, but I can imagine being annoyed (the early stages of pet peeves) at having to go pee-pee and poo-poo into a cloth diaper. I mean that stuff can really ruin the look of totally cute baby-garb.

They (family through the years) claim I hated a messy diaper and was potty-trained at a very early age. As the baby of the family, I suspect it had nothing to do with my attire, and more like potty-training via osmosis.  I'm clever that way (insert your scowl and sniff of sarcasm at any point). Seriously, if everyone else was using the toilet, I was not going to be left out of that party.

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Early pet peeves are clearly etched into my memory.

As the aforementioned youngest child, I was relegated to always perching my skinny bottom in the backseat of the family car. We only had one.

My older (and beloved) sister always claimed the rights to the front seat when our Father was out of the picture, and our Mother was the designated driver. This was not negotiable, and our Mother seemed oblivious to my plight. I suspect she had bigger fish to fry, like dealing with us. She just did not have the inclination to give two figs about our seating status.

Listen, my childhood was way before kids had to sit in a car seat, in the backseat, facing the rear until ready to drive the car themselves.

No, back in the day all child-safety bets were off, and it was more of an anything goes sort of safety crap-shoot.

Something interesting did happen on occasion (when big sis had big-kid shenanigans to handle). As a very young child, I have vivid memories of standing in the front seat while my Mother drove. She didn't worry about a thing in the world, least of all me standing near a huge sheet of glass, while in a motorized-vessel going well over 30 MPH.

Nope, my Mother, who was a very good parent, was secure in the knowledge that things were completely under her control. Here was the deal--in the event any necessary quick-stops, slamming on the brakes or fender-benders, her child (me) was safely tucked behind her shoulder.

See?

Totally safe as I stood, unencumbered by any restraints, in that front seat gaping at the scenery whizzing past.

Pet Peeve in this scenario?

Not that I was a child during a time when safety was of zero concern to car-makers (I won't throw parents under the chassis at this juncture-they were in ignorant-bliss). We all know Ford and GM could have put seatbelts into cars WAY before they were forced to do so.

Here it is...NEVER getting to sit in the front seat of the family car until my sister left home, made me peevish. By the time she left home, who cared? Not me.

However, I believe this did lead to my, correct, decision to have only one child.

My child would know what it was like to actually see where we were going.

But, as these things go...the world went completely safety-crazy and baby seats, seatbelts and airbags arrived on the scene. Suddenly, ALL kids had to sit their skinny bottoms in the damned backseat.

There is no justice in this world.

Obviously, this entire backseat riding thing is still a major pet peeve to me and I admit to mumbling about it to my family.

These days, I strap my two-year-old granddaughter into her huge-ass carseat in the backseat of cars so she can, just like her Gigi (me), see absolutely nothing but the back of everything.

Oh, how things change, yet remain quite the same.

Let us hear from you. We know you have pet peeves, so post in the comments.