January mosquitoes, concierge vaccinations and other craziness
Gripes, anyone? About once a month, I ask my Facebook friends what’s bugging them, and then, on KUHF’s “Houston Matters,” we discuss Houstonians’ latest peeves — the little things driving them crazy. It’s fun. On the radio, I have to remember not to laugh too loud.
Which, I know, can seem weird during a pandemic. With devastation all around, why joke about niggling irritations?
Here’s why: Big problems are tragic but little ones are often funny. And right now, we can all use a laugh.
So here, lightly edited and de-emojied, are some of this month’s best gripes.
Lisa Gray: I didn’t go anywhere for the holidays, and these days my commute is from my bedroom to my living room. So why was it so danged hard to go back to work on Monday?
Evan Mintz: Because we can’t go anywhere, vacations have only half their usual impact. Therefore, we should all get Double Vacation.
Mary Ann Smith: I have to figure out how to schedule Zoom calls between trips to the refrigerator. And also how to resist the urge to have bourbon-spiked eggnog as my after-lunch drink.
Susan Conaty: There’s trash everywhere.
Melissa E. Noble: Trash everywhere!
William Dylan Powell: Porch pirates who don’t pick up after themselves. Rude! Theft is obviously condoned by politicians, but nobody likes a litterbug. So please take the Amazon boxes and inflatable bubble wrap with you as you steal our cornucopia of Spanx, Twizzlers, Instant Pots, headphones, Birchboxes, sex toys, Nintendo Switch games, Kristin Hannah novels and groceries. If Houston’s drive-by shooters can be courteous enough to pick up their shell casings, then you can pick up after yourselves, too. C’mon, y’all! We’re all in this together! And by “this,” I mean the upcoming court case.
Daniel Reyes: I hate having to take down Christmas decorations. Tex and I are keeping up the Christmas tree and lights and will repurpose them for a different theme each month: January: MLK February: President’s Day March: St. Patrick’s Christina Barbara: Don’t forget Mardi Gras! Beads look lovely on a tree.
Joyce Bk Abbey: Crepe myrtle murder began in December.
Robert Searcy: Celebratory gunfire tops my list this week. Not only is it dangerous and stupid, it’s trashy AF!
Mike Gladu: We’re never going to convince Houstonians in my neighborhood that what goes up, must go down. They blithely shoot fireworks and projectiles into the air, without a care for human life, animal health and fire danger .
Dennis Nance : I dread looking on my roof for bullet holes.
Dennis Cass: I bought a nice new winter jacket and haven’t had an occasion to wear it. The weather and social distancing have conspired against my wardrobe.
Anne Hayden: I hate it when people use leaf blowers to blow leaves into the street.
Molly Block: Leaf blowers in residential areas before 8 a.m. are super-awful.
Babette Hale: Or actually, just leaf blowers.
Brian Grant: Mosquitoes. Still. In January. I’m thinking about installing bat houses, a bug zapper and maybe even a misting system.
Evan Mintz: January is supposed to be our mosquito detente.
Reginald Charles Adams: With all the resources poured into Hermann Park, the children’s playground is more than 20 years out of date and literally falling to pieces. My 20-year-old son played on the exact same equipment that my 3-year-old is playing on today.
Rick Hurt: There are 456 episodes of “Law and Order” showing on TV, and I have seen all of them.
Cort McMurray: The new way of doing TV bugs me. We got rid of cable, except for local channels. Now we subscribe to Netflix and Hulu and Disney+ with the ESPN attachment and Apple TV+ and Peacock. I never know what’s on, it’s impossible to find live sports, and my adult children have commandeered the controls. It’s mostly YouTube clips these days. Nothing lasts longer than 11 seconds. It’s kitties, cute babies or guys getting hit in the groin. I miss Guy Fieri, something I did not think possible.
David Streusand: Lexus ads where one person gifts a $40,000 vehicle to another: With such high unemployment and so many people worried about their next meal, that feels wrong. Read the room Lexus. Read the room.
Bela Adela: Newly purchased knee socks that slowwwly sink down to your ankles over the space of an hour. The nerve!
Dennis Cass: I got an insanely good deal on gourmet cheese from Disco Kroger’s going-out-of-business sale. Now I feel obligated to put cheese on everything. It does not play well with Asian recipes.
Ann A KWinkelink: Why does Houston still have those red light cameras up when we voted them down?
Lisa Estes: Driving on Houston’s freeways has become even more confusing. Can we have better signage so we know which exit leads where?
Carolyn White: Crowds of people are walking in the streets, which I don’t mind at all. But the majority are walking on the incorrect side! Please, walk so that you face traffic, not with the traffic.
Marcus Twain : 13-year-olds riding dirt bikes and ATVs on city streets — without helmets!
Johanna Thompson-Wolfe: How about 13-year-olds riding dirt bikes on the bike path at the park?
Jake M. Walker: Junior high boys not doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing? Perish the thought.
Trish Cramblet: Since Memorial Park opened the beautiful new Eastern Glades, lots more cars park around the Rice Military neighborhood. There aren’t any “no parking” signs, but resident have started placing cones in the street around their homes to prevent parking. When will people learn the public streets are just that — public? Taxpayers, rich and poor, collectively pay for our streets. Don’t like park traffic? Don’t live by a park.
Paula Murphy: Delivery trucks stop wherever and whenever they want on residential streets or a busy main street. I understand they have a job to do and they have a license plate that allows them to make commercial stops, but do they have to stop in the middle of the lane? Can they not pull closer to the curb?
Patrick Kopplin: If Operation Warp Speed had hired Amazon, we would all be vaccinated by now.
Christina Barbara: People trying to game the COVID vaccine’s tiered prioritization schedule: No, your spring break ski trip plans are not more important than my 86-year-old mother’s life. Wait. Your. Turn.
Kim Hogstrom: It chaps my arse that the residents of the Montebello highrise somehow procured their own concierge vendor for the vaccine.
Liana M Silva: There was a mistake on the Harris County Public Health online form that said school staff could sign up to get vaccinated, and then … poof! No more.
Antonio Tone Martinez: Clubs and bars at high capacity with no masks during a pandemic.
Michael Brichford: Watching everyone on my timeline posting pictures from indoor New Year’s Eve parties knowing they will only prolong this disease.
Cort McMurray: Those people who walk into the grocery store fully masked, then pull the thing down around their chin the second they get past the produce department, like they passed a checkpoint and now they’re in the clear.
George-Webb : Executive summary of all these gripes: Other people.
If you missed this month’s “Houston Peeves” on KUHF-FM 88.7 FM, you can stream it on KUHF’s website or find it on the “Houston Matters” podcast. To get in on next month’s griping, follow me on Facebook. lisa.gray@chron.com, twitter.com/LisaGray_HouTX