Okay, Bob challenged me to respond to his list of 8 things by coming up with a list of 8 things of my own, and I have to say up front that I'm not going to follow his path and tag any other people because I think that's unnecessary and mean and something that would obviously make my list of things I hate, except I don't really hate anything, because, as we teach our children, hating is bad.
Here are 8 irksome things in my book:
1. Marzipan. It often looks very enticing, doesn't it, the marzipan candy and cake, with its bright color and verisimilitude? But it's almond paste. Bitter almond paste with a yucky texture. That irks me.
2. FedEx Field. That's the place in the Maryland suburbs where the Redskins play. It looms like a gargantuan futurist nightmare city in the middle of a parking lot smack dab in the midst of nowhere. Like many NFL stadiums...it's a god awful place. Loud drunken fights between stupid people wearing Lavar Arrington jerseys and other stupid people wearing Michael Strahan jerseys. I used to be a football fan, but going to a football game here ended that. I blame the place, because RFK stadium was a terrifically exciting place to go see games. Perhaps I should thank FedEx Field for helping me find better things to do on Sundays. Like napping.
3. Finding out that relatives from your youth that you thought were unintelligent actually aren't that unintelligent after all when you meet up with them again years later. I don't have a personal example of this in my family, but I think I would find that to be irksome, and disappointing.
4. Racial and ethnic stereotypes. That stuff is just crazy. Broad generalizations about people, about individuals, based on their cultural, ethnic, or racial make-up? That's insane. And elitist. Take people as people, as individuals, one to one, one at a time. That's how I want to live my life.
5. Eastern Europeans. I think the less said the better.
6. Sun-dried tomatoes. 
Twenty pounds of ripe tomatoes set out in the sun to suck out all their water content and reduce them into a thin one pound pile of what? A too-tangy, too-smoky, too-chewy, too-much-like-beef jerky in its consistency thing. I don't know why they made such a huge splash on these shores 20 years ago, and I don't know why they stayed. But it's perhaps the one semi-popular flavor added thing that I cannot tolerate on my food. Irksome to say the least.
7. Emailers who can't complete a message and require ten separate emails to arrive at a conclusion. You ask them, "Do you want to set up a time to play? I've got time available from mid-September to early-November. Saturdays from 5-7. Sundays from 9-5." The answer: "Sounds good." Well, do you want to pick a specific time? "Sure." Then pick a time from the choices I suggested. "Will do." Arrgh! People! Complete sentences and thoroughness would be appreciated in the email. The email has replaced the letter. The email makes the long, time-wasting phone call unnecessary. Stop treating the email so disdainfully! It's mail. It comes electronically. It's been pervasive for a decade or more.
8. (Tie) Miller Beer and Wisconsin. My memories of Miller Beer are partially tied up in the fact that it was among the first beers that I drank in a skipping school party at a reservoir and I couldn't stand the taste and retched a good bit of what I did manage to swallow. High Life my ass. I think my distaste for the Miller Brewing Company's product also stems from its state of origin. I know it's wrong to generalize about a people (see 4). But there's something about the people I have met from Wisconsin that suggests they are a people who are smug and completely satisfied that they know bland from bland. "Back in the Midwest," they'll preface a conversation. "This is the way we hammer a nail, tie a shoe, shave, start a car, cook pasta (pick any daily activity)." I've never met people so utterly entranced with something so ordinary as cheese. I can't hate them. I don't hate anybody. But irksome? You betcha.
