Pet peeve 2009 edition

I once thought that it was ethically wrong to use my position at a newspaper as a bully pulpit, as Teddy Roosevelt used to refer to taking advantage of his power to promote his own agenda.
But I've come to realize that everybody has a bully pulpit of their own. Or if not, at least access to such a forum in terms of blogs and comments boards on the Internet, or something otherwise.
It even might be a keg of nails in a country store that a good conversationalist draws up to sit on.
So I've loosened up and now I'm quite willing to talk about the admittedly little things that bother me here at the outset of 2009.
They don't really all rise to the level of pet peeve. A good example of which could be a young person tailgating me on a curvy road close enough for me to see him texting on his cell phone. But they are annoyances that I'd like to see stop in the coming year.

• And the Escalade you rode in on
Ever since I started driving, I've always considered my speed as just right and anyone passing me as too fast.
I formed that opinion behind the wheel before you could say "reckless endangerment," back in the day before I developed a healthy respect for the destructive power of an automobile.
So at that time, anybody passing me was actually going too fast, as was I.
With my family onboard, I am no longer trying to break land speed records — especially on interstates slicked with rain and temperatures hovering around freezing.
I've made my Christmas trek many times before, but never with rain falling during 300 miles of it.
Did it help that we saw lots of flashing emergency lights on the other side of the highway in Louisville and an Explorer in the median where one side had been shredded and the other side appeared almost normal? No, not really.
There were times when I almost got down to 45 mph and some traffic in the fast lane probably continued to go 80. At any time I expected to do a 360 and spin off road or into the path of a speeding tractor-trailer that couldn't slow down in time.
It makes me want to have technology that will let a driver communicate with any other vehicle in close proximity, so I can tell them what I think about their ability to operate a horseless carriage and the mental capacity and perceptive abilities of any DMV official who would allow them to do so.
Actually, I wouldn't try to be mean — more like a protective adult trying to tell a 3-year-old with two left feet not to run with upturned scissors on one hand and a primed grenade in the other.

• Slight sight distance
Closer to home, it sometimes seems that I've gotten my boyhood wish to own a car that operates in stealth mode, cloaked from the vision of other drivers.
In reality, though, Chevy Cavaliers don't usually merit that kind of expensive feature, so I have to conclude that something else is going on when many motorists continue to pull out in front of me in what I deem insufficiently safe distances on U.S. 58 in Carroll County.
I realize that 58 west of Hillsville is a four-lane road, but that doesn't guarantee I'll be able to zoom to the left every time to avoid their puttering ways.
Maybe I'm wrong, anonymous drivers — maybe you are not distracted like I think you are and can in fact see me and also see there's no other traffic to impede me from getting out of your path.
But if that's the case, you need to wait for me to go by and then pull out.
So, please, help me spare my brakes by showing a little patience before you enter the highway.

• Lingering stuff
It's probably been three years since I've voluntarily accepted all my retail goods in a plastic grocery bags when leaving a store.
That said, I can't quite figure out why I still have hundreds of the darn things.
Maybe it's because of the limited amount of reuse they have. Previously I had figured out they could be used as liners for my small wastebaskets, plus as trash bags in the car.
But I've only stumbled upon one extra reuse for plastic grocery bags ever since — scarecrow.
Having seen a neighbor grow a large enough garden to draw the interest of our deer population, it became apparent that person had taken advantage of an innovation to allow for a good harvest of beets and carrots safe from animal predation.
Besides pie pans, that person merely put up plastic bags to rustle in the wind. It worked incredibly well.
Now my fledgling apple trees are protected, too. It's a little unsightly, but that's a price I'm willing to pay for fresh fruit and vegetables.
I guess it's a good idea to continue to use the plastic bags sparingly, so I will still have a supply when a luxury tax gets applied to shopping bags that are not recyclable.

• Depth charge
As everybody who's not "off the grid" in the Twin Counties knows, local electric utility rates have gone up significantly.
A lot of people say their bill has doubled. Not quite, I think. Looking at the "average daily cost" for electricity figured on my bill, it's up to $5.34, where it used to be about $3.
I had feared that about a dollar of that daily cost was going towards my rechargeable items — my shaver, my handheld vacuum cleaner and of course my cell phone.
My wife doesn't care if I shave, so I've unplugged that personal grooming tool.
I'm not instantly ready to sweep up small messes any longer, after I disconnected my vacuum from the wall socket.
My one remaining device that sucks up wattage is an aging cell phone, which I depend on for communication with the outside world. After about 30 minutes of talk time, the thing's almost dead and needs more charging time, a victim of unimpressive battery life.
With the increase in rates and the need to be charged more often, my phone still may be costing me a dollar a day to operate.
In the short term, I'm looking forward to replacing my phone. No wonder billions end up in landfills a year (though I will give mine to a young man who has a recycling business).
I'm kind of envious of the person out there who will invent the better battery, because that person will make millions.
Well, that's all my bugaboos for now.
I resolve to wait until 2010 before I unleash any more complaining about my pet peeves.