The other day I read this post, and then a fair amount of the comments, and there I was giggling to myself in the living room as I scrolled. They were just so funny. I need more of that hilarity on the internet. So I opened my browser and started one for Steve. (Too eager?) I got a few down, and then when he was home, I opened my post for him to add some about me. Only fair. At first he said, “I can’t think of any.” “So I’m perfect?” Then he started type-type-typing away, and twenty minutes later, he was still typing. “Woah!” I called out from the kitchen. “I’m on a roll now!” he called back.
Steve’s always quoting Mr. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn.”
So here we are.
My pet peeves for my dear, beloved husband Steve:
He has no respect for proper bed etiquette. The bed gets made right–with a fitted sheet, top sheet, and duvet–and then over the course of a night or two, he’ll inadvertently push the top sheet to the bottom of the bed where it will remain until I strip the bed to wash the sheets. Do I wash the duvet cover every time? NO. That is what a top sheet is for, Steve.
Oh, and pillows! Any pillow is fair game for the wandering hand of Steve Hunt. It’s like eeny-meeny-miny-mo in the dark. He just grabs whichever one he lands on. (I am not a pillow-sharer at all so you can imagine how this goes.) And he likes multiple pillows. Although he denies this adamantly, I’m certain he took one right out from under a sleeping Parker the other night.
He’s really good at cleaning the kitchen until it comes to the Dutch oven or any pot and sometimes pan (so, the things that can’t just go in the dishwasher). It will get filled with water, and put in the sink that way to soak, where it will remain for the next 72 days or until I get to it.
He has a PhD but doesn’t know how to refill the toilet paper. The strangest thing.
We’ll be sitting watching a show and suddenly I’ll hear the pick-pick-pick. There he is sitting with his leg in the air picking his toenails and collecting them on the closest smooth surface (like his iPhone screen) until after the show when he collects them and throws them away. When he does this I tell him he’s the grossest person I’ve ever met and that I’m never having sex with him again.
Really loud sneezes. And it is a choice. And he chooses wrong every time.
Steve’s pet peeves of Bridget (written by him):
Bridget loves her “honey-do” lists. She loves giving me work to do around the house that “just has to get done so I can finish…” this, that, or the other thing. Trouble is, I do the work and she never, I mean never, goes on to complete what she set out to do in the first place. “Steve I need to you to patch the holes in the walls of the bedroom so I can paint and hang picture frames.” Two weeks later, holes are patched. Three years later, patches still need to be painted. Picture frames still need to be hung.
Speaking of picture frames, Bridget takes her minimalism to the max. Our master bedroom is a completely blank canvas. There is a queen mattress on a box spring on the floor. That’s it. No furniture of any kind in the room, save an over-sized mirror. Nothing on the walls. Homey? No. I think we’re going for “institutional”. (Wait, there are the two patch marks from the summer of 2015 which are still crying out for primer and paint.)
Bridget has never organized her closet once. In 11 years of marriage, she has never seen fit to tidy it up, not even one time (Bridget interjecting! I have cleaned my closet!). She particularly likes to toss sweaters high, really high on top of a pile of other sweaters in a precarious heap so that they are all tipping over and practically falling off the shelf. But there’s mismatched socks too. Bras in her underwear drawer. T-shirts askew. An organizer by nature and to a fault (it should have been on her pet-peeves list, truly), I can barely stand to look at it.
Food. You think you know what Bridget is like because you read her blog. I’m sorry, but no…no, you don’t. She literally throws perfectly good food away. As the chief procurer of groceries myself, there are times when I come home with foods which are not on the “approved list”. Oreos? “Pitch ’em!” Frosted Flakes? “Throw those away…Do you even know how many grams of sugar are in there? You do know that corn is GMO, don’t you?” Unless, she’s got a hankering for it. Then it’s OK. “Steve, dear, would you run to the store and get some Haagen Dazs?” And food relates to health and overall well-being in ever so subtle ways, but the Cause and Effect are clear. For example, Bridget has never had so much as a sniffle without identifying its origin: “oh, that’s right, I had pasta last night”, says she. OR: “I’m feeling sleepy…hmmm….must have been that sandwich earlier in the day. Carbs make me sleepy.” OR: “Boy, the kids sure are cranky right now…Parker must need some ‘good fats’…Parker come over here and have a tablespoon of fresh-squeezed, pure arctic Norwegian cod liver oil.” (Bridget again: our cod liver oil is not “fresh-squeezed”!)
Any pet peeves for your husband or wife who definitely does not also read my blog? Let’s hear them in the comments. I won’t tell.
This is my favorite post to date! I love love love it and may steal you format sometime soon! Hahaha. I now love that Nordstrom Supermodel of your even more!
DYING laughing.
LOVE this post….so funny!!! Hmmm, biggest pet peeve I would say is when he comes home from work and has to conveniently go to the bathroom for like 20 minutes plus. Really?? It’s the witching hour and everyone is losing it and you are just hanging out in the bathroom most likely playing on your phone or reading a magazine. I can’t even deal!
that is UNACCEPTABLE. but has totally happened here many a time.
THIS! Oh my god its SO ANNOYING. He’ll say, “Um, I need to go to the bathroom”…and I say “of course you do…”.
HAHA SAME!
Everyday at my house! Glad I’m not alone
Um, YES. I’ve knocked before and asked,”you’re still going?!” And of course, he’s not. Just on his phone.
I am a thousand percent sure my husband has done this when there’s not even any business to be taken care of. I get needing some quiet space after a long day of teaching, but be honest for crying out loud!
This is my hubby Too, drive me crazy!! Like the girls are losing it, I’m trying to make dinner and now your having “me” time in the bathroom!
I’m glad to know this isn’t just happening in my household. I’m in the kitchen frantically cooking dinner while Bub is eating/throwing food off of her high chair. Husband comes home, calmly removes shoes and headphones and proceeds to the toilet. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I can’t even…
Oh my god, same in our house. Like please use the bathroom before leaving work for the day FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES! We need help when you get here, no time for that!
I forbade my husband from brining his phone or any reading materials into the bathroom a few years ago and the problem is noticeably better. Or I send a kid to knock on his door every few minutes to ask him a question. It helps.
I’m going to try this with Steve. “I forbid you to merely soak the pots with zero intention of ever returning to scrub them.” Will report back.
This was happening every day at my house, so I decided to send the baby in with him. And no phone. It’s amazing how quickly he can poop when a toddler is trapped in the bathroom with him! Problem solved.
Genius.
why does every man do this!? haha. So TRUE!
Haha, I love both of your good-humoured jokes to each other. You guys are so sweet! ❤️
Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
http://charmainenyw.com
“fresh-squeezed, pure arctic Norwegian cod liver oil”
I’m actually chortling. Best thing I’ve read on the internet in quite a while.
Yes! I could not stop laughing at the fresh squeezed cod liver oil!
laughing for the most part… but legitimately gagged when i read about steve’s toenails.
I say th dame thing about my husband having a PhD, only it’s he has a PhD but somehow can’t figure out how to operate the washing machine to do a load of laundry ?
The sneezing, oh goodness the sneezing. I feel ya. When my husband legitimately sneezes loudly he gets a Bless You. When he sneezes super loud with extra noises just because, he gets nothing.
Laughing so hard. Oh my gosh. Steve’s final paragraph. I can’t stop laughing.
I swear to god, I think we might have the same husband. I sent mine this list because he is always making fun of me for how much I care about him getting under the sheet, not just the duvet! So thank you for validating me!
Always here to validate!!
Ohhh my word. The toenail picking. I have never related more to a blog post than the paragraph about husband TV-watching toenail-picking time. That “pick pick pick” noise…
I’m glad Steve’s not the only one!
Oh my goosssshhh. My husband too. The toenail picking is one of my absolute biggest pet peeves with the man.
I’m so glad there are quite a few of the toenail husbands. They should form a support club when we finally all decide to boycott sex.
But seriously, I can be so attracted to my husband and then boom. The toenails. He’s a really handsome guy but no amount of handsome can overcome that habit once it starts 😉
Hilarious post! It is interesting to see a glimpse of the fun and sarcasm in your relationship; it’s very relatable!
Dying!! Love it. I have to get on this pet peeves band wagon with my guy stat. Can’t wait to see his response!
OMG! DEAD from laughing so hard!!!
My pet peeves: husband’s clothes on the floor of our bedroom RIGHT NEXT TO the hamper. Not IN the hamper, NEXT TO it. Gets me every time. My husband has a pillow thing too but he doesn’t take them. He only sleeps with one so any others must go on the floor. The couch too. Pillows on the floor because they cannot be within a 5 inch radius of his body.
What would he say for me? Throwing the recycling down the stairs into the basement to take it to the recycling bin “later”. (And I’m sure you know what I mean by “later” being in quotation marks ;)) He would probably also say that he loves when I try to stick my cold hands and feet on his warm body. But that’s like a right of passage for wives, right? It’s a subliminal message hidden in our vows? Must let wife warm up hands on your toasty neck/arm/back. Yeah. He loves that.
next to the hamper instead of in. we have things similar to this in our house. WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT. for instance i’ve been asking my family to put their dishes in the dishwasher instead of in the sink for, oh, 9 years now.
cold hands/warm body is totally allowed.
That day had a monday feeling all over it – reading this post and laughing so hard I’ve probably pulled a muscle made it so much better, thank you!
The dishwasher mysterium is my one of mine – and the sneezing (I do remember commenting on this already a few years ago – still wrong choice here too! ) Also somehow it is impossible to refill or replace things – not just the toilet paper but water in the filter, coffee powder, trash bags…apparently I found my super power 😉
nobody and I repeat nobody refills the Berkey except me and occasionally William. I wish the pour wouldn’t work unless you were filling it at the same time!
Q-TIPS! My guys is obsessed with cleaning his ears and uses Q-tips morning, afternoon, and night but NEVER throws them away. I swear he spawns them. I find them on the dresser, next to the bed, all over the floor, in the car, NEXT to the trash can. It’s like the scene from Practical Magic but instead of frogs left in his wake, it’s Q-tips. But hey, congrats on the clean ears!
This is a great post because it seriously makes me feel much better about MY life! It’s nice to know that little things annoy everyone! My biggest with my husband? He chews loud because of a past broken jaw injury. I mean…. he can’t even help it but it annoys me! LOL! He’s also a LOUD SNEEZER! What is that?! And lastly socks AND underwear never make into the hamper. On the hamper? Sometimes.
Haha!!! This is the best. Chris and I just might list off our pet peeves in lieu of vows at the wedding!
Despite the fact that we have a pretty good sized mudroom with ample coat hooks, my husband inevitably hangs his coat over the back of a chair. Also, he always cleans up after dinner (which is wonderful) but saves his cup from dinner on the counter for later in case he wants more to drink…which he never does and the cup sits there until I just put it in the dishwasher. He will specifically say to me, ” I’m leaving this here for later” as a warning for me not to clean it up, but he never, ever uses it again the same day.
Not sure what he’d say about me but I know his pet peeves are – lights being left on, bags hung on doorknobs or posts, dog on the furniture (I don’t mind this one but the dog and I both know not to let it happen when he is home)!
Oh my word!! I’m am dying! The toenails.. my husband, too! So gross… Steve needs to write more often. You two are such a perfect pair! Haha
Omg, Steve is a hoot. Perhaps a monthly post authored, at least in part, by Steve is in order? Also I love the dynamic you two created here!
So entertaining and relatable, love it Bridget!
Hilarious! I usually lurk, but I wanted to contribute. My husband uses a new cup every single time he gets something to drink. He squeezes bottled water while drinking it. He puts chewed up gum back in the pack! He makes a ton of noise first thing in the morning. Picture it: It’s 5 a.m. and he is stomping across the room while hyping himself up (This usually involves push ups/weight lifting while saying “oh yeah.”). He then claps his hands and shakes the bed while I am still in it (I don’t have to be up until 6).
The things I do that bother him include placing his mail directly on his side of the bed (I don’t know why I do this). I NEVER match the socks while folding laundry. I go into detail while making a grocery list (i.e. I explain how I am gonna use every single item). I also guess the ending of a movie while it is playing. If I am right, he always says he’s never watching a movie with me again.
The push ups/shaking the bed/“oh yeah” made me seriously laugh out loud. That is hilarious.
Oh my gosh. I could not live. Haha that sounds awful!
Oh my GOSH my husband does the foot-picking thing too!! What is it?! You know we have fingernail clippers!!!!
This is too funny. I can’t stop laughing. My husband leaves dirty plates, glasses on the counter, table instead of putting them in the dishwasher. I do not understand why he can’t put them in the dishwasher. Empty cans everywhere without throwing them away. And my favorite, he puts dirty clothes near the hamper not inside the hamper. It drives me nuts. I do not get the logic.
Laughing out loud! I am the exact same way with food, so I appreciate hearing others are too! My husband doesn’t hear his own sniffles which I can not stand. I joke (but would totally do it if he let me!) that I will use the baby nose sucker that we use on our daughter on him when he’s not paying attention … !
HAHA I love this list so much!!! Every single item on both of your lists had me laughing!
I can verify since I’ve been a witness to a lot of these peeves — but happy to say Steve is careful about who he picks toenails in front of. Phew ! Cause I’ve not witnessed it . XO
I adore this post! My husband is the literal SLOWEST person alive, but only at home. He’s a firefighter and somehow manages to do anything related to that at top speed, but at home he just ambles around and is completely unperturbed that we are 45 minutes late for something. If I say something about it, he just goes slower. Almost comically slow. As a punctual person, this drives me nuts. He also leaves all our kitchen cupboard doors and drawers a few inches open and seems to be incapable of fully cleaning anything. It’s an inside joke that it’s “75% clean”, it almost like he’s just lost interest and wandered away (i.e. cleaned the kitchen after supper, except two plates and a spoon are left unwashed and the sink is full of cold soapy water, vacuumed the living room everywhere except a really obvious square foot of crumb covered carpet (thank you toddlers) and left the vacuum in the middle of the floor…).
75% clean. So funny.
These made me GIGGLE OUT LOUD. Hahahaha
You’re nice to be so good natured about the bed sheet/duvet thing. My husband does the same thing! But it DRIVES. ME. BONKERS. I get so mad!
I don’t know if my husband would say I’m so good natured about it.
A Jane Austen-quoting husband. It doesn’t get better than this! Seriously, your Steve is a keeper!
When can we do the sister pet peeves…I have my list ready. 😉
Oh man do I hear you on the loud sneezes. Once we lived on the second floor of an apartment building and our downstairs neighbors dashed up to our place in a panic because they thought they heard someone screaming in pain. No, it was just my husband. Sneezing. ?
This is so so so good!!!!!
Why the hell do men sneeze so loud?!?!! It absolutely drives me insane and I have not stopped saying Bless You.
Now*
My husband picks his toenails! And fingernails! And collects them on a nearby surface, quickly forgetting they are there and leaving them for ME to discover and throw away (puke). I don’t think my husband has ever in his life used a fingernail climber. He just TEARS them. I’m gagging just typing this. Steve is not alone. Men are monsters.
Ugh typo. Fingernail CLIPPER not climber ?
Men are monsters. I laughed so hard at that.
Omg. My husband opens and shuts doors SO LOUDLY. Drives me nuts. Like, someone is almost always asleep up in here. Be quiet, MAN!
This is so funny! My wonderful husband always misses the parking spot but instead of backing up just loops around hoping it will still be open or he’LL find another one. This stresses me out so much! And I am sure he would mention that I always forget to shut cabinet doors.
Oh my gosh. This is so great. My husband does the toe picking thing too but flicks them on the floor. And then pretends he didn’t just do it. He sneezes so loud and says it feels better that way. AND last but not least always misses the first three open parking spots and parks the furthest away. And not for the exercise. The first fifteen were too small for our four door tiny hybrid car. For real. In the winter. Why. Why must he do that?!
Such a great post! Had me cracking up.
My boyfriend also sneezes loudly and I always yell out “you are choosing to do that,” which he always argues. The worst!
Best post ever. Mine is my hubby licks his q-tips before cleaning his ears. Not during or after, thankfully but just seeing him lick the q-tip makes me gag a thousand times. Do other people do this? It’s just not right.
I was laughing out loud at your post and the comments! Such fun, I’ll play. My husband throws everything away, most recently my drivers license and my daughter’s first haircut. He leaves cupboards open so I feel like Vanna White closing them. He is always correcting me in the kitchen, “that’s not the right pan, you’re chopping that too small.” His complaints about me: I leave the price tag on everything (home decor mostly), I never fully complete a project and I always have some new grand idea for him to carry out. If I start to clean, I get upset with how messy he is (in the kitchen especially) and I get on his case.
My husband picks his fingernails….eugh. And his nostrils are GIGANTIC when he yawns – haha not something he can control but if I’m looking up at him, yikes! Mostly though I get annoyed at how awesome he is at strategy games and being perfect all the time 😛
As for me, he gets frustrated that I can’t ever leave on time. And it took him a long time to train me to pick up my dishes after having a meal. He also doesn’t understand how I can sleep through my alarm… for 2 hours.
This was such an enjoyable read, and made me laugh out loud. Our husbands have near-identical habits that are my same pet peeves. The sneezing one?! He thinks I’m overreacting, but THEY ARE SO LOUD how is it even physically possible? 😉 😉 😉 And rather than pillow snatching, he snatches our quilt, leaving me frigid because HE TOO pushes the flat sheet all the way to the bottom of the bed nightly. 😀
And mine is an engineer yet can’t seem to figure the toilet paper roll out, either. Hmm. 😉
Thanks for the smiles today!
What an awesome post! I have thought to myself that I should write a list of all of the things my husband does that annoys me—maybe it’s therapeutic? Like Steve, he doesn’t respect the top sheet!!! I have tried to explain to him that using the top sheet helps keeps the comforter clean. Not just sneezing, he makes all kinds of noises that are loud, even in church! Also, he’s had so many different kind of ailments and illnesses. Today was a snow day for our kids and he stayed in bed saying his butt cheeks were sore?!? WTH?!
ok ok ok. I’m not even to Steve’s pet peeves of you yet, but I was cackling so hard (to myself…because I’m at work) because Steve and my husband share so many similar quirks! THE LOUD SNEEZING. Bridget, you are right. It *is* a choice! Also: terrible bed etiquette. My husband acts like he’s super picky about his 2 pillows. He’s partial to freaking buckwheat stuffed pillows (who did I even marry?!), but if I wake up early and leave him to the bed all by his lonesome, guess whose pillows end up under his head? That’s right. My conventional, boring pillows! Last, leaving the pots “to soak.” Yeah…sure. Oh, and also I giggled at how, despite a phd, Steve can’t change a roll of toilet paper. My husband might have that particular skill down, but I’ve wondered to myself so many times how such a bright, intelligent person can’t figure out so many common sense things. For example, even though there is a literal magnet on our dishwasher that says “clean” or “dirty” . . . he asks me every time if the dishes in the dishwasher are clean or dirty!
haha I came back to read the comments after you included them in your weekend links. SO funny. It’s so nice to know I’m not alone with all the annoying things my husband does. Of course, once it was on the brain, I’ve continued to think about my pet peeves and am going to add a couple more. In addition to pushing the top sheet to the bottom of the bed every damn night, he also pulls the duvet from left to right if he’s cold. Of course *I* am on the left side of the bed. I’ve actually made him lay down and *practice* pulling the duvet UP instead of from the side so he doesn’t leave me shivering in the night. “You pull the covers UP, not from the SIDE, man! WITH the top sheet!” I’ve finally started placing the duvet off center so I start the night off with an extra 2 feet of cover.
My husband also takes his shoes off as soon as he walks in the door, but never moves them to the shoe rack or even to the side. They stay right in the foot path where he took them off. I usually get home after him and the door won’t open because his shoes are in the way. Slippers? I found them in the center of the hall/doorway to our bedroom, in the exact spot he decided to take them off. I trip on his shoes daily.
My husband also does the cup thing–cup on the counter because he’s going to use it later. NEVER uses it later.
Oh and his chargers. Any device that needs charging has a cord sticking out of random walls. Normal people (like me haha) have a cord to charge their phone by their bed at night. We plug it in and we’re set for 24 hours. Not my guy. I have cords in the dining room. Or in the hall. Or off the kitchen island. Or in our son’s room. Just hanging out of the wall. The thing is–his phone is NEVER charged.
Kills me. haha
Shoes are always exactly where people took them off here too. But this goes for everyone in the house (except perhaps Parker and myself. I’ve threatened to just throw them into the backyard when they’re not where they belong.) Chargers, lol!!
I’m super late to the game here, but couldn’t resist. Shoes everywhere but the closet designated for shoes (I’m actually getting annoyed even typing that.) How hard is it to put them in the closet? You’d think it a Herculean feat. Also, samesies with the laundry and clothes becoming friends with the basket, but not actually becoming one with the basket. However, one thing I have not seen mentioned is the following: the man has a thing with teabags and it drives me bat shit crazy. He will make himself a cup of tea and once it’s cool enough for him to drink, he’ll pull out the tea bag, squeeze all the liquid from them into the cup, wrap the string around it like a little package and leave them ALL OVER THE HOUSE for me to find. Why? WHY?!
Teabags made me chuckle. I think he’s hoping you’ll one day find the little packages endearing?
These were amazing. More, more!!!
Oh my goodness, this is the best! My husband has a bad habit of “burrito-ing” in the bed at night while he sleeps. He will grab the corner of the blanket on his side, wrap it under his arm and then start rolling. If I try to pull back on the covers… so you know, I don’t freeze to death… He just grabs them again and starts all over. Then wakes up wondering why all the covers are on his side of the bed!
ohhhhh I know what you’re saying, girl.
Oh my gosh, the way Steve wrote his section was hil.ar.i.ous. I loved the COJ post too and just like you, pored over the comments with glee… and then got started on my own mental list WAY too quickly.
One that just came to mind for me: when I’ve just told you on that phone that I spent the last hour cleaning the house for company coming over (bathroom top to bottom, floors, everything), but you march in with your snowy shoes on toward the bathroom because you of course, need to spend your nightly 20 minutes there right this second and can’t take boots off. (eye roll emoji) Respect the cleaning!
Thanks for continuing the fun!
I know this well. The race to the bathroom with snowy shoes. Yep. Yep, I do. (It’s not Steve in this house, but I won’t call out the person by name!)
LOL, Bridget, you and I could not be MORE opposite when it comes to food. I don’t mean what foods we eat, because I generally eat healthy and avoid sugar, but I could probably throw up every single time I ate a particular thing and I would never make the causal connection!
This is the best post ever! Do we have the same husband? The top sheet, the loud sneezes… which apparently is pretty common from the comments! I thought I was the only one with a husband who sneezes and makes babies cry. On multiple occasions. Here’s another one- change and reciepts left everywhere. In the car. On the dresser. On the bathroom counter. Ugh!!
Oh, Steve’s receipts are like little love notes all over the house, yes. Also his socks. I joke that he likes to mark his territory with discarded socks.
Also, gotta laugh SO HARD about the loud sneezing. Whyyyyy do they need to sneeze this loudly? I’ve objected to this since day one, but it wasn’t until my husband startled a baby so badly she cried that he conceded the sneeze could maybe possibly be a touch loud.