I know, it’s been a while since I’ve felt moved to write.  And that is write ANYTHING.  

And yet here I am inspired, and on a vacation day so hey, let me grab the keyboard and write a blog entry.

I’m one of those folks that detests when people talk and eat at the same time.  Honestly, it brings out my “Inner Elsie” (my grandmother) and I get extremely grumpy about it.  And this goes beyond the internet.  In all seriousness I don’t want to see or hear you eat.  I don’t want to hear your spoon scrape of clink.  I don’t want to hear the rattle of your chip or candy wrapper.  And one of the reasons I’ve stopped going to movie theaters is because listening to a theater full of people rattle wrappers and worse - eat tubs of popcorn is more than I can handle.  

All that as a set up to:

Dear Social Media Influencers and YouTube Vloggers:

Hi - I’m following you for a reason.  But that reason is not for you to break open a pastry, show me the laminations and then scarf a ginormous bit of it into your mouth while you are still recording.  Ick.  Nast.  Gross.  Just stop.  (No really, that was a recent one).  

Family Vloggers - NOBODY wants to see your kids eat.  I don’t care how cute they are.  Kids chew with open mouths and it’s vile to see partially masticated food on my screen.  Heck, my favorite vlogging couple yesterday were eating a sub and one of them was caught mid open mouth chew with sub & mayo in mouth.  YUCK.  

Also - slurps and sips of whatever beverage any of you are drinking - do it without noise.  Because I don’t want to hear the sip and likewise don’t want to hear the ahhh at the end.  And don’t want to hear the gulp/swallow either.

Thanks to the internet I’m recognizing that this is a sensory processing (misophonia is real ya’ll) issue.  But why do the neurodivergent have to adapt to the entire universe not having basic table manners.  I’ve battled some of this in my own immediate family growing up and have to face some of this in the work world.  

No really - recently someone at work brought in leftover parade candy (as in candy they were throwing off a float during a parade) and put it in the common candy dish (i regret not making those disappear early in the pandemic at this point and would have reported to HR if I thought HR would have done something about it because I thought we had a no shared food rule that was put into place in March 2020). And I can honestly hear every time someone digs around in the stupid dish all the way back in my office.  Despite tinnitus orienting in my right ear - I can still hear just fine, thanks.  And it makes me want to yell - “GET OUT OF THE CANDY DISH” every time.  (Because it’s my supervisor, and I know from conversation he shouldn’t be eating it and his A1C is awful)

Then there is the whole separate issue of WHAT IS IT WITH DUGGARS, BATES, AND LDS FAMILY VLOGGERS AND THE EFFING DENTIST/ORTHODONTIST?????

I think everyone here at FJ is acutely aware of the disgusting trend likely started back on Jon & Kate Plus 8 then carried over to XX Kids and Counting/Counting On and Brining Up Bates (all produced by Figure 8 by the way) of forcing us to go to dentist & orthodontist appointments.  

Well, LDS Family vloggers have picked up this dandy trend and take us to every dental and orthodontic appointment their kids go to.  

This includes big reveals of what color wire out kid decided to get this time.  Reveals of kids with and without braces.  The ‘obligatory’ shots of every kid in the dental chair - which in Utah seems to involve pediatric dentists with tv screens over the dental chair so we also get to find out what the kid was watching while reclined in the dental chair.  

One family(I think it was Meet The Millers) actually revealed that they hadn’t taken the family to the dentist in an extended period of time.  Seriously?  Because of covid?  Uh - like dude, I had an appointment in 2020 pushed out of April and into June by the dentist because of it but after that - I had my regular every 6 month visit right on schedule.  Don’t use the pandemic as an excuse for crap parenting.  The insult to this one was the additional tidbit of oh and hey, our dentist is actually and extended family member.  Sooooo what you are saying is that you didn’t trust your extended family?  Sorry, not quite getting that.  

And I’m rather critical of not taking your kids to regular dental/Doctor appointments due to my own childhood.  Thanks to required school physicals I was taken to the doctor at least once a year through sometime in my teen years.  But there were times when I should have been taken to the doctor and my mother was like ehhhhh you’re fine.  To be clear there were years in there were finically it was single parent, one income and a father not paying child support (but hey, mom that was part your fault for not pressing the issue through the court).  And while I got braces in 9th grade because of an open bite, the dental check ups stopped.  Not just for me but for my sister.  And my sister got the shaft with never getting braces.  

I’ve gone on a bit of a ramble there.  I don’t want to see your kids mouths.  I don’t want to see your mouths.  I don’t want to see someone fall all over and say ‘funny’ things that your POST! (Not Enough Nelsons - Jaine; This is How We Bingham - Madi ) because they were put under for Wisdom Tooth Extraction.  That’s just flat uncalled or and in my opinion - mean.  

Wow - okay I had a lot to get off my chest there.  Thanks for the place to get this off my chest and hey, maybe look for future blog posts here as I find more snark worthy material during my trolling YouTube, TikTok & Instagram.