Don't "Sweetie" me.

This morning at work nearly put me over the edge. Why? Because for whatever reason, people feel inclined to call me "sweetie". Now, this wouldn't be so bad if most of the people doing this were my parent's age or over. However, most times, and particularly this morning, it was coming from women that were years younger than me! Today, this pet peeve of mine has just moved up into the #1 spot.

"What's the big deal?" you might ask. "Isn't it a term of endearment?" Grrrr....don't even get me started. It feels extremely condescending when someone 10 years your junior is calling you a "term of endearment". So, if you are now wondering when you can properly use this term, here are the new rules I have developed. It is perfectly okay to call someone "Sweetie" if they are at least 2 decades younger than you. This two decade time gap also makes it multi-gender appropriate(although I guess there are only two genders...bi-gender appropriate?). Here is the rub...you better be sure that the "sweetied" person is indeed a card-carrying youth, otherwise he/she may develop what I suffer from right now: sweetie-rage.

What should I do with this sweetie-rage? Well, thankfully, I have my first flag football game tomorrow morning. I plan to expend my rage bolting past the guys with the football under my arm. This, of course, will only be possible if the soles of my cleats stay on the bottom of my shoes. They fell off the other day at practice which really hindered my running. The final sweetie-straw on the camel's back came as I was purchasing the shoe glue which I hope will help my situation. The cashier lady swiped my shoe glue and said, "I'm going to need to see some I.D. Are you 21?"

"I'm 31", I answered testily, "and I'm not going to sniff the shoe glue."