Lay Off My Map!

I have a pet peeve that was confirmed today. I don't like when people interfere with my maps.

I noticed this a few months ago during my brief stint as a Realtor. A fellow Realtor and I were going out to tour properties, and we were mapping them out visually on my road atlas that I keep in my car. At least, I was mapping them out visually. I turned my back for one second, and the next thing I know, my co-worker was permanently charting our course with a yellow highlighter. GAH! I'm sorry, but I paid a good $20 for this atlas, and I don't need to be reminded from this day forward that one day I drove from Blueberry Hill Circle to Wildwood to Prescott.

This pet peeve surfaced again today. I rent apartments in Lowell, MA, which is a very diverse city. So diverse, that I went out and bought a large world map that hangs in my office. My big plan is to put a pin in every country when I rent to someone from that country (and they need to be born there, or be a citizen of that country, otherwise the map would be full of pins after renting to any handful of 5th generation Americans). Speaking of 5th generation Americans, my boss comes in to my office and decides to put a pin everywhere she's ever been. "I was born in New York." PLUNK. "And one summer I lived in Northern Ontario for a month." PLUNK. "And my stepdad's father was from Ovalle, Chili." PLUNK. Even if I remove all of the superfluous pins, my pretty new map is now riddled with pin holes.

Have a little respect, people.