Most of the offenses that really tick me off have been mentioned, but one that hasn't: People mowing each other down. I think because I'm smaller than the average (read: morbidly obese) American, this happens pretty frequently to me in crowded places. Just yesterday in Whole Foods a middle aged cow of a woman practically knocked me over in passing without as much as an, "Excuse me," or a glance in my direction. Anytime I'm in an airport, mall, grocery store, school, etc this happens. The surprising thing is that even wearing a walking cast with a boot didn't seem to slow people down. Thanks, ass. I'm obviously moving a little slower because of the 10 pound plaster cast and boot on my leg. Thanks for pushing your cart into my personal space until I cut to the right. I needed the extra exercise/stress on my compromised lower quadrant. People need to be a little more aware of their surroundings, have some more spatial and body awareness, and apologize for pushing someone down. People who chew loudly or with their mouths open. Heck, people who eat in public places where nobody else is eating. That cannot be stressed enough. There's always someone every semester who eats in class. I think this is so disgusting. Nobody wants to smell your nasty-ass food or hear you chomp your way through it during an hour and a half lecture. It makes me want to throw up. At least bring something that doesn't smell like Satan's taint.
It's true that parents do have that responsibility. A few points on that though. Parents are people as well and don't all of a sudden download an etiquette handbook when they decide to fuck and spawn some kids. We have threads specifically about shitty parenting! Going one step further, parents won't always be there to correct kids on their actions. Especially today, with such a mobile society, how many really think to use polite etiquette over getting caught up in their bullshit, because "they're in a rush?" Shit, people are astounded when I do something as hold open a door for them. I disagree with your statement that people consciously act like dicks. More likely, it's either apathy or a lack of awareness (and being caught up in one's own bullshit). Compare the two scenarios: "Hehehe, I can't wait to NOT put on deodorant so I can ruin someone's flight!" "Oh man, my flight! I'm late! Man, I just don't have the time to put on deodorant or find clean clothes. Shit, I knew I shouldn't have overslept!" Which do you think is the more likely scenario?
I think this statement nails it on the head. As someone mentioned with people who are shitty sidewalk walkers, or anything else for that matter, most of these things that piss people off could be easily remedied if people took one second to say "Oh, hey, where am I? Oh, ok, I need to pay attention for a microsecond to those around me." If everyone did that, it would be a startling change.
Maybe I was blessed living in Dallas and Louisville over the past few years, but since I moved to South Florida back in January, I cannot get over how often these fucking people use their horns. I live near the Las Olas section of Fort Lauderdale, which can be a pretty congested area. There is no way for me to avoid Las Olas on my way to work, and it's difficult to make right or left turns because of heavy foot traffic. So when the light turns green, and you wait for the lady and her baby to cross the street before turning, for some reason, the guy behind you feels the need to urge you to just mow that bitch down. Granted, sometimes stupid people need a constant reminder of how poorly they drive, but down here, it seems like the dumb ones are the ones doing the honking.
People who don't clean up after their dogs and/or let their dogs roam the neighborhood unsupervised. I'm tired of having to stop mowing so I can go get a poop bag and clean up a pile of dog shit (pet stores sell these small plastic poop bags that are housed in a small dispenser that attaches to the leash--it's convenient and simple). Two of my neighbors are guilty of this. One simply allows his border collie ("Psycho Sally" as she's called) to roam all over the place and I've caught her in my garage on numerous occasions, not to mention shitting on my lawn. The other seems less intentional, but her shar pei gets loose quite often. Last summer, her dog came over to my lawn while I was mowing, and left a rather hefty load. The neighbor runs across the street to get her, and makes some kind of joke like "Dogs! What can you do?!" and brings the dog back to her house. Of course, I was expecting her to come back to clean up after her dog, but no. After waiting about 10 minutes, I picked it up with paper towels, and brought it over to their front door and left it there. It also seems to me that, in most (not all) cases, there is a direct correlation between the price of one's vehicle and his/her sense of roadway entitlement and subsequent douchebaggery. I live in one of the more affluent suburbs of Dallas, so it's not uncommon to see Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Masseratis etc. more often than one normally would. Maybe when you pay upwards of $200k for a car you also get a card that states you're exempt from the rules of the road and common driving courtesy, but I wouldn't know. I'm just getting cut off by a higher class of car, but a lower class of person (many of whom are pro athletes for the Dallas teams). Retired people who wait until the weekend to do their grocery shopping. It's bad enough that younger folks bring their kids with them (and I know in some cases, they don't have a choice) and they give them those not-so-cute little carts with the pennant flags that they try to poke your eyes out with, block the aisles and create a general impediment to my shopping efficiency. But to add a dozen or so people at the opposite end of the life cycle...if there is a hell, this is its model. And then there are the one's who pay by check because they don't quite grasp the concept of a debit card. I could keep going just on grocery stores alone, but those three paragraphs have tested the threshold of my blood pressure meds.
Indeed. My workplace has multiple downtown locations that are connected via a skyway system, and throughout the day I have to jet from one building to another in order to get to my meetings on time. It's just like back in highschool where you have *maybe* five minutes to get from one room to the next, except I need to cover a distance equivalent to a couple of city blocks and allot enough time for a elevator ride at either end. There is a sense of urgency in my pace. I do not have time to wait for a posse of mouthbreathing neckbeards that are taking up the entire width of the hallway and moving at a speed most commonly encountered in penguins. Do. Not. Want.
What pisses me off most is parents who take children they cannot control to more adult oriented restaurants. If your kids are not capable of sitting still for more than 10 minutes, take them to a family restaurant, there are hundreds to choose from. Even still, in those environments it is not acceptable to allow your children to run all over the place screaming. Recently the girls and I met for lunch. We all had our kids with us, so we went to a family resturant, and got the kids their own table right in front of ours. Because our children have a modicrum of manners, they sat quietly, coloring, talking, playing 'I spy'. Another woman a few tables down let her 6 or 7 year old boy run around, crawl under tables and just be a little shit in general. The disapproval must have been a bit obvioius on our faces, because as she walked by to leave she turned to me and said 'You think you can do better? Kids aren't as easy as you think, you know'. My response was to point at the table full of children and say 'Discipline isn't as hard as you think, you know'. Granted, my children aren't perfect, but parents need to know what their kids can and can't handle, and make their luncheon decisions accordingly.
Here's my list of social offenders who piss me off: -People who are too fucking lazy or inept to park straight and end up taking two spots. If it's at the back end of an enormous lot it doesn't matter, but when it's a crowded downtown parking ramp people like this should have their vehicles towed. If I was the operator of a parking ramp I absolutely would have people towed for this bullshit. They didn't pay for two spots, so they're going to get removed. -Slow people. Slow people in general piss me of, especially slow fat people. Not only are slow fat people more prone to get in my way, they're harder to get around because they take up so much fucking space, and most of them have that look of defiance on them as if I'm in the wrong because they were in the fucking way. -Assholes who, after getting to the front of the line in a food service situation, just stare at the fucking menu and waste everyone's time. If you can't up your mind about what to order get the fuck out of the line and let people who know what they want place their orders. -Jerks who wait until the absolute last second to merge. No I'm not going to let you in, you had half a mile to smoothly merge into the other lane, so your ass can sit and wait. In fairness, I'm not perfect either, so I might as well share some of my flaws: -I'm generally an impatient person, so sometimes without being conscious of it I'll rush through a door or into an elevator without letting everyone exit first. -If I'm in line to check out and another register opens I'll absolutely quickly go to the new register to I can be first in line, even if someone in the other line was ahead of me. The way I see it I was faster in getting to the open register than you so I've earned my spot at the front.
10 items or fewer means 10 items or fewer. I don't care if it's 15 of the same item, if the cashier has to swipe them individually, they are 15 different items. If they're packaged together with 1 bar code, they are 1 item. If the other lines are busy, and the express lane is open, and you have more than 10 items, you'd better have no more than 10 left when I get behind you or else ...I will feel really upset but probably keep my feelings to myself. I'd really love to see a cashier turn down someone who went over the limit. It would slow things down even more with the bitching customer, but I'm willing to wait to have the rules enforced.
I can't be the only one that read the first half of the first sentence and knew that woman's name was going to be something like Lakeysha. Not proud to have jumped to that conclusion but that's exactly what I did.
Since this recently happened to me: If you walk into a large, quiet study room, with many, many tables, and there is one person sitting in there studying? Do not sit directly next to them. Do not start loudly eating a bag of chips (especially at 8:30 in the morning. Breakfast of champions, huh, sweetie?). Do not answer your cell phone and have a loud conversation. Do not get all huffy when I get up to move because I'd like to study in quiet, which it was until your dumb ass showed up. I will reserve the right to tell you that you're a raging, self-entitled cunt. I also can't stand nosy neighbors. I've ranted about the weird dude that lives across the street from me, but this mother fucker just seems to want to know everything that is going on around him. When he isn't mowing his lawn or washing one of his cars, he sits in his garage all day, staring at other houses and watching who comes and goes. Every time I open the garage door to pull out, whether it be to go to class, work, or just to hang out, I see this asshole staring at me. Even when he isn't in his garage, every time I pull out, I glance at his window and see him standing there, staring. I swear, if I suddenly stop posting, my psychotic neighbor murdered me. Its because of him that the wife doesn't feel comfortable having the front room shades open, ever. We're quiet people, and it isn't like we have kids, but this dude just seems to NEED to know any time we are coming and going. While people who talk in theaters are annoying, I've found a new annoyance: people who use their cell phone as a clock in a theater, or are texting. You're sitting in a dark theater, with the only real source of light being the screen, and then BAM! Two rows ahead of you, someone clicks their cell phone on to check a text or the time, and it completely fucks with you. And here is the thing: they never do it once. They'll check that shit continuously for the next hour of the movie, flashing it every minute or so. What is so fucking important that you can't handle sitting still and not using your cell phone for two fucking hours? The thing is, these twats don't think they're doing anything wrong because they're not making noise. Apparently, they don't see how flashing their bright smart-phone screen in a dark room can be really distracting to anyone sitting behind or beside them. I've had to tell them to knock that shit off on more than one occasion, but they usually get huffy and say 'I'm not talking on it!" Yeah, because that makes the distractions completely okay. Turn your cell phone the fuck off.
That woman is going to the Special Hell. Other people who shall go to the Special Hell: - People who light up a cigarette in a car that is not theirs without asking if it's alright. I am a smoker. I do not smoke in my car. If you are getting into a car and they have not expressly said that it's alright, don't make that assumption. - On that note, people who fling their cigarette butts out of their cars on the road. There is an ashtray in the car. If you don't want to use the ashtray built in they have ones you can get. Hell get an empty can or something but I don't want to be going down the highway and all of a sudden have a butt hit my windshield (which has happened). Be a responsible human being. -People who leave their grocery carts in the middle of the isle or at a bizarre angle. Last week I was shopping and this guy had his cart angled three quarters of the way across as he was trying to find something. I am trying to get by with my cart and he barely even glanced up as I moved his cart over so I could get by. No apology, no eye contact, nothing. -People who have this need to one-up everyone in conversation. I knew someone who was horribly guilty of this in college. If you had to write a 10 page paper, her's was 15. I can't think of the other examples but I think many people have met someone who did this. It drove everyone nuts, particularly because in this case she was a great person but it was like she couldn't help herself. Once after one too many I snapped at her. Later in the day after I had cooled down I sat her down and talked to her about it. She must not have even realized she was doing it because it was like night and day. She pretty much never did it again. The rest of my would be reiterations of stuff already mentioned. Don't talk in the theater, control your fucking kids, get of your phone, etc.
Also... People who are too goddamn lazy to push their cart into one of the numerous corrals (or whatever the proper term is) that are all over the parking lot. On a bad day, it takes an extra 30 seconds. Don't just leave it in an empty parking spot or wherever.
I truly wish I had a cattle prod for these assholes. Especially for the dinks that just stand in doorways or just completely obstruct pathways. Doorways are for moving through, not standing around like the dimwitted mouth breather you are. Unless there are attractive women pillowfighting in their skivvies. That is a prefectly acceptable reason to stand around and gawk. Regardless of the situation. Interestingly enough, I've had express lane cashiers wave me over to their lane and happily check me out, despite being a few items over the limit. If you are two or three over limit......what's the big deal? If the main lanes are clogged up with moms coralling packed shopping carts with three or four kids or elderly people trying to purchase a single piece of fruit with a stack of expired coupons and arguing/babbling with the cashier because they are lonely and starved for attention, then I'm heading to an express lane even if I'm a couple items over. If I'm quite a bit over the limit, then no I won't. Unless the express lane cashier waves me over and is willing to do it. Yeah, if I'm ten items or more over, it's a dick move. But only a few items over? Not really a huge deal, especially when I've had cashiers been more than willing to accomodate.
To continue with the old people in grocery stores. Why the fuck do they take an hour at the Deli. I will take a 1/16th of a pound of cheese, no, that is too thick. I'll take 1/32rd of a pound of ham, sliced so I can see through it. Then why do they have to try and use the self checkout? My favorite was when an old couple where trying to scan a watermelon (a big one with no barcode on it). When I told them they had to enter the item number they looked at me like I had three heads. As Frylock mentioned, the people who just stand there and don't bag their shit. I hope they get hit by a car in the parking lot.
People who don't respect others property. And litter. We have a bus stop in front of our house, with a bench, shelter and trash can. Despite this, people treat my front lawn like a coffee shop. They'll lay around on my lawn waiting for the bus, leave their trash sitting on the lawn instead of putting it in the trash can 3 feet away from them. This doesn't sound that bad, but it leaves a huge dead patch of grass on my front lawn, and makes it pretty well impossible to keep a nice yard. Not to mention the amount of cigarette butts and dog shit left behind. I've come home to find people having a nap on my front yard. Throw in the fact we have neighbors who decide to cut through our backyard, and flick their cigarette butts on our yard, instead of theirs, since we don't have a fence and they do, I think I need to move. How hard is it to open a damn fence and buy an ashtray?
As well as the standard rudeness in public places with screeching children and loud phone conversations in inappropriate locations, I must echo Lady Lecter with my hatred for those sorts of people who must one up you on EVERYthing. I've known several people like this and our friendships did not last long. These sorts of people turn every conversation into a competition. Sometimes I just want to talk in general terms about something that happened or what our weekend plans are. Similarly, it irks me to no end when people turn every conversation to be about themselves. I went to a social biology association meeting at a Mexican place near campus and the president was terrible with this. A couple of newer students were mentioning what classes they were signing up for in the next semester and she had to jump in and mention the classes that SHE took and then ran with that topic instead of simply adding to the current conversation. She pretty much dead-ended every single conversation, both social and about academics, and I didn't realize why I hated the meeting until later. She turned all conversations to be about herself which left no room for anyone else to talk.