...BUT occasionally interrupted by pieces that I'd like to cohesively title "BITCH FEST, or 365 Things I Feel Entitled to Complain About."
Every now and then, I feel the need to rant. Usually it's about stupid sh*t, stuff that really doesn't mean all that much in the grand scheme of things. But man oh man, sometimes...sometimes it just wells up within your soul and you just HAVE to let it out, you know what I mean?
And I figure it's safer for everyone if I vent in the written word as opposed to...well, anything else.
So here it is, take it or leave it: my first installment of Bitch Fest. Please enjoy the anger.
BITCH FEST #1:
PEDESTRIANS!!!
Okay, perhaps I should amend that to read RUDE pedestrians. But lately they've all felt the same, they all seem incredibly rude, and therefore I lump them as one large mass.
I've been walking a lot lately. I always try to walk, considering I have no other athletic activity that I actually enjoy in any way, but lately I've been doing even more of it. Anything that's within a feasible distance, I hoof it. The grocery store (as long as I'm not stocking up, that is), the nearest mailbox, the local Quizno's (which has unfathomably been replaced by a Subway, an act which deserves a 'Fest' of its very own, surely.)
Not only is this a health-conscious thing for me to do, it's also environmentally friendly (no car = no excess black crap in the air), and, I thought, less-stressful than dealing with L.A. traffic.
L.A. traffic is the worst traffic. Ever. I refuse to believe otherwise. It's not just the sheer, overwhelming number of cars on the road...it's the utter stupidity out there, the unbelievable jerk-wads who think they have the right to zip in and out of lanes, the abundance of pickup trucks piled high with oodles of construction/repair/furniture odds and ends that I just KNOW are going to come flying out of that truck bed and through my windshield one of these days.
It stresses me out. Bad. I try to drive as little as possible. Hence, more walking.
Where I encounter PEDESTRIANS.
What I have discovered, to my despair, is that just because you've taken the drivers out of their cars, doesn't mean you've made them any less rude and/or moronic.
Perhaps it's just my humble Midwestern sensibility - I go out of my way to step out of an elderly woman's path, I hustle across the intersection if a car is waiting for me, things of that nature. It's just common courtesy to me. I can't imagine doing anything else.
It seems that not everyone was brought up with such lofty ideals. Certainly not the family who continued to walk all four abreast as we approached one another on a narrow strip of sidewalk. Me with my two overflowing grocery sacks (because, of course, I always get just a liiiiittle bit more than I should, considering I have no motor vehicle with me), them laughing, talking, ignoring the fact that I was coming steadily closer.
You know how this ends. I moved off the sidewalk. I was actually forced OFF THE SIDEWALK by these a$$holes who couldn't see fit, not even one of them, to at least drop back.
Unbelievable. I'm not asking you people to walk in the freaking street, I wanted to shout back at them. And this happens to me ALL OF THE TIME. It blows my mind. It is SO rude.
My mood was only worsened by the pair of giggling teenage girls standing at the next stoplight. They were there before me, so I assumed that they had already pushed the walk button - silly me! Now, normally I would push it in any case, never knowing if someone was a forgetful goober or if the system had registered the request or whatever, but in this case the girls were of course standing directly in front of the button. I didn't ask them if they'd pushed the button, nor did I ask them politely to move aside so that I could do so - after all, that would be rude.
The light changed. The red hand stayed put. The girls looked confused. They pushed each other jokingly. A car, which had been waiting to make a right-hand turn in front of us, had to pull to a sudden stop as the girls decided, last minute, to simply make a dash for it.
And me? I got to wait on the corner through two more light changes.
Is a little courtesy too much to ask here?? The willing stupidity and downright obnoxious behavior that these people are soaking in disgusts me. People have no respect!!
Oh god, I'm becoming an old person. Well, put me in a home then - it's gotta be better than the stuff I've gotta deal with out here.
Stop. Breathe. Breathe. Anger dissipating. Okay...whoo.
Clearly, these walks are going to be the death of me.
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