-People say “excuse me” in crowded grocery stores but they don’t really mean it and they practically whisper it as they pass. WTF is up with that? A “mouthed” excuse me is barely audible.
-Using your key fob to lock your car…over and over. Look bro, it was locked the first time you made it honk, yet you feel compelled to do it a few more times as you walk away, but in a nonchalant manner. It wasn’t you!
-People are clueless. I see this all the time now that I work at a Kroger store. The quiet self absorption of people is sometimes breathtaking to behold.
If two people accidentally bump in a crowded place, what’s wrong with a mumble or even a gesture, to indicate that no offense was intended. No need for them to both take time out of their busy day and confer about the inadvertence of the bump and exchange license and insurance. Get over it.
Here’s a fun game to play when you are stopped at a red light. Inch forward. The car behind you inches forward too. Do it again. Here he comes again. It works every time.
I love fucking with people at a traffic light like that. Especially if they are right up my ass. Sometimes you can even catch their eye in your rear view mirror and they get all embarrassed and angry when they realize you’re screwing with them.
Another fun thing to do is to embarrass someone talking on their phone while they are driving stupidly. Pull up next to them at a light, make contact and motion for them to hang up the phone followed by a steering motion with your hands. Sometimes I do a palm to forehead thing. Amuses the fuck out of me.
I like to park far away in an empty area of the lot when out shopping because the extra steps are good for me, and because I don’t want my car dinged by stray grocery carts and other car doors. Inevitably when I return to my car, there is usually always another car parked right next to me. I find it weird. Why come all the way over here and park right next to me? Does my car have magical magnetic powers?
And then there are the people who will park their big special extended cab monster truck in not 2, but over 4 spaces to protect it. Damn, if you feel that strongly about keeping other people away from your precious baby, at least park it in the far corner of the lot over those extra spaces.
And then there are the ever present cars that hover like flies on a carcass all around the closest spaces when there are plenty of open ones 20-30 steps away. Just park your stupid car. You could already be in the store getting your business handled, but no, you’d rather vulture around the close spaces for 20 minutes.
And people who are too trifling to return carts to the corral need to fall through their own assholes and hang themselves. An even worse fate should befall the ones who take the carts out of the lot to the bus stop where they all fall into the drainage ditch.
I do this when I drive my gf’s car. There are a bunch of buttons with tiny pictures to tell you what the button controls. I try to lock the car and instead I unlock the trunk. I end up hitting different buttons until the damn thing is locked.
Let’s talk about hand held devices. What makes you think I want to hear your half of the conversation? What gives you the right to talk on your device in places where there are “NO CELL PHONE” rules, like the library, theatres and concerts?
If I had my way, the same restrictions on public smoking would apply to public handhelds.
What I don’t like is when people blow past what is obviously the point of a something to focus on a trivial detail and thereby derail the discussion. For example, as I read through the OP and subsequent posts, , the thought foremost in my mind was “Is ‘discrete’ really the best word for these types of behaviors?”.
No, and that’s why the OP put “discreet”. A mumbled “excuse me” is discreet. A surreptitious hitting of the key fob is discreet. Being self-absorbed is discreet. It just happens that these discreet behaviors don’t go unnoticed by the OP and end up annoying them anyway.
When I pass between someone looking at a shelf in the grocery store, I do discreetly say “excuse me”. Even though I have the right to go by, I still want to acknowledge that I am interrupting them.
Exactly. And the mumbled “excuse me” is interesting to me. More often than not, people mouth the words and don’t say them, whisper them or mumble them. It’s just funny to me, not so much annoying. What’s wrong with saying “excuse me” in a conversational, normal speaking voice? And why does this only seem to happen in stores when people are pushing carts?
Saying “excuse me” out loud is to command someone’s attention or response; in this case it’s an acknowledgement of what I’m doing but I don’t need a repsonse or action, I want to get out of their way asap.
As a teenager in the 80s, I worked at a supermarket (in New Jersey, if that matters). One of my duties was to collect the shopping carts from the lot. Corrals were not a thing- to my knowledge they hadn’t been invented yet. I had certainly never seen them anywhere. Carts were left hither and yon, and that was expected and accepted; it’s just how it was done.
Nowadays, when I see those corrals my thought is that the supermarket wants me to do its job for them, and I resent it a little. MOST of the time I comply, if only to avoid the social sanctions. But once in a blue moon I say “Fuck it” and leave it where it is.
Maybe being in New jersey does matter regarding your feelings about it. In Georgia in those days before corrals the bag boy walked you to your car and took the cart away with him. But of course you also tipped him a dollar for his trouble. I don’t ever recall my mother just leaving it any ol’ where, nor do I remember seeing carts (we actually called them buggies) just scattered about.
I respect your opinion, truly, but I see it as just being considerate to remove it so it doesn’t roll into anyone’s car or block parking spaces.
And on another note in the vein of people thinking they are being discreet or have some shield around them rendering them invisible to others when they are doing annoying shit…why do people pick their nose at red lights? And Sweet Jesus I hope they have a tissue somewhere handy. Nothing like looking over and seeing somebody knuckle-deep in their nostril. You shoulda took care of that before you got in the car!
I hate people like that. What I hate more is when someone in front of me stops at the red light, but stops two car lengths before the line. Then they slowly creep up one inch at a time. Of course, I have to keep inching forward. If not, I will look like an idiot because someone else will think I’m an idiot for stopping two car lengths behind that car. And it’s a pain in the butt as I drive a stick.
Why don’t people just stop at the line and wait patiently? But no–they stop 2 car lengths before the line and insist on creeping up.
Well it is not as if any of this behavior is particularly discreet, the irony is that the people doing it are convinced it is.
smack: