FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCK! GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY YOU FUCKING MORON! FUCKING ACKNOWLEDGE THE FUCKING EXISTENCE OF OTHER FUCKING PEOPLE IN THE FUCKING WORLD AND GET THE FUCKING FUCKITY FUCK OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY!! FUCKING AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!
There, that felt better.
Damn right.
And, and, and…the people that are walking in a crowded sidewalk/aisle/store/mall so that we’re all a kind of train of humanity, then they just STOP.
I’ve killed six of them so far this year alone.
Or, in the same scenario as above, they will do a 180, just flipping around and decide “no. I wanted to go THAT way”.
Excellent rant by the way.
Holy crap, Snipe. That one would have inspired its own pit rant for me.
The Mall of America at this time of year is notorious for the walking dead. One Christmas, I was there with a friend and got so sick of the oncoming wanderers that I just started pointing to the direction I was heading and declaring in a semi-loud voice,“I’m going this way now.” It helps to throw in some dramatic sweeping gestures to point out which way you are going, too. I probably looked like a fool, but I think everyone within earshot knew why I was doing it and it worked like a charm.
I have a theory that explains the behavior at my former campus. Humans act like gas molecules. They expand to fit the container. If there is one person on the sidewalk, he/she will walk down the middle. If there are two people, they will walk with equal distance between themselves and the edge of the sidewalk. Three people? the same except the one in the middle will be slightly ahead of or behind the other two. So on and so forth. Is it sad that I’ve dealt with this enough to form a theory?
Another thing I encountered again yesterday that really pisses me off. If you are walking down a hall, don’t read. If you are reading, don’t fucking walk. You will end up doing both things poorly and really pissing off the person behind you since you are walking slowly and weaving back and forth from not looking where you are going. I don’t know what was on that piece of paper in your hand, but surely you can wait to find out until you get out of my fucking way.
How about people that stop at the top of escalators!!
[QUOTE=DanBlather]
How about people that stop at the top of escalators!!
[/QUOTE]
Cattle prods.
How could I possibly add anything more? I’m another one who walks pretty fast but not as fast as my SO. All I ask is that you GET OUT OF THE DAMN WAY!!! I find it most annoying in grocery stores when your cart is blocking up the aisle. Stop it!
[QUOTE=DanBlather]
How about people that stop at the top of escalators!!
[/QUOTE]
I was thinking about that one myself. Plus, people who stop after going through a revolving door. Of course, I’m in the wrong if I run into them.
People who stop in the middle of any passageway, be it revolving door, escalator, whatever, need to be flogged in public as an object lesson to others of their ilk. Even my calm, placid wife pats me on the back when I dress these morons down in public.
Can I add people who finish a conversation and immediately walk backwards without looking?
Grrrr…
[QUOTE=brewha]
Humans act like gas molecules. They expand to fit the container.
[/QUOTE]
Is this why Leah Remini and Tyler Florence (just to name two) always seem to take up a little more of my television screen than they did the year before?
And energetic molecules expand the greatest, which explains why Rachel Ray is freaking EVERYWHERE!
[QUOTE=mhendo]
If we’re meeting head-on, however, and i know they’ve seen me, then i barge on through if they refuse to be polite about sharing the road. I’ve seen people who, i’m sure, deliberately look away in the hope that you’ll step off the sidewalk and let them by.
[/QUOTE]
I hate that inconsiderate walkers have turned me into an inconsiderate walker. But I’m often the sole walker going, say, north, against a whole gaggle of moronic commuters walking south. Not one will get out of my way. The most polite way I have of dealing with this situation results in my being pushed into traffic. So I have stopped being polite. I lower my gaze, widen my elbows, and plow on through. Since I’m a big guy, people seem to jump out of my way.
Add to the rant the business suits. These are the middle-aged captains of industry who cannot, when travelling in smacks, deal with the advanced concept of exiting an elevator or negotiating a revolving door. It’s as if they are facing a strange and unknown concept, so they just stand there in awed silence. Captains of industry.
This is one of my (many) pet peeves too. As I’m striding briskly to the bus at the time kids are mournfully dragging themselves to various schools in groups of three abreast at speeds that would put a depressed sloth to shame, it’s not a great start to the day.
I’m hoping for a +5 Tazer of Extreme Righteousness on the 25th. (Just for pavement use, not libraries. That would be unreasonable. 
)
This is a holiday variation of the grocery store/shopping cart rant. The difference being that people in the grocery store will acknowledge your presense and watch your attemps to get past their sideways-parked cart, but they’ll just ignore you no matter what you say.
About a month ago, I was doing the weekly grocery shop, when Airhead Sorority Girl decides to stop in front of me, blocking the whole aisle while talking to (presumably) Airhead Fraternity Boyfriend on her cell phone. Busy store, line starting to form behind me. I say politely “Excuse me.” Nothing. I repeat louder. Nothing. I tap her on the shoulder and say “Excuse me” again.
Girl turns round and says in annoyed voice, “I’m on the phone,” then continues her conversation.
Cart manhandled out the way, insults hurled as those of us behind her now get past.
[QUOTE=villa]
Girl turns round and says in annoyed voice, “I’m on the phone,” then continues her conversation.
[/QUOTE]
I was once stuck on a sidewalk behind a nuisance of teen boys. Wanting to get around them, I politely said “excuse me.” One of these prodigies turned around and said “What do you want?” I said, once again politely, “I just want to get past you.” His response was an insolent “Oh, sir, yes sir, excuse me sir!”
I have never wanted to beat a child so much in my entire life. Had there not been a cop nearby I might have done just that.
I’ve suddenly jumped with fear, in a similar, lower-key way as the Lady in the OP.
But I do it where I work, in a photographic dark room. I’m supposed to be alone.
[QUOTE=silenus]
People who stop in the middle of any passageway, be it revolving door, escalator, whatever, need to be flogged in public as an object lesson to others of their ilk.
[/QUOTE]
I take a local connector bus to the Washington DC Metro (subway) every workday. The DC commuters probably differ from those in other major American cities only in having a slightly higher opinion of themselves. Pretty much everyone believes he or she occupies the Shining Center of the Universe, but in DC they tell themselves they’re in the Capital of the Free World, too.
I see behavior like this all the time, but perhaps the worst sort-of-new twist on this comes courtesy of the luggage industry.
It’s tricky to get a large suitcase into a DC building these days, because of the anti-terror security. Naturally, it’s so much trouble that only people with critical roles in the Universe would bother…and only important people with critical roles in the Universe would get passed through security quickly.
Naturally, since everyone here is important, that’s made it très trendy to carry a huge Uberbriefcase with you every day, even if your peanut-butter sandwich is rattling around in the echoing sepulcher within.
Those things are heavy.
So I see a multitude of wheeled carry-on-style Luggage Units™ with the extendable handles.
Some people can manhandle these through the commute without much fuss. But a certain subset of these Black Holes that Sit at the Shining Center of the Universe, Sucking, handle their Luggage Units™ differently. They get off the bus first, before anyone else, with 40 commuters waiting behind them…and…wait for it…stop.
Then, and only then, feet on good ol’ American concrete, do they extend the extendable handles. Often quite slowly and purposefully, like the good guy in a movie loads bullets into his gun. It would be a moving gesture of determination…if I, along with 40 other people, were actually moving. When I’m STOPPED and forced to watch it, it’s just irritatingly self-indulgent.
A smaller fraction of them act like they’ve never extended the handles before, and can’t figure it out. No one’s gotten out a manual yet, but that’ll happen any day now.
Never mind that each and every one of these tools of the oppressor could step two feet to either side and do anything they liked without holding up the whole busload of people. Or..heaven forfend!..wait to go last.
Sailboat
When people (tourists) would block the sidewalk in Manhattan, a friend of mine would stand behind them and say “NOPE, NOTHIN’ GOIN’ ON HERE!” until they moved.