# People who are just plain sorry **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 14, 2005, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405 "2005-03-14T03:52:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/21 "2005-03-15T17:00:37Z")
> [@Sample\_the\_Dog](#): > > You dumped your trash down the side of the hill on route 29. I admit it officer Obie, I put that envelope under that pile of garbage. ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/22 "2005-03-15T19:19:22Z")
> [@Sample\_the\_Dog](#): > > Maybe this is another thread, but on the side, I’d be interested in knowing what other terms people have for this kind of… uh, lifestyle? > > I’ve lived outside the US, but within US borders I’ve only lived in the deep south, so I’m often unsure when I’m using regionalisms. One of my employees grew up calling these folks “jahoonks” (spelling?). Her mom was Polish, and she always thought this word was one that everyone used. Anyway, we all use the word now. ---
**Author:** ![Emony\_Dax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Emony\_Dax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emony_Dax)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/23 "2005-03-15T19:49:34Z")
I don’t always return the cart _hangs head in shame_. Sometimes doing so would leave my infant alone in the car for a minute or two and dangit, I guess I’m just paranoid about what could happen. I try to park next to a cart corral so that I don’t end up having to choose between Pissing Off Somebody Who Might Be Watching and Endangering My Baby’s Life, but it ain’t always possible ☹ ---
**Author:** ![High\_Cheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8797f3/32.png) [@High\_Cheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/High_Cheese)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/24 "2005-03-15T20:01:57Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > It must be difficult for you, **Sample**. How on earth do you get by in this world of people that are so terribly inferior to you? How do you get by never criticizing someone else when you see them do something that you feel isn’t right or that you don’t agree with? Your implication that you are above criticizing others, or that you never would criticize others, is pretty high-handed itself. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/25 "2005-03-15T20:03:18Z")
> [@Emony Dax](#): > > I don’t always return the cart _hangs head in shame_. Sometimes doing so would leave my infant alone in the car for a minute or two and dangit, I guess I’m just paranoid about what could happen. I try to park next to a cart corral so that I don’t end up having to choose between Pissing Off Somebody Who Might Be Watching and Endangering My Baby’s Life, but it ain’t always possible ☹ You give a valid excuse for not going any real distance (abandoning your child) to go to the “cart” area. But there’s no excuse for leaving a acart inside the area of a valid parking space. It can easily be pushed up onto an island. I can’t recall the last time I’ve been in a shopping center that was pure “flat”. But I guess they do exist… ---
**Author:** ![High\_Cheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8797f3/32.png) [@High\_Cheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/High_Cheese)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/26 "2005-03-15T20:09:31Z")
> [@Emony Dax](#): > > I don’t always return the cart _hangs head in shame_. Sometimes doing so would leave my infant alone in the car for a minute or two and dangit, I guess I’m just paranoid about what could happen. I try to park next to a cart corral so that I don’t end up having to choose between Pissing Off Somebody Who Might Be Watching and Endangering My Baby’s Life, but it ain’t always possible ☹ Leaving carts adrift in parking lots isn’t all that heinous, especially with semi-valid excuses that you put foward. But as **BwanaBob** espoused, please anchor them so they don’t seek out my vehicle and de-pretty it. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/27 "2005-03-15T20:41:41Z")
> [@Emony Dax](#): > > I try to park next to a cart corral Me too. It’s just easier that way. However, have you ever thought of maybe returning the cart while your baby is still in it and then removing your baby and carrying him back to the car? You know who else is sorry? People who can’t park. I was at a mall the other day and people just did not seem to know how to park. I admit the lines weren’t always 100% visible through the snow, but c’mon people! If all the cars are parked straight, what do you suppose the odds are of every single one of them being wrong and you, the only right-thinking person in the whole city, must now take it upon yourself to set them straight by parking at an angle? Or how 'bout the people who have pulled too far forward, blocking the space in front of them? WTF? Or their Evil Opposites, the people who don’t pull forward enough (one causes the other, I’m sure, the bastards) and wind up leaving the entire rear half of their car hanging out in the driveway? Which leads me to the people who can’t seem to tell which way you’re supposed to drive in parking lots, especially in angled parking lots. As if the painted arrows on the ground weren’t enough, you can tell which way you should be going by the angle of the parked cars. Are you fucking dense? I just deleted about six paragraphs of car and driving related rants before realizing that this isn’t really the place. The people above though, they really are sorry. Or maybe not, but I can’t let it go. Honestly, how hard is it to park a damn car? And people who don’t wash their kids up, what’s up with them? Crusty snot and food particles all over their face, greasy hair, dirty fingernails, etc. Gross. They can’t do it themselves, asshole, and you, as a parent, are obligated to do it for them. These are the kids that get picked on in grade school for smelling funny and wearing dirty clothes, and grow up to become Stinky, the middle/junior highschooler that no one can stand to be around because of the reek, since his parents never taught him anything about personal hygiene, so then he’s an outcast who gets food thrown at him at lunch and nasty things shoved in his backpack/locker, and then he steals a gun from Dad’s closet and shoots 18 of his classmates before offing himself. Think about that, you lazy fucks. Lazy parents might be the sorriest people on the planet. ---
**Author:** ![Sample\_the\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Sample\_the\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sample_the_Dog)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/28 "2005-03-15T20:45:03Z")
> [@High Cheese](#): > > How do you get by never criticizing someone else when you see them do something that you feel isn’t right or that you don’t agree with? Your implication that you are above criticizing others, or that you never would criticize others, is pretty high-handed itself. Maybe we should give **Smeg** a break. Perhaps he’s deduced my IRL ID and knows what a self-righteous a\*\*\*\*\*e I am. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Emony\_Dax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Emony\_Dax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emony_Dax)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/29 "2005-03-15T20:56:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Me too. It’s just easier that way. However, have you ever thought of maybe returning the cart while your baby is still in it and then removing your baby and carrying him back to the car? Hmm. This would work in decent weather. Let’s see…here in my neck of the woods it has rained 7 of the last 8 weekends (when I do most of my shopping). Before that it was too freakin’ cold to carry a baby around outside any more than necessary. Yes, I **always** prop the cart up on an island if I do not take it to a corral–geez, I’m not one of **those** sorry people who just leave them scattered around the lot. I am of a more lofty, civilized sorry sort. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/30 "2005-03-16T17:47:41Z")
I’m sorry, **Emony** , but I’m calling bullshit on that. If it’s too cold out to carry your baby from the cart corral to your car, your baby should be better dressed for the weather. Having kids sounds like a huge hassle, but it doesn’t exempt anybody from the rules of the society we’re all trying to live in. ---
**Author:** ![phall0106](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phall0106/32/5934_2.png) [@phall0106](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phall0106)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/31 "2005-03-16T19:51:31Z")
How about people who don’t buckle their kids into carseats/seat belts? Absent parents who never show up for parent-teacher meetings, or baseball games, or birthday parties? That ever so lovely neighbor who wants to put an end to the stray cats by leaving a bit of antifreeze here and there. The parents who have no clue their son is playing in my house with my own child, and wouldn’t care even if they did know. The students who ride the city bus to school, but can’t find the energy to pull their asses off the seat and offer it to an older woman, forcing her to stand and ride to work herself. The dickhead who honked in anger, complete with the scowling face, the screaming out the window, and the raised finger when my car broke down in the street. Think I wanted to spend that Saturday afternoon blocking traffic? Asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Emony\_Dax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Emony\_Dax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emony_Dax)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/32 "2005-03-16T20:31:38Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m sorry, Emony, but I’m calling bullshit on that. If it’s too cold out to carry your baby from the cart corral to your car, your baby should be better dressed for the weather. Having kids sounds like a huge hassle, but it doesn’t exempt anybody from the rules of the society we’re all trying to live in. Sorry you don’t like it. And ohmigosh, I’m now trying to “exempt myself from the rules of society” because I sometimes park the cart on an island instead of in the corral? Give me a frickin’ break :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Sample\_the\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Sample\_the\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sample_the_Dog)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/33 "2005-03-16T20:42:44Z")
::Desperately attempts to find worms and get them back in the can:: ::Fails:: ::Notes message from Pandora on cellphone:: ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/34 "2005-03-16T20:43:34Z")
> [@Emony Dax](#): > > I don’t always return the cart _hangs head in shame_. Sometimes doing so would leave my infant alone in the car for a minute or two and dangit, I guess I’m just paranoid about what could happen. I try to park next to a cart corral so that I don’t end up having to choose between Pissing Off Somebody Who Might Be Watching and Endangering My Baby’s Life, but it ain’t always possible ☹ Why is leaving your baby in the car for a minute or two endangering its life? I assume you can lock the car. What exactly are you afraid of? ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/35 "2005-03-16T20:54:37Z")
> [@Sample\_the\_Dog](#): > > ::Desperately attempts to find worms and get them back in the can:: > > ::Fails:: > > ::Notes message from Pandora on cellphone:: It appears you have run afoul of Zymurgy’s Law of Expanding Systems Dynamics which states– _Once you have opend a can of worms it is impossible to re-can them except by using a larger can._ ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/36 "2005-03-16T21:39:41Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > Why is leaving your baby in the car for a minute or two endangering its life? I assume you can lock the car. What exactly are you afraid of? This is something I kinda wondered. I would occasionally leave Fang in the car and return a cart to the caddy. I figured he was safe as long as I could see the car. But then I remembered that now-a-days it is totally drilled into parents that if you don’t keep a constant eye on your child 24/7 then you are somehow an awful parent. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2005, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/37 "2005-03-17T01:40:24Z")
> [@Emony Dax](#): > > Sorry you don’t like it. And ohmigosh, I’m now trying to “exempt myself from the rules of society” because I sometimes park the cart on an island instead of in the corral? Give me a frickin’ break :rolleyes: I suppose this is the reasoning people who takes shortcuts use to rationalize their behaviour. I’m not trying to be snarky here; you have reasons for doing what you do, and they seem reasonable to you. I believe that most people we see doing things that we don’t particularly agree with have their own set of reasons for doing them. ---
**Author:** ![LindyHopper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@LindyHopper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LindyHopper)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2005, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/38 "2005-03-17T18:21:45Z")
> [@phall0106](#): > > That ever so lovely neighbor who wants to put an end to the stray cats by leaving a bit of antifreeze here and there. :eek: If I had a neighbor like that, I’d be outside with the hose, in all weather, diluting the antifreeze puddles to the point of non-toxicity. And I might even save a little hose-spray for the neighbor himself. :wally ---
**Author:** ![freakstasy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c57346/32.png) [@freakstasy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freakstasy)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2005, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/39 "2005-03-20T06:43:04Z")
_When I see people walking through a door that someone has held open for them (usually me) and not thanking the person, I just respond with a loud-enough “You’re welcome.”_ Given the choice of stomaching those ever-ubiquitous cathedral doors :rolleyes:, or those who don’t understand that the point of being nice or friendly is not to bask in the glow of anticipated gratitude–guess which one I’d choose? As a deaf person I don’t always feel confident enough to use my voice in public in unprompted situations. Hence, not always quick, loud, or clear enough with the hearty “Thanks for opening the door that was right in front of me!” or the relieved sigh of “Gee–you sure prevented the swingy thing from knocking me unconscious.” I’ve been glared at and sarcastically you’re-welcomed a many times. Don’t get me wrong. "Thank you"s are nice if you need the attention bad enough to shrill about it; but when it comes down to it, there are people out there being made to feel second-rate for…walking through a doorway. That’s pretty farked up. So to offset the thank-you whores of the world, I prefer to be friendly without looking back at the recpient of my noble act to see whether they give a shit. ---
**Author:** ![Sample\_the\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Sample\_the\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sample_the_Dog)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2005, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405/40 "2005-03-20T20:40:37Z")
Reported in [News of the Weird](http://www.newsoftheweird.com), 20 March 2005: > [@News of the Weird](#): > > Porchia Bennett of Philadelphia was **last visited by her father, Lester Trapp, when she was 1** , then **virtually abandoned by her drug-addicted mother, Tiffany Bennett, at age 2** , to fall to the custody of Tiffany’s drug-addicted sister and the sister’s boyfriend, who lived in rat-infested squalor and who are now charged with killing Porchia at age 3 through starvation and physical abuse. In February, **Trapp and his parents filed a lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia for failing to protect Porchia (with Tiffany also entitled to share the proceeds as Porchia’s “beneficiary”)**. [Philadelphia Daily News, 2-25-05] Emphasis mine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-are-just-plain-sorry/294405.md?page=3)