As a grocery worker: Please don’t do this. I admit it’s pretty funny, but it has consequences past those to the customer. This cow, after getting home, will search for the item. When she doesn’t find it, she will call the store to talk to the manager. She will yell at the manager that the cashier doesn’t know how to do her damn job, how hard is it to scan a bottle of garlic powder anyway, for God’s sake. The manager will then discipline the cashier, which depending on the manager and store policy may range from “Be careful” to “Have a week off. By the way, we won’t be paying you.” So, please don’t mess with other people’s carts. Ditto on the moving carts, because then 50/50 we’d end up comping the order (after having an employee recreate the order) because the assumption will be that one of the employees go-backed an unattended cart.
“Hypnotard!” That’s absolutely fantastic. I’m stealing that for real life, and then everyone will think I’m as brilliant as I think you are. Wheee!
My pet peeve is people who obliviously stupid people who walk in the bike lane on campus. Like if there are two yellow lines, they MUST walk between them, not beside them on the huge expanses of concrete.
I’ve gotten really good at grazing people just barely as I whiz past, sometimes knocking their backpacks off, but the best is when my brakes are a little wet from rain or something and I come to a huge, screeching stop behind them. The noise is like squealing tires on the highway and they jump a mile in terror. Sometimes, it feels so good to be an asshole.
ZJ
The phenomenon that drives me batshit:
I’m entering a parking garage behind someone else.
That driver turns the first corner and notices someone with packages approaching her car.
The driver stops to wait for that space.
In a parking garage.
Blocking everyone behind him so he can get a space on level A that’s super close to the elevator. Because, of course, parking on level C or E, where there are a zillion open spaces, would be so inconvenient.
And I’m not talking about days around Christmas when the garage is filled to capacity. I’m talking about weekday afternoons when there are visible spaces around further corners.
Maddening!
Try this experiment next time you’re in Vegas (dunno if it would work in Atlantic City or at an Indian casino, but you could give it a shot and report back to me).
You’re walking at a brisk pace through a casino, and you come up behind a pair or small group of slow-moving people walking single file. As you move to the left to pass, you step into the peripheral vision of the hindmost, who immediately takes a fast step or two to catch up with his/her companions and walk alongside them. It’s as though they see you and suddenly realize they’re not blocking traffic and must take steps to remedy this situation.
Unbefreakinlievable
As a Stroller Person[sup]tm[/sup] this drives me up the wall.
I’m the crazy lady you see winging her way around the other Stroller People because they are moving at a crawl and don’t get the clue that maybe, just MAYBE not every Stroller Person is ready to amble as they are. I also almost run over other Stroller People as they try to get on the elevator while I get off. Hello!? 2 strollers 1 door does not work. It goes MUCH faster if you let me off first then you get on. I do that! Why can’t you?
As for Subways? Ha. You think that’s bad, you try taking a STROLLER on the trains. I’ve stopped bothering and have to run over people’s toes (I do give a fair warning though. I say excuse me and wait patiently but if I’m ignored I just move right in). Before I became a Stroller Person I thought it was bad, it’s worse now. Especially during rush hour which I avoid if I have any choice in the matter. Sometimes I can’t though, because of appointments.
I get stuck behind these sorts of people all damn day. The most egregious example I can recall involved the dreaded conversation in the elevator door. I’m waiting for an elevator down to the first floor, as are a few other people. An elevator arrives, door opens, and the man inside recognizes a woman waiting for the elevator, and proceeds to catch up on whatever with her, while blocking the door. After some time, he decides that he’d rather continue the conversation than continue his descent on the elevator, so he steps out of the elevator. And stands directly in front of it, while the doors close.
Another example was on an escalator. Narrow escalator, only room to ride single file, and the person at the head of the line feels like standing and riding. Oh, well, it’ll still get me there. But then the escalator stops. The person at the head of the line looks confused and takes a good fifteen seconds to realize that he can continue up the steps without any help from the escalator.
And of course there are the idiots who walk in large groups down the bike path and make no effort to allow bikes past, even though the walking path is only ten goddam feet away.
Message to everyone who has posted in this thread: Watch the old blood pressure!
I can also suggest living in a large Asian city and using public transport - this will cure you of your rage. Nothing is as bad as using the Tokyo underground at rush hour or a Beijing bus on people’s republic day or trying to buy a train ticket in Shanghai station.
Eh? I was always very envious of Tokyo - the people there actually queue up and wait for everyone to get off before getting on the train! And they remove their backpacks and place them between their feet to give other commuters more space!
What was your bad experience with them?
And how about those who need to have meetings, conferences, etc. on the stairs? One on each side, so that not only the space but both railings are blocked?
I take the stairs to try to get some exercise, but am sort of balance-challenged, so I hold onto the railing. The other day I encountered a set of 3 oblivions taking up the whole stairway. I stopped, still holding on to the railing, and said, “Excuse me, please.” So they scrunched in just enough to allow a narrow pathway down the middle. Hello? I should have grabbed onto someone’s arm for balance but was too shy or something.
I hate those damn drifters, too. And their semi-stationary cousins. These people, while accomplishing no net movement, have channeled their cumulative random molecular oscillations up to the personal scale. They can also fuel this motion remotely from my own energy, as the closer I get, the more unpredictable and forceful their movements become. I suspect an undiscovered aspect of Heisenberg’s principle. My only consolation is that, one day, these people will visit Niagara Falls.
And what is up with the “cutters”? These are the people who, if they sense that they will soon have to cross your path, will cross it at exactly the right rate that they walk right into you. Even if they are fifty feet away from you as you approach each other, once they get their eye on a bench or a door somewhere vaguely on the other side of you, will slowly veer towards you instead of cutting over ahead of time or cutting over once you have passed each other. I don’t know if they are just trying to be more efficient by walking directly towards their desination at all times, or if “buzzing” you is some sort of dominance ritual, but they are morons. Do you drive diagonally down the street as you prepare to enter a parking lot 50 feet ahead on the left?
I tend to ignore anyone who is in cow mode and walk straight through them, this may seem rude, but anyone who has lived and worked in London will understand the necessity of such a mentality. I am always polite and appologise to anyone who gets knocked over or trampled, but I assure myself they are simply learning an important life lesson (don’t stand in front of a moving Bippy).
Oh! Makes sense, thought I was going mad. Thanks!
How about:
the Standing At The Gate Counter And Talking To The Gate Agent For 20 Minutes About A Completely Different Flight From The One That Is Going To Depart From That Gate In 30 Minutes And The Person Behind the (Standing At The Gate …(etc.) …Person) Needs To Check Into The Flight That Is About To Leave, But Cannot, And Thereby Gets Bumped…People.
This happened to me on a trip from LAX to SFO once. As an alternative, I took an Oakland flight, hastened from Oakland to SFO to meet my luggage…which was lost.
I really don’t understand any situation like the grocery store or the bank or the post office or the DMV where it seems to take the person in front of me half an hour to complete their transaction and then it’s my turn and it takes 5 minutes. How does that work?
Starts Oh, sorry, didn’t realize you wanted something from that part of the aisle, you stood there so quietly, it seemed you were looking for something else. Why didn’t you say “Pardon me, I need to reach something in front of you.” instead of standing there fuming? I’d have moved. I realize I’m being pokey, and that others may need to get things, 2 people have already come and gone, but they wanted things from another part of the aisle, and I didn’t even have to pull my cart to the other side.
I’m speaking of the time I had to check over the whole damned soup area, carefully reading labels, trying to find PLAIN, normal beef/chicken broth, not low salt, not low fat, and not flavored in some weird way. Crouching down to scan the bottom aisle, and standing up again with a gimp knee can be problematic if my joints are aching. I checked all the brands, even the store brand, and couldn’t find any, probably spent ten minutes looking too. 
It’s possible to be assertive without being aggressive. Maybe that doesn’t work well in all settings, and I should feel fortunate that it does work here. People here will just say “Excuse me, I need to reach something” or “Could you hand me some <insert item name here>?” I’ve done so myself, and had it said to me. Just giving the flip side of the coin on that. 
I can understand being annoyed at someone who can’t figure out, when the escalator is not working, that they can still climb the steps. But I’ve seen the first attitude before, too, and it puzzles me.
Is it now considered rude to “ride” the escalator instead of actively climbing the steps when the escalator is working? I don’t think I’ve ever climbed a working escalator in my life. I always thought actually walking up (or down) an escalator was unsafe, because of the possibility of tripping and ending up with a hand crushed or a piece of clothing getting caught up in the mechanism and being either ripped off or strangling you.
Getting on the bus…this happens on busy ski resort shuttles. People refuse to move towards the back while people are getting on, thus cramming the front five feet of the bus solid until the driver has to get up and tell people to move back. These idiots are watching people cram right in front of them, with empty space behind them, and stand there like their feet are nailed to the floor.
How long ago was that? Are you sure you are talking about peak rush hour?
I admittedly lived in the far North but whenever visiting Tokyo, dreaded rush time, or worse, leaving a baseball stadium after the game. Squishy and pushy, often wandering hands and very easy to not be able to get out at your station. Admittedly, compared to other Asian countries, the Japanese are queuers. However they can resort to pushing when necessary.
Oh hell yes. What the HELL is wrong with this country (or something), that we have so many people exhibiting behaviour like that throughout this thread??? The elevator people, as county described, are not just rude, but behaving ILLOGICALLY. Sheesh, even if all the people waiting to get OFF, stopped and let everyone on, who insisted upon getting on RIGHT THEN, they’ll then STI(LL have to wait until those people exit. Not to mention that they can’t really FIT, if the elevator happens to have arrived full to capacity.
Argggh.
My mom is alway saying “yes, but people are always going to be this way, why drive yourself nuts over it”? (a true statement, HOWEVER…).
What drive me nuts the worst about it is “WHY?”??? It’s not just the stupidity that bugs me, it’s the “why are they doing this? it’s not like it will benefit them anyway” part that is the most annoying.
I don’t get the “why” either. How do these people live that are so completely unaware of anyone else around them? Are their lives so much easier and more wonderful than ours, because nobody and nothing ever gets in their way because they don’t notice anything around them? “Ignorance is bliss,” I guess.