I think the angry tone in your post says a lot about why people might seem reluctant to sit next to you on a bus.
Ford offers a smoker’s package for all of their vehicles. It’s just a lighter and an ash tray insert that goes in a cup holder.
This annoys the crap out of me too, although I believe pedestrians always have the right of way in parking lots, so I just deal with it, as annoying as it is. What I don’t get is the folks who seem to INTENTIONALLY walk in the middle of the lane, SLOWLY. You don’t have to be an asshole about it, come on… move 3 feet to either side!
I’ve bumped into my fair share of people (especially in NYC it seems) because of this. Walk on the right hand side. If you’re walking on my side, YOU move, or you get the bruise.
And of course, an obvious one: people parking in no parking zones. I don’t give a shit if it’s for “just a minute”. If you’re parking (note, I have tolerance for “standing”, i.e., someone still being at the wheel while say a passenger runs out for something), park IN A PARKING SPOT. Those red-painted curbs are there for A REASON. If there’s an emergency and an ambulance or fire truck needs to get through (perhaps YOU YOURSELF had a nice heart attack while “running in for just a sec”) they NEED THAT SPACE to get through quickly, or to be closest to those who need help. Don’t be an asshat. The other day I walked into the mall past a lady who parked right in front of Restoration Hardware and walked in – this is at the red curb with the “NO PARKING” all over it. She’s got a nice late-model Mercedes there, I see. So I do my newest thing for this – whip out my cellphone and compose a really nice picture with the red curb, the license plate, and the empty driver’s seat all visible. After I finish, I walk into the store and she is walking with haste toward me, and says “mind telling me why you’re taking a picture of my car?” so I say “no, I don’t mind, but I think it’s obvious you’ve parked in a no-parking zone”. She just stormed off. I really need to register IParkAnywhereILikeBecauseImBetterThanYou.com and post the few pictures I’ve taken so far, there.
And don’t get me started on the people who park at the ends of the rows in the parking spots, beyond the last painted spot. I.e., in the aisle. You deserve whatever damage your car suffers from others pulling out. Or from firetrucks/ambu’s sideswiping you. You do realize there are engineers and planners who mandate the specific size of those aisles for a REASON, right?!
I haven’t read through the whole thread, but I’m betting no one else has mentioned this yet:
Yesterday, at a public activity in a local park, I found myself sitting across from an older fellow who had a tissue in his right hand. His left hand was empty but sported a fingernail at least half an inch long on his pinkie. He spent at least five minutes taking that fingernail and inserting it into his left nostril, carefully dig dig digging for a few seconds, then pulling his pinkie out and meticulously wiping the fingernail in the tissue. Not once, but repeatedly for at least five minutes. He was still going at it when I couldn’t stomach it any longer and moved my seat.
Agh - that is so gross. There was a comic who had part of his routine something about homeless people picking their noses in the street because they didn’t have cars. Seriously, people, the windows in most cars are transparent; we can see you digging for gold there.
Heh. Yeah, that would be good.
I used to work in a retail store, in a strip mall, in the 80s. I can’t tell you how many people would stroll in and tell us (the clerks and manager) to keep an eye on their car which was parked in the fire lane, so they wouldn’t get a ticket. Right. We had absolutely nothing better to do than to keep an eye on people’s cars, we didn’t have to wait on other customers (or the ones who wanted us to watch their cars, even), we didn’t have to put stock out, we didn’t have to do any of a zillion other things in that store. And even if we did see a cop or meter maid, watching the car wouldn’t do any good. If we’d alerted the customer, or went out ourselves, that car was STILL gonna get a ticket.
What was even better were the people who’d wander in and tell us to keep an eye on the car because they’d left their kids in the car. Usually sleeping babies. This was in Las Vegas, and sometimes in the summer, where the temperature would get above 110 F. In a car, the temperature could become much higher than that. Anyone for Baked Baby? Yeah, it’s a pain to try on clothes when you’ve got a cranky infant or child with you, but maybe you should plan ahead, and either take along a friend, or drop off the rugrat at a sitter’s.
Speaking of people parking illegally, this one doesn’t piss me off, but I get a good laugh out of it for the stupidity factor.
More often than not, people will put their hazards on when parking in a red zone. Why? Do they think this makes it all okay? Like a cop or a meter maid is gonna think “well, I was going to give that car a ticket, but since they turned their hazards light on…” :rolleyes:
Maybe a bit unique to Taiwan, but people around here will ride their scooters the wrong way down a one way street with one foot sticking out, as if they’re just making a short hop in search of a parking space. All the way down the street, for a mile or more.
On occasion, I’ve had to pull over to the shoulder, or to a fire lane, or someplace else where you’re not supposed to park, and put on my hazards. I do this, not in hopes of getting out of a ticket (I’m usually trying to look up an address or directions) but as an indication that I’m standing still, where a reasonable driver wouldn’t expect to see someone else standing. In other words, when I do it, I’m doing it to call attention to myself. I’ve never had to actually park in such a place, though.
Back when I was in Switzerland, they had this advertisement campaign, with pictures such as a bedroom with soda cans all over the furniture and floor. The slogan was “if you wouldn’t drop it at home, why do you drop it on the street?”
Would you drop that butt on your floor? No? Then dropping it on the floor anywhere else is littering.
GESancMan, I don’t even know what a red zone is, but there are places where parking is illegal, stopping isn’t. The difference between both is defined by the duration and because there are either things/people going on and off the vehicle or the emergency lights are on. Like I said, I don’t know whether a red zone forbids stopping, but that means those drivers may not know it either and be used to “any funny colored curbs mean you can stop but not park”.
I think the fact that you interpreted my tone as angry when I used almost the exact same words that you did is kinda hilarious.
I’m not angry, I’m curious. Why do you feel that your right to take your time supersedes anyone else’s right to sit? Because if I realized that I’d been obliviously taking up a seat with my bag while the train filled up, my attitude would be “Oh crap, my bad.” and I’d certainly hurry to rectify the situation.
I have recently seen cases where drivers are parked in a parking lot so as to block in other drivers-- a bit like this, but with newer, larger cars and in a large and not-that-crowded parking lot. Crooked parking jobs like this are also super common in my area, and there are at least two or three coworkers of mine who will park in a crooked manner while angled too far to the edge so that it’s a tight squeeze in our generously sized parking spaces. The only real benefit to me on this is that I am a LOT better at parking properly in tight spaces than I used to be.
On another note, occasionally I will be attempting to shop in a store or will be walking along a strip mall and I will get the most sour and grumpy looks from passerby-- I’m not unusually attired or that out of the ordinary, but apparently the presence of another human being is enough for them to grimace at any passerby. It’s the strangest thing, and incredibly rude.
Seconded.
Library book sale last weekend. They ought to ban two things from those:
Boxes. People leave them in the aisles and they are dangerous. Particularly those filled wit books that are abandoned like orphans.
Whatever those hand held devices are that scan the barcode and tell people something. What are they, too freakng lazy to read the spine? Have they lost the ability to see in three dimensions? They are so concentrated on the object that they don’t see people trying to get by.
Meh. At least he didn’t wipe the fingernail on his tongue.
There is a popular iPhone app that allows you to scan the barcode from a product; it then returns information about that product, including prices for it at various online retailers. So I am guessing that the library sale people are trying to figure out what the going price is for a particular book, for whatever reason.
(I am not defending the behavior; just providing a bit of explanation. If you are going to do this, you should have the common courtesy to not block the aisle while doing so.)
This wasn’t the library sale people, these were the customers. Obviously book dealers trying to determine a resale value.
Whatever it is, it sucks. Both the aisle blocking and ignoring other people behaviors.
They’re trying to find out how much those books are going for on Amazon to see if they’re getting a deal (or if they can resell it for a profit).
Look, I’ve said I would move it. I just object to the foot tapping impatience, the move it now or else, and the idea that you might move it for me if I don’t move fast enough for you. These are the things that make your posts sound angry.
I never said I would leave it there when someone needed a seat, and moving at my own pace (which is what I said) is not the same as “taking my time”.
Since we’ll probably (I hope) never actually sit next to each other on a bus, maybe you could let it go now?
I took a different, later train this morning than I usually do. There were 3 young people who were each taking up 3 seats—completely sprawled out, not even acknowledging that there were other people who might want to sit. Your bag now seems like small potatoes to me. 