I would wait for several minutes if the parking lot is full to capacity or near-capacity. I can’t see why anyone would wait for that long if there are other parking places available.
-FrL-
I don’t really want to get all “urban” here, but this stuff just weighs on me every year that Consumer Season rolls around. If they’re going to splatter the TV with Black Friday stories, then I get my equal time.
I know there are polite ways and impolite ways to behave in a car, but when you are one of the people who are getting into your car on the same day as everyone else, driving the same streets as everyone else, and going to the same malls and consumption settings as everyone else. . .that behavior is just part of the culture.
It’s not the “ugly side” of the culture that we hope we could avoid if it were just for a couple fewer assholes. It is the culture.
There are still places where you can leave your house on foot, buy a cup a coffee from a guy you know, and stroll down a street full of shops owned by people you know. Pick up some unique gifts in nice packages. I know, I live in such a place.
Most times I don’t care about these rants, or I join right in, but this time of year just really disgusts me. People CHOOSE to live in a vehicle-driven culture, and then bitch about that very culture that makes their way of life possible.
It’s really just all the holiday crap that’s got me hot. OK, so we spent the weekend with family, and this one guy in the extended clan has to be 330 pounds. Chows all day Thursday. Chows a TON of turkey and stuffing and pie.
What’s he do on Friday? Gets up at 5:00 AM to drive to a mall to get some shitty camera for his thankless kid. Meanwhile, I’m sleeping in on a day off, and I get up, walk the dog for 30 minutes, and then take a 6 mile jog, and then go bowling for 90 minutes.
While I’m having a beer watching football on Friday after bowling, the miserable fuck has the gall to say to me how nice it must be to be able to drink beer and not put on weight.
Sorry to bah humbug you, but you don’t eat right. You don’t sleep right. You don’t exercise. And you’re teaching your kid to act the same way. This is a guy who had to borrow a considerable amount of money from my father-in-law for a down payment on a second house.
Just consume, consume, consume big man. Beyond your health, beyond your means, beyond any reasonable possibility of enjoying any of it.
I know I sound like Scrooge, but I’m not.
There’s some great stuff about this season. For the last several weeks, I’ve been walking my dog down the “Miracle Block” while they’re getting ready. This is a block of 34th St. in Baltimore where ALL the neighbors decorate their houses and their street. They’re out there chatting, saying “hi”, putting up new stuff, working outdoors, being neighborly, doing shit together as a community.
While some of these folks have pretty questionable taste (big grinch snow globes, and disney characters, e.g.), a lot of these people make their own decorations. You just can’t purchase a sculpture of 8 crabs pulling a sleigh adorned with cans of Old Bay at “Pier One Imports”, not to mention a hubcap Christmas tree. A lot of them decorate their houses the same way as their neighbor’s house. . .not in comptetition to outdo the next guy, but actually working together to make THE COMMUNITY look nice.
What do I see as the flip side of it? People sprinting to be first in line for a ticket for one of 10 discounted TVs in a store of a million products? Getting shot over a Play Station that they can get for cheaper a WEEK later?
So, to sum up: yeah, people act like idiots in parking lots, but you do have a choice.
Treating someone “nicely” while she happily shafts a dozen other people? No thanks. She can go fuck herself - she’s doing it to others, after all. Goose, pot, gander, kettle, etc.
-Joe, never claimed to be nice
I suppose tha, while obvious, the irony of such selfish behavior during the Christmas shopping season is not actually inappropriate, since, if there was no room at the inn, there would have been an overflow in the stable as well. As much as we’d like to imagine the gentle animals surrendering their manger and foraging elsewhere for food, more likely Joseph had to kick them and shout the Aramaic for “fuck off!”
So… do it for the sake of all those people stuck behind her.
With the above post, you indicate your intention to participate in the shafting of dozens of people initiated by th lady in question.
-FrL-
One measure of whether or not I am living closer to my ideals is whether or not I am treating people the way I would like to be treated.
I’m happier when I do that, even when it means I’m being polite to an asshole.
I wish I managed to do it more often. But I’m better at it than I once was.
Wow, the Golden Rule in Bizarro World. “Since she would do unto others so rudely, she would obviously like me to do unto her the same way. Take that!” :rolleyes:
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Photos!! I want photos!!
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Here’s an article that has a photo of the tree.
The street used to have a web site that seems to be down now.
more photos. . .
http://community.webshots.com/album/231687296huZtkf
http://mollygoatwax.typepad.com/photos/baltimore/jimtree.html
The crab sleigh might be new. I can’t find a photo of it.