Thank you for wanting to help. (Even if you didn't.)

In My Humble Opinion
21

Last week at the local horse racing book. It’s got maybe three dozen slot machines, but it also has at least two dozen TV screens showing different tracks, horse racing odds, selections, etc., plus machines that can take your racing wager, and a cashier that can turn your winning wagers into cash.

Buddy and I are sitting at the bar. There are three TVs in front of us, two showing horse racing, and one showing NFL football. No complaints from us on that; we’re playing the two tracks that are being shown, and we’re both big football fans. Great so far.

Well, one race on which we had money was finishing, so we weren’t paying attention to football. But when we looked up at football, it was no longer football—it was hockey. The guy in charge of the TVs was there. “Thought you guys might prefer hockey over football. We’re in Canada, after all, hockey, you know.”

“Noooooo!” Buddy and I shouted. “Get the football game back!” I cannot remember what game it was, but it was close, and we had zero interest in hockey, especially when it involved two teams neither of us could possibly care about (think Nashville and Arizona).

Well, he did, and he apologized. “Sorry, guys, I just assumed you’d prefer hockey.” We refrained from giving our thoughts, and thanked him for putting football back on. He said he’d check with us before any future channel changes on the TVs on that side of the bar. I said that as long as he could find Santa Anita, Del Mar, Woodbine, and Golden Gate Fields (and others); as well as NFL/CFL football, and the Toronto Blue Jays, we’re all okay. Just don’t assume that we want hockey.

22

I’ve been the one holding the door and made the person behind me feel obligated to hurry their step. But if the person is immediately behind me, it feels unfathomably rude to just let the door slam in their face. So I always do a complex physics calculation in my head for someone behind me, involving their distance, walking speed, ambient temperature, wind direction, etc. etc… Usually it’s an easy call whether to hold the door or not, but sometimes there’s a “to hold or not to hold?” in-between zone.

A corollary is when I’m walking, a road crossing is coming up, and a car stops at the sign and proceeds to wait for me to cross when I’m not even at the crossing yet. If they had just stopped, then proceeded normally, we both could have done our thing, with no extra long stop on their part, or hurrying on my part. But now I feel obligated to jog through the crossing.

23

I’ve gone through a door while lost in thought or reading something on my phone, then let the door close in the face of someone right behind me because I did not know they were there.

Likewise, I walk slower than my gf. Many’s the time she has walked through a door and let it slam in my face as I’m playing catch-up.

24

What about old men drivers at four way stop signs, all playing, ‘No. You go, please!’, all out of order of who actually should be going.

Old people pedestrians do the same to drivers at crosswalks and stop signs;
‘You go ahead!’
‘No, it’s your go.’
‘But you go ahead I don’t mind!’
‘Just go! Please!’

25

This sounds like my dad. The last time my parents came to visit, after dinner he went over to the kitchen and ran a sink full of water and was preparing to wash all the dishes by hand. Even though: 1) I have a dishwasher. 2) All but maybe one or two of the items he was preparing to wash can go in the dishwasher. So all that really needed to be done was to load and run the dishwasher. I had to go tell him not to wash everything, and proceeded to load the dishes into the dishwasher. Then I allowed him to hand wash the two items that actually needed to be hand washed, since he had already filled the sink with water. Normally when I have so few items to wash by hand I just leave them in the since until I have more stuff to wash, since I feel like running a sink full of water just for two things is kind of wasteful (I live in California where conserving water is important).

I’m honestly unsure why Dad though he had to hand wash all my dishes, since my parents have a dishwasher at home, and they regularly use it. I think he just wanted to feel like he was helping, even if that meant doing work that literally didn’t need to be done at all.

26

As to the general “helping” around the house when you’re a houseguest …

Here’s a theory I have that hasn’t been mentioned. To wit:

As a guest, there are fairly few polite ways to disengage from whatever other social stuff is going on. Are the other people nattering on about football or knitting or politics or some show you don’t watch? You can’t really say “I’m going for a walk” or “I’m going to faceplant in my phone for an hour.” But you can say “I’ll go wash the dishes; there’s got to be lots of them”, or simply go do it while the others can hear where you are and what you’re doing.

IOW, it’s a socially acceptable way to buy some temporary privacy when you’ve reached your recommended daily allowance of family chitchat.

Does this resonate with anyone?

27

Or 'Sconies… :smirk:

28

Among most of my social group, yes you can say “I’m going for a walk.” This may not get you privacy, as others may volunteer to join you; but it stands a reasonable chance of producing a change of subject if that’s the problem, and if it doesn’t you can try walking slower or faster than the rest of the crew.

Going to wash the dishes may well get somebody coming to help you. It’ll probably thin down the numbers, though; and maybe they’ll want to talk about something else.

29

AKA Hell.

30

Related to this is when I’m biking, and a driver is crossing an intersection, or pulling out of a driveway, ahead of me… and then they notice me coming, so they stop to let me past. After they’ve already pulled out far enough to block my path. And, because a bike is slower than a car, they do all this when, if they had just kept going, they’d have been well clear by the time I got there.

31

Oh, that reminds me of the time I was biking down a relatively quiet residential street. A driver passed me on my left, and then shortly after passing me he put on his signal to turn right at the next intersection. Except when he got to where he wanted to turn, he stopped to let me past him before making the turn. Except I’m thinking “Dude, I’m not riding to the right of a vehicle that looks like it’s about to turn right. That’s pretty much asking to get hit.” So I stopped behind him and waited for him to turn. And he just sat there waiting for me to pass him. Finally, just to break the “No, you go first” stalemate, I went around him on his left (in case he picked that moment to decide to go), and turned right in front of his car (my route took me down the same street he was turning on to) so he just ended up passing me again once we started moving again.

And like you said, since he was going faster than me, he had plenty of time to make the turn in front of me before I even got to the corner, if he had just turned right away and not stopped to let me by. ETA: Hell, instead of waiting for me to catch up to him before making the turn, he could have just slowed down a bit and not passed me in the first place. It would have taken the same amount of time.

32

From observation, I conclude that most people really have a very hard time understanding closure rates between two moving objects and therefore when or whether a collision is going to happen.

IOW, @Chronos’s driver pulling out literally could not tell whether them continuing would result in you hitting their rear quarter panel or not. Only by stopping not in your obvious direct path can they remove all doubt of whether they’ll collide.

Same for @WildaBeast’s turner. They have no ability to predict when you’ll get to were they are. So they have to stop and wait for you to go by. That’s when they’ll be sure, and not a moment sooner.

idjits the lot of 'em.

33

I missed this post earlier, but I have another anecdote. Back before the pandemic I was commuting to work on a six lane arterial street. I’m in the center lane. Traffic in the left lane is stopped, but I can see that the light up ahead is green, and my lane is clear, so I don’t think much of it. It is rush hour after all, so I assume traffic in that lane is probably just backed up because the light at the next intersection is red and it’s backed up all the way past this one. So I proceed through the green light, and come damn close to hitting a pedestrian crossing against the light. As in had to swerve into the thankfully unoccupied right lane to avoid her close. Because that why traffic in the left lane was stopped; she had probably gotten trapped in the median and someone thought they were being a good Samaritan by stopping for her, but they really just created this incredibly dangerous situation.

34

I had something sorta similar happen recently.

Medium-sized arterial street. 35 MPH speed limit, two lanes each way, plus single lane left turn pockets with green/red arrows each way. I’m approaching the red light in the right lane as number 1 in my low sports car. There’s a single SUV stopped at the red light in the left lane. The red light is really stale; I’ve been watching it for awhile, so I’m delaying braking expecting it to go green at any moment. Sure enough, just before I start late-ish braking the light goes green. No brakes for me; yaay!

I did not immediately pick up on it, but the guy in the left lane doesn’t immediately go. Nothing unusual here in the land where everyone is reading their phone at every red light and many green lights. I sorta saw the driver gesture as I’m coming alongside at 35mph.

Just in time to see somebody turning left across in front of me/us. He’d blown his left turn arrow and the guy next to me had helpfully waved this idjit across in front of him and right into my path. If I’d been an ordinary sleepy driver driving an ordinary car I’d have t-boned this late turner dead center in his right door.

I got lucky and my mega-antiskid braking & turn towards his stern was enough we didn’t swap paint. But it was measured in one hand’s worth of inches. If I’d been one foot farther forward as this situation was developing I’d have crushed my nose into his right rear quarter panel.


We all really need to be aware of passing significantly slower traffic in another lane. Lotta ways that can be something other than somebody txting when they oughta be driving.

35

As with many things there will always be that little gray area where you feel rude to not hold the door but it becomes weird you are holding it for too long. I’ve had it happen to me a few times. It is especially true when those coming to the door do not see you holding it and dawdle for one reason or another and then you have to decide whether to just go or keep holding the door. Inconsiderate jerks :wink:

36

I learned this lesson very early in my driving career. I was driving our full size conversion van in the right lane. The left lane was stopped and backed up for whatever reason, and somebody pulled out from the stopped left lane just in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and fortunately locked all four up, because I skidded straight, and managed to just miss the person, who of course drove off.

Both scared and impressed the girl I was with.

That story has nothing to do with being helpful, so here is one about being “helpful” in traffic.

I was a pedestrian waiting to cross the horizontal street at a T intersection that had cross walks in both directions, and the driver waiting at the stop sign on the vertical part yelled to me that it’s a cross walk, I can just go. Thanks, I think I’ll just step out in front of the 40 MPH cars that aren’t slowing down, even though I have the right of way in the cross walk.

37
38

Buy another garlic press? Doubles the chance of finding one.

39

I’m kinda with his MiL about manually chopping the garlic. That said, I have a garlic press. Different recipes are better with one or the other. I do not think a garlic press is correct for all recipes that call for garlic.

I will say, I have given this garlic chopper (below) as gifts and people seem to really like them. It is a way to chop garlic (not press) that works well. Also does ginger pretty well. (you still need to peel the garlic/ginger)

40

My ex insisted on using a garlic press. It was hard as hell to clean, but she liked it, so that was that.

Now that she’s gone, I’ve returned to old school—a garlic clove, placed under a wide-bladed knife, and a blow from my left fist. Result: smushed garlic, and no need for a hard-to-clean garlic press. Works for me.