A short list: (It could be much longer)
*Parents who actively ignore it when their children engage in all sorts of anti-social behavior that’s giving every other adult in the area a facial tic: teasing animals, playing with expensive breakables, screaming like wild Indians, slapping and kicking each other. Sometimes they even have the nerve to try to illicit sympathy from you about what unspeakable brats their offspring are. IT’S YOUR FAULT, YOU ASS! I often get the impression they would be grateful if I would intervene somehow. IT’S NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY! YOU ARE THE PARENT. *As bad if not worse, the kind who think standing 10 feet saying placidly over and over again, “Don’t do that, sweetie. Don’t do that, sweetie,” is going to alter the kid’s behavior one little bit. GET REAL.
*People whose little kids have snot all over their faces, and the parents obviously notice and then don’t bother to do anything about it. That never would have lasted 10 seconds around my mom, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach. Poor kids.
*Watching frail-looking, old ladies or pregnant women wander up and down the a bus or trolley aisle looking for a place to sit, and then end up hanging onto one of those little straps for dear life as the vehicle lurches into motion, while young, strong, healthy people (both male and female) sit comfortably in their seats.
*People who give you a dirty look when you ask them to turn their music down. They’re not supposed to be playing it on the bus at all, and I would have rather asked them to turn it off, but I was trying to be cool and respectful of their right to listen to it. Why can’t they respect my right to leave a mode of public transportation with my hearing intact?
*People who pick all of one color (M&Ms) or flavor (jelly beans) out of a batch everyone’s sharing. M&Ms: They all taste the same. Get over it! Jelly beans: why do you get to indulge your neurosis at everyone else’s expense? What if someone else happens to like the purple ones, too?
*Women who somehow manage to subsist on a half a leaf of lettuce every other month, who react with disapproving disbelief and a self-righteous shake of their heads when they observe that you are about to consume an entire plateful of food!
*Women who dress like hookers and then have the nerve to complain that no one respects their intelligence. Be honest with yourself, sweetie, if you dress like Miss T&A, you could win a Nobel Peace prize and no one would notice (or care). That’s the way the world works, I don’t like it either, but it’s hard to imagine that fact escaped your notice all the way up until the point when you restocked your wardrobe at Sluts’R’Us. Oh, the injustice!
[sings]These are a few of my least favorite things . . .[/sings]
