Innocuous things that make you irrationally angry (a list thread)

:D

Asshole cop directing traffic at Magic game, and doing a horrible job. Light turns green, I'm second in line, but we wait for the cop's signal.

He begins waving and we start going. Inexplicably as soon as I am a quarter of the way through, he's already started waving pedestrians across. He turns, sees me, and ERUPTs into an arm flailing tirade at me.

I was about to flip him off then realized 'disorderly conduct' would not be a good look for me. But wtf, you never wave one car thru by itself, and he clearly did not tell me to stop.

Asshole.

Your Magic: the Gathering games have cops at them?

Abbott writing what I was thinking.

same here

lols.

People who don't say thanks when someone holds open a door, or worse, continue a conversation obliviously as they walk through the magically operated portal...

People who enter the lift and do this to someone who is their junior or presumed social inferior: 'four, please.'

Not that I don't agree with the sidewalk complaints, but just out of idle curiosity, how do y'all behave when you visit an unfamiliar city? Do you walk/move as quickly and efficiently as you do at home?

Pretty much - people who are idiot pedestrians probably spend too much time in cars and I don't drive. Also the people who obstruct the local flow in London or NYC tend to wear the usual low-grade tourist signifiers, which I find helpful in avoiding them from a long way off. I do not dress like that and I don't act like that - coincidence?

Almost certainly. (See also "confirmation bias.")

The most beautifully dressed and behaved tourists are visitors to Venice Bienalle pre-opening events, and they are as gormless as your basic mook in those streets.

I do think the cars thing is really relevant - it's a different sort of spatial awareness than being a pedestrian on an actual city street.

People who enter the lift and do this to someone who is their junior or presumed social inferior: 'four, please.'

― anna sui generis (suzy), Thursday, February 17, 2011 8:35 AM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark

Huh. I sometimes do this in a crowded elevator if I'm not near the buttons and someone is already pressing them. But I usually say, "Could you press 4, please?" and then thank them. I don't think it's a big deal.

Where I work, the unspoken protocol is that whoever is nearest the buttons (usually the first to get on) proactively asks "What floor?" for everyone else.

People who can't figure out how to use the automated kiosks at parking lots downtown. THERE ARE WORDS ON THE SCREEN, READ THEM. THERE'S A PICTURE OF A DOLLAR BILL IN THE PROPER ORIENTATION, LOOK AT IT. NO, IT WILL NOT TAKE YOUR DOLLAR BILL UPSIDE-DOWN IT READS THE FACES WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?

During one of my few trips to NYC, I bunked with some old friends from back home who had moved up there. We went out to eat at a diner one morning and old friend was nearly halfway up the block as I took my first dozen steps. It wasn't because I was in awe of the brick townhouses on Gates Avenue either. I think it has a lot to do with people who are used to walking a lot versus those who don't. Since I've started working in the downtown of my much, much, much smaller city, I walk more. And my speed has gotten faster too.

Not that I don't agree with the sidewalk complaints, but just out of idle curiosity, how do y'all behave when you visit an unfamiliar city? Do you walk/move as quickly and efficiently as you do at home?

I have to admit that no, I don't. I was in England earlier this month and when walking around London I was moving pretty slowly. Not because I was gawking at the buildings and whatnot, but just because unlike New York, I didn't know where I was going. I was looking for a general category of place (record store, somewhere to eat) but didn't have a specific destination in mind. So I was kinda looking around a lot and not just thundering along to my destination. But I stayed the hell out of other people's way as much as possible. Also, I didn't find the streets as crowded as Manhattan's.

I was kind of a mess when I moved to the states, as far as walking went -- I've always been a fast walker, but I just kind of weave through the crowds and in Melbourne it doesn't matter what side of the footpath you walk on, you just go. Here, well in Sacramento at least, I learned pretty quickly that there's two flows, like car traffic. Mr Veg was always digging at me because I was walking on the wrong side of the footpath. I figured if I wasn't in anyone's way, and I was moving at the speed of the rest of the people, who cares. But he worries about such things. lol

Things like this: I was laid off from my old job in October of 2009. In December of 2009 I was frantically looking for volunteer positions to fill time while I was job hunting. One of the volunteer positions I applied for and really wanted was for the local library. Today, in FEBRUARY of 2011, I got a voicemail from them to see if I was still interested and saying, "sorry for the delay". "Sorry for the delay"??

chortlez

wow. "sorry that we were trapped in a wormhole"

would be more appropriate

I'm sayin

Now I'm kind of curious to know what their cut off was before they apologize? Only 12 months?

At this one intersection, there's a left turn lane, a straight-only lane, and right turn only lane. Today and one other time in the last month cops NOT on cop business illegally turned from the straightaway lane and made a left turn.

Today resulted in him forcing cars to block traffic as they hadn't anticipated his turn.

Lead by example, amirite...

The crook of the elbow, hand in air, wrist cocked backwards style of handbag carrying.

aka "i'm a little teapot"

lololol I'll second that emotion.

dude, at the gym, with headphones in, and weightlifting gloves, grunting and groaning with every fucking rep, and it's early in the morning so nobody has turned the radio on, man, fuck you. and burping every now and again. you're an asshole. and occasionally singing along to whatever the ef you were listening to.

plus you appeared to be doing nothing but bicep exercises? with shitty form? the fuck is with you man.

he picks things up and puts them down

Puts the lotion on his...well, anyway.

People who pronounce salmon "sahl mon"

I've heard the "sahl mon" thing so often lately I'm worried that this pronunciation is taking over. I think it starts with ESL restaurant wait staff or chefs, then it gets passed down to younger native-born wait staff who don't know better. Perhaps it's all exacerbated by confusion with the word salmonella. Which, perversely, many people now pronounce as if it has something to do with the fish. (In fact it was created in a lab by Dr. Sal Monella).

salmon king's red shoe diaries

dude, at the gym, with headphones in, and weightlifting gloves, grunting and groaning with every fucking rep, and it's early in the morning so nobody has turned the radio on, man, fuck you. and burping every now and again. you're an asshole. and occasionally singing along to whatever the ef you were listening to.

plus you appeared to be doing nothing but bicep exercises? with shitty form? the fuck is with you man.

― goole, Friday, 18 February 2011 15:46 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Who ARE these dudes? There's one or two in every gym. One guy would just come into the changing room and sit in front of all the lockers sweating and burping and panting. And then you see them using the weights and they're lifting them all wrong, like really really quickly and smacking them against each other. I'd say something, but he'd probably deck me.

Yeah, those guys drive me nuts, but I think they are pretty much a fixture of every gym. There's two dudes I see in mine that seem to spend an uncomfortable amount of time walking around the locker room completely naked, farting and burping.

DJP and Ned?

not unless it's the women's locker room

People who hoot their F'ING car horns out of impatience.

The last time I got irrationally angry at someone's car horn it was someone I knew who'd seen me & got the middle finger before I recognised him too :-/

So, add to the list: jerks who get irrationally angry at a friendly "hey! it's me!" car horn hoot. (but they sound the same! We should have two car horn sounds!)

Yeah, and obv the horns I bridle at so are all desperate husbands driving their overdue wives to hospital - could do with another horn sound for genuine emergencies.

How stupid is it to use your horn at every little inconvenience? It is alarming. There is this one street near my house where, for some reason, people use their horns all the time and since it is crowded, you never know if someone is honking at you or not.

You should only honk when someone is putting you in danger or breaking the law, I find people who sit behind the wheel of their car assuming someone else is an idiot kind of domineering and creepy.

Do not honk at people who are obeying the law. I mean, we had a blizzard and someone honked at me for doing 25 mph on a snow-covered street! Learn to deal.

Friendly "toot" - VERY quick little peep with the horn. If you don't know what that is, don't drive!

Also, you shouldn't do that on a busy street, it is mostly appropriate in parking lots or residential areas.

A general study showed that horns are more useless than effective.

I pretty much never honk unless the person in front of me is napping at a green light and I can see they aren't paying attention.

Doesn't NYC have fines for honking in Midtown?

Which is kinda lol cuz everyone does it anyway...

Next item, places that serve coffee in plastic/styrofoam cups but don't carry those mini straws to go w/ it. I burn my tongue easy!

I wish we honked more. It's supposedly an old law that you're supposed to toot your horn before passing someone. In Mexico, if the cars didn't honk, you'd be a dead pedestrian.

There's an alley I sometimes take a shortcut through on the way to work. I still slow down, but I'd like to honk too before driving across the sidewalk, just so I don't surprise anyone. I don't because I don't think my good intentions would be received as such.

Old law, heck -- the current edition of the Ohio Driver's Manual states:

The limits above do not apply to traffic traveling on a one-way street or on a roadway with two or more lanes for travel in the same direction.
When passing to the left, the law requires that a driver overtaking another vehicle do these things:
1. Sound the horn to warn the driver of the vehicle being overtaken that he/she is about to be passed.
2. Signal the intent to pass.
3. Pass to the left of the vehicle being overtaken at a safe distance and return to the right side of the roadway only after the overtaking vehicle is safely clear of the vehicle being overtaken.
4. Return to the right lane as soon as the pass has been safely completed
and before coming within 200 feet of any approaching vehicle.

There's an alley I sometimes take a shortcut through on the way to work. I still slow down, but I'd like to honk too before driving across the sidewalk, just so I don't surprise anyone. I don't because I don't think my good intentions would be received as such.

― http://tinyurl.com/lil-shits (Pleasant Plains), Saturday, February 19, 2011 11:14 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

I always understood the polite-honk-in-an-alley as a basic rule of the road, but I don't actually know anyone who does it. I do it fairly habitually, and only once was I reprimanded for it. An elderly woman in DC -- whom I would have mowed down had I not honked -- flagged me down to patiently lecture me on manners. I patiently lectured her on having not gotten splattered by my car.