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

I sharpen all utensils to a fine point. ;)

there is a commercial on am radio for a fish and chips place and the lady in it fakes a british accent and it makes me mad how bad it is and that they bother trying

people who use mock colloquialisms like "guvmint/gubmint" or "'murrca" when describing the views of people they disagree with. this is really really gross and it's also totally misleading. this isn't even innocuous, i think it's harmful to the "debate" that is supposedly happening.

Especially annoying when it's done in writing.

going back to pedestrians being shitheads in parking lots, was driving home today from the mall when a guy crosses the street in front of me -- at a diagonal going towards me cause the mall entrance was behind me -- and i'm driving slowly enough that we could both keep going without incident, when a little more than halfway through he just decides he's done walking across the street and it's time to walk down the street. four feet into the lane. i'm exhausted and by the time i notice he shifted, i have to swerve around him which he doesn't seem to notice/care about. because he didn't want to walk the four extra feet.

Londoners who have no concept of a country outside of the capital; who genuinely believe that beyond Zone 6 it's just a wasteland with the odd hunchback bumming a sheep every few miles. I don't mind if it's just joking, of course, but I can tell when someone genuinely doesn't understand that London does not equal the UK.

London does not equal the UK.

Thank god.

We have those people, but they're mostly in NYC or socal

I have a legitimate reason for getting wound up about it. I live in a commuter belt town on the M25, basically outer London. Yesterday a rail cable broke and all trains in and out of London were cancelled. People were stranded at work unable to get home, with reports of people having to walk down the rail track to get to the next station after their train broke down. Basically the biggest, most chaotic balls-up in my own history of paying £3,500 a year just to travel 30mins to get into work every day (and that's saying something). The response from colleagues? "Well if you're going to live in the back-end of nowhere, that's your problem". And then inevitably they started moaning about how bad their tube journey is from Camden to Kings Cross. It's such a myopic, elitist view of the country, pervasive all the way through to parliament, that if it's not within the six zones, it's not even a real place.

iatee to thread to comment on outer-borough commuting

smdh @ all the pedestrian bashing

What's wrong with bashing people who do things wrong/badly?

it hurts.

just have some patience, driving turns people into crazy irrational monsters

omg I had to wait 2 extra seconds to leave the parking lot

Time's not the issue. It's the situation of almost hitting a pedestrian with your car even though you're doing everything you can to be a safe driver.

car ownership and poor parking lot design is the issue, and jaywalking was an invention of the car companies to demonize alternative forms of transportation and claim streets as the sole property of automobile owners /iatee

The design of most streets and parking lots are constructed with a prejudice toward pedestrians, but dear lord, your mama should've taught you not to walk into oncoming traffic.

agreed, people are just lackadaisical about their walking and don't give a shit about where other people are, whether it's walking or driving /notiatee

well we're talking about a lot of different possible scenarios here

I'm referring to the specific scenario detailed by zachlyon at 2:58 am CST.

I think it's good that that guy is helping zachlyon practice his safe driving technique

Just like five-lane avenues and limited crosswalks help keep pedestrians alert with good exercise, I hear you.

crosswalks? you're lucky if there are sidewalks

your mama should've taught you not to walk into oncoming traffic.

A good reason to insist that drivers use their damn turn signals.

If you're taking a right but your turn signal is off im gonna thinking your going straight cos that is the message you are communicating to the rest of the world in your car.

you will be otm on your deathbed

-potlucks

I hate almost killing or injuring pedestrians on campus - I understand that you have the right of way and I respect the crosswalks and such, but the laws of physics continue to exist and I can't immediately come to a stop if you just walk in front of me without looking.

people abbreviating january to "jan". in writing it's obviously fine but i mean they say "yeah i'll sort that in jan".

is this a new thing?

i can imagine "feb" too but nobody will ever say, "yeah i'm going on holidays in mar"

"let's see how the numbers stack up in jul and sep"

I hate - HATE - a four-way intersection near my house that is yield signs two ways and no signs the other two ways. Approach from the no-sign direction, and you have to basically stop, because there's no reason to believe the other people will actually yield. Approach from the yield-side, and you have to stop, because the other people have no sign. It's as bad as a four-way no-stop, which by default turns into a nervous four-way stop.

nobody will ever say, "yeah i'm going on holidays in mar"

Except rich people going to Marbella

I'm sure I will be hit by a car one day. I run and slow down for the crosswalks and hold my arms up waving making sure to get the attention of everyone at 4 way stops. Only works maybe half the time.

"Jan." is a common abbreviation of January, IME.

The bad pedestrians described ITT are doing something more general that makes me very IA, and thing is behaving like they are the only people on earth. In the same class, and just as horrible are people who block the aisle in the middle of a crowded bus or block the door on a bus or train. You live in a SOCIETY with other people with needs, too!

No one says "jan" or "feb" out loud, that is ridiculous and wrong. It's like when someone says a word out loud that they have only read previously and comically mispronounce it, e.g. "paradiggum"

- when people I follow on Twitter decide to live-tweet an old TV show like they are the first person to every do such a thing or like their input is in any way novel or interesting. For some reason, everybody wants to tweet about Twin Peaks, Star Trek, and the X-files. Or at least the giant dorks that I follow on Twitter want to.

I'm an inveterate jaywalker.

i wish there was a jaywalking world championship cos i would enter and win.

That sounds like a challenge.

We're both going to get hit by cars later today and jerks on the internet will point to those posts as reasons why we deserved.

I'm a big fan of scooping up my kids and jaywalking with them, since they're not quite adept enough to do it on their own.

But then, there are crosswalks where I live, with signs saying it's state law to yield to pedestrians, yet cars do ... not ... stop.

We're both going to get hit by cars later today and jerks on the internet will point to those posts as reasons why we deserved.

"this never would have happened if they had cars themselves."

But then, there are crosswalks where I live, with signs saying it's state law to yield to pedestrians, yet cars do ... not ... stop.

oh god oh god the intersection in front of our apartment is crazy busy (well one street is crazy busy, the other is nearly deserted) and there's a crosswalk and a sign, but the lines on the street are nearly faded away and NOBODY sees the sign or stops. I have harangued my alderman so many times via every method of communication possible and that piece of shit has never even responded to me. I have to cross the crazy busy street to get to my bus stop and even if I'm doing the terrifying "cross halfway and look imploringly at drivers going in the opposite direction" nobody stops. Unless I actually put my hand up like a crossing guard, then they usually stop, but I hate being reduced to such things.

My neighbors probably know me as "that woman who is always yelling 'It's a cross walk! You have to stop BY LAW! FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!' in the mornings."

People are so irrationally angry about the fact that bike lanes or pedestrian walkways exist sometimes! I don't get it. The city had not yet painted the crosswalk in one location but there were large yellow signs on both sides of the roadway and a button you could push that would make lights on both signs blink. I push button, begin crossing with a car about a block back and you would have thought I'd insulted the driver's mother by the amount of rage I saw.

you guys should just get cars and drive everywhere

Thinking about it.

love walking too much xpost

I don't want a car! It's expensive and a pain in the ass and neither one of us likes driving so we'll just argue about who has to do it every time we need to go anywhere.