The other day I mentioned how absurdly self focused some people could be. I thought that I wouldn't be able to top that one any time soon. Well how wrong I was. Just tonight, while sitting in the drive-thru of our local BK, I saw something that staggered me.
First a little background on this situation. There is a four way stop light at the intersection of a busy commercial road which leads to the interstate and the entrance to a busy shopping center. Truckers shoot down this road at top speed and don't always manage to make the stop at a red light.
Okay, so here's what I saw. There were two vehicles waiting at the red light to leave the shopping center. The busy commercial road had the green and there were two vehicles turning left into the shopping center. All of a sudden the lead vehicle making the left turn just stops as soon as it enters the entry lane. He just stops! The vehicle behind him is now stuck in the middle of the road blocking both oncoming traffic and the cars waiting for the green light.
The passenger door of the stopped, lead vehicle opens and this kid, about 15, gets out in the middle of the road. He has some words with the driver then finally shuts the door and the car continues up the lane toward the stores. The truck following him waits for the kid for a moment to decide whether he's going to cross or let him pass. Remember this guy has been waiting in the middle of this road for minutes now. The kid steps back and lets him pass. The two vehicles that have been waiting to leave continue to sit through the now green light as this transpires.Yet, as the turning vehicles drive off, the kid crosses in front of the still waiting cars despite the green light! He then opens the passenger door and climbs into the first vehicle in line before finally anyone is allowed to move.
So what happened, in review, is that this kid was riding in one car, saw some friends he wanted to ride with in the perpendicular lane. The car he is in makes its turn and stops to let him out right next to this other vehicle making the guy behind him wait in the middle of the road for this to happen. The kid crosses the road and climbs into the other vehicle which is blocking all other traffic before finally driving off just before the light turns red again. And all of this again, I might add, in the entrance of a nearly empty freaking parking lot! WTF is wrong with people?
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Parking Lot Faux Pas...
There is something interesting that I have seen happen many times and I wanted to mention it. Maybe you've seen it happen yourself. Maybe you've done it yourself, and if so you need to know that there are people who have noticed. What I'm talking about today is the following scenario:
You are driving along and pull into a large, mostly empty parking lot. There are literally dozens of empty, unused parking spots all over the place. And yet, while driving along in the actual, marked driving lane, you are blocked because two cars have stopped side by side so the drivers can talk. Two cars blocking traffic sitting motionless immediately next to dozens of open, available, unused parking spaces! I tell you folks, I have seen this happen not once, not twice, but many, many... many times. I honestly cannot believe it either. Each time it happens I want to take out my camera and start snapping pictures of the vehicles to put up online in places like Failblog.org. How can someone be so self-absorbed as to block other people who are driving correctly in an empty parking lot? The worst is when you honk and they get angry and wave you around to drive through the empty spaces they've snubbed as if you're an inconvenience to them and their chat time!
I saw one even better today ! I was pulling into a business which had two entrances. I couldn't use the first one because someone had decided to stop in the middle of the lane directly in front of a single parked car in a line of open parking spaces, thereby blocking the entrance lane. When I pulled into the other, further entrance, I come to find the reason this guy did this was because he was talking to two people who had walked up to his driver door. Even better, and you'll love this one, they had parked their truck near his in order to get out and walk up to his window to chat. However, they had parked across two handicapped parking spaces to do this! That's right. Not that they had parked in one handicapped spot, but across both of the available handicapped spots in an large, mostly empty parking lot.
Honest to god, there were a total of about eight vehicles, including mine and theirs, in this large lot... that's it. And yet they felt the need, the compulsion to block traffic and take up two handicapped spaces. How asinine can someone get? And before anyone comments, yes I did check to see if they had a handicapped license or even a temporary sticker. And no, they didn't. Now whether this was a cry for attention or just self-absorbed inconsiderateness to a staggering degree, that was pretty freaking pathetic. Worst of all, I know this won't be the last time I will see this kind of thing happen either. Next time I'm snapping photos to share with the world, period.
You are driving along and pull into a large, mostly empty parking lot. There are literally dozens of empty, unused parking spots all over the place. And yet, while driving along in the actual, marked driving lane, you are blocked because two cars have stopped side by side so the drivers can talk. Two cars blocking traffic sitting motionless immediately next to dozens of open, available, unused parking spaces! I tell you folks, I have seen this happen not once, not twice, but many, many... many times. I honestly cannot believe it either. Each time it happens I want to take out my camera and start snapping pictures of the vehicles to put up online in places like Failblog.org. How can someone be so self-absorbed as to block other people who are driving correctly in an empty parking lot? The worst is when you honk and they get angry and wave you around to drive through the empty spaces they've snubbed as if you're an inconvenience to them and their chat time!
I saw one even better today ! I was pulling into a business which had two entrances. I couldn't use the first one because someone had decided to stop in the middle of the lane directly in front of a single parked car in a line of open parking spaces, thereby blocking the entrance lane. When I pulled into the other, further entrance, I come to find the reason this guy did this was because he was talking to two people who had walked up to his driver door. Even better, and you'll love this one, they had parked their truck near his in order to get out and walk up to his window to chat. However, they had parked across two handicapped parking spaces to do this! That's right. Not that they had parked in one handicapped spot, but across both of the available handicapped spots in an large, mostly empty parking lot.
Honest to god, there were a total of about eight vehicles, including mine and theirs, in this large lot... that's it. And yet they felt the need, the compulsion to block traffic and take up two handicapped spaces. How asinine can someone get? And before anyone comments, yes I did check to see if they had a handicapped license or even a temporary sticker. And no, they didn't. Now whether this was a cry for attention or just self-absorbed inconsiderateness to a staggering degree, that was pretty freaking pathetic. Worst of all, I know this won't be the last time I will see this kind of thing happen either. Next time I'm snapping photos to share with the world, period.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Re: Again and Again...
Here is something that occurred to me the other day. The preface "re" is used in many words. Recycle, Reuse, Recite, Re-post, Reprocessed, Reconstituted. "Re" means to do something again. So why do we call it a Refrigerator? Honestly. How often do we actually refrigerate items? To refrigerate something literally means to chill it again. How many items in our refrigerators do we allow to warm up to room temperature or hotter before we put them back in to chill down again?
When I take out my gallon of milk or carton of juice to pour a glass or use it to cook, it goes back in before it has a chance to heat up much meaning that I'm using my refrigerator to maintain a level of coldness. When I have leftover pizza or dinner, I put it in for the first time to be chilled... just once. When I cook something that needs to chilled before being served, I'm cooling the finished, cooked item for the first time... again once. Really there are only a few times when I am actually using my refrigerator to cool something down again. When chilled groceries come home after being in a hot car, when the reheated leftovers were a bit too much too eat and had to go back in. So really, why do we call it a refrigerator and not just a frigerator?
We don't call it a re-accelerator despite speeding up again and again while driving. We don't call it a re-on switch despite pushing it every time we need to turn our computers on. And we do these things much more often then we refrigerate items. I'm just saying...
When I take out my gallon of milk or carton of juice to pour a glass or use it to cook, it goes back in before it has a chance to heat up much meaning that I'm using my refrigerator to maintain a level of coldness. When I have leftover pizza or dinner, I put it in for the first time to be chilled... just once. When I cook something that needs to chilled before being served, I'm cooling the finished, cooked item for the first time... again once. Really there are only a few times when I am actually using my refrigerator to cool something down again. When chilled groceries come home after being in a hot car, when the reheated leftovers were a bit too much too eat and had to go back in. So really, why do we call it a refrigerator and not just a frigerator?
We don't call it a re-accelerator despite speeding up again and again while driving. We don't call it a re-on switch despite pushing it every time we need to turn our computers on. And we do these things much more often then we refrigerate items. I'm just saying...
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