You know what irritates me? On certain days, a whole lot of things.
This has been one of those weeks, a cross-section of my most recent irritations:
Leftside walkers
Leftside walkers
Can we all just get in agreement right now that in confined or crowded spaces, we’ll walk how we drive?
If you find yourself on a sidewalk or in a hallway, keep to the righthand side. We call all get where we’re going reasonably quickly, and with minimal confusion about which party is going to zig while the other one zags. If you’re a small child, elderly, or from a foreign country, fine, we’ll let that slide. But if you are a fully formed, adult American who’s been driving an automobile for more than a year, please just apply the rules of the road to your pedestrian meanderings and this will go much more smoothly.
I will never understand why this elementary concept never seems to occur to a lot of people, there may be no lanes on the ground, but you're still dealing with many spaces which only allow two lanes of traffic. If you've got a better system, I'm all ears, but until you figure that out, let's just go with what's kept us moving along on the roadways this far in life.
Yet it never fails, walk around some a public space for awhile, and you'll encounter someone wandering absentmindedly toward a head-on collision like they’re channeling their inner-Brit. Happens everywhere you go; supermarkets, malls, work, the gym, there might only be two people in the entire hallway, yet some have the innate skill of angling themselves into your path from 50 feet away like you’re a goddamn human tractor beam. I know I'm cuddly, but contain yourself, I have places to be
Soon, I may just snap, and start approaching this situation like a drunk or a fool has wandered into the passing lane. Right-of-way my friend, and you’re in the wrong, be prepared to get run down like a deer stepping in front of a semi. No warning, just chunks of bloody carnage littering the salad dressing aisle. All because you were too busy pondering whether to go with the light balsamic vinaigrette or spoil yourself with avocado ranch.
Cleanup in aisle 7 boys, cleanup in aisle 7.
Bitchy restaurant reviewers
Online reviews of restaurants can be quite useful at times, particularly in identifying an exceptional dish to try, good time of day to visit, or other trick of the trade. But for every blurb of value, there’s 2 or 3 angry screeds decrying lousy food, terrible atmosphere and waitstaff with attitudes. Also featured prominently are snobby comparisons made by too-cool-for-school hipsters on how a place “used to be cool, but ever since the new ownership took over” and blah, blah, blah.
It’s not unreasonable for the customer to make their voice heard. But once you pass paragraph #3 in your scathing critique of a local pub’s take on a Rueben sandwich, you’re no longer trying to convey info, and certainly not trying to help, you’re just being a self-important f*ckwit. A good rule of thumb is that if a place has 50something reviews that average a 3.75 rating, you may want to throttle back the anger on the zero you just gave them. I don’t need to be Guy Fieri to recognize that this is most likely a “You” problem.
Take the following first line of a review I read while checking out an Irish bar I was heading to for the first time. Let me repeat, this was an Irish bar, a drinking establishment first and foremost, keep that in mind.
We tried this place one evening for dinner. Our waitress was less than stellar. I had to ask for cream after she brought my coffee. Most disappointing was the food. I got the irish beef stew which tasted like something out of a can and loaded with salt.
This was just the opening, it goes on for awhile afterward, but this was really all the info required.
Let me translate for you:
Our waitress was less than stellar.– I did not feel that I got the requisite attention befitting my stature, don’t these people understand who I am?
I had to ask for cream after she brought my coffee –First off, I’m drinking coffee, so I either walked in here pissed off because I’m the designated driver, pissed off because I hate beer and would rather be at a wine bar, or pissed off in general because I’m the type of person who’s too uptight to have a drink during an evening out. Not to mention that I had to ask for something. From a waitress! The nerve of some people! Again, DON’T THEY KNOW WHO THE F*CK I AM!!!!!!!
Most disappointing was the food – I have never heard the joke: What are the three shortest books in the world? French War Heroes, Irish Cuisine and the Amish phonebook.
I got the irish beef stew which tasted like something out of a can and loaded with salt – Not only do I over-punctuate to a staggering degree, including periods where none are called for, I can’t even find the time to capitalize the ‘I’ in Irish. This must mean that while I demand the requisite attention be paid to anything prepared for my consumption, I won’t even do any potential readers the courtesy of reaching over for half a moment to hold down the ‘Shift’ key. In other words, this is like the crappy beef stew of reviews.
As always, we here at Loserville advocate voting with your dollars, or at least having the stones to tell whoever runs the joint your complaints in person. The problem is never with the sentiment, it’s how the strength of that sentiment and vitriol in it’s worded seem to grow twentyfold from behind the security of a keyboard. What we really need to do is come up with some that makes these people put their money where their mouth is. Hammer away online all you want, but once you do, you’re 86ed from the place, permanently.
Would it stop some people? Probably not, but you know there’d be more than a handful…
The Vikings stadium debate
The Vikings stadium debate
Gym lingerers
A distant cousin of the walking dolts these people show the same capacity for obstruction, only without that pesky mobility part.
Like most men, I tend to look at certain establishments as necessary evils. Supermarkets, malls, gyms, all come with the idea that speed is of the essence. You do what needs to get done, and you get out as fast as possible. Now that we're finally getting into the warm weather and people can go outdoors for their exercise, workout conditions have finally relaxed a bit. Far fewer people cluttering up the place, staring agape at a piece of equipment like it just spoke Farsi to them, it's been grand.
But one species of annoyance is year-round, in the form of those guys who just can't seem to figure out that someone else might be interested in using the piece of community equipment they're currently monopolizing. Nobody is ever going to mistake me for a fitness model (or for that matter, a guy who goes to the gym with any regularlity) but at least I have the common courtesy to move things the hell along at a reasonable rate.
Yet these jerkoffs exist as if they're in their own little world, hauling equipment to the other side of the place and leaving it there, pausing to have a 15-minute conversation with a passing acquaintance while sitting on a bench press. Hey chief, sorry for stumbling into your rec room, mind if we get a bit of work in while you're catching up?!?!?! Honestly, it's enough to make you want to coldcock him with a 25-pound dumbell.
But then you start thinking about how much fun it would be to navigate the weight room in prison, and that reels you back in pretty quick.
Insurance commercials
I'm at a loss on something here.
Insurance companies claim to be all about saving me money.
Each insurance company runs approximately six million commercials a day (give or take) across every conceivable form of media.
Commercials cost money.
Doesn't it stand to reason that they could probably save me a lot more money if they didn't run commercials constantly? I know you need to attract customers, but this is ridiculous. Ever since bin Laden got taken out, that Flo from Progressive has been solidly in the Top 5 on my "People Who Need To Be Taken Out" list, and might crack the top spot before the year is out. The guy who does the Gecko voiceovers is on the radar as well. Dennis Haysbert, we're cool, you were Pedro Cerrano and President Palmer, much respect.
Commercials for three products dominate American mass media: Cars, insurance, and alcohol.
A conspiracy theorist might look at this situation and say first they sell you the car, then the insurance to drive the car, then the alcohol to make you crash the car, leaving you in need of a new car and new (undoubtedly more expensive) insurance. It's a clever game.
Everyone's going out of their way to convince you that they want to give you the cheapest possible insurance, but if insurance wasn't a highly lucrative business, why chase market share so hard with all these damn commercials? Seems to me that despite the sweetheart deals being handed out, the margins of these companies must be holding up nicely, certainly don't seem to have any trouble maintaining healthy marketing budgets.
And just because it came up obliquely in the alcohol conversation: Clamato, give it up!
Nobody's ever taken a sip of a glass of tomato juice and said "Hey, you know what this could use, some clam juice!" Just like nobody over the age of 16 has ever said "Man, I really feel like a glass of amaretto tonight!" Now you and those ridiculous DiSaranno commercials, go back to whoever thought you were the centerpiece of an ad campaign and tell them they do not have the pulse on the American drinker.
The only good thing to ever come from Clamato's was a joke I made up years ago: What do you get when you mix half a Bloody Mary with half a Bloody Ceasar?
A Bloody Jesus.
Thanks, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waiter, or at least don't bitch about him online.
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