November 11th, 2010 - Thursday Thirteen

Sadly, there are a lot of ignorant people out there....fortunately none of them are my friends :).  This week, I kept running across random acts of inconsideration (is that even a word?)....and so I'm dedicating my Thursday Thirteen to ignorant things that I witnessed this week.

I'm actually hoping I can't get to 13 - but lets see....

1.  Tonight I parked at Kohls and opened my door to see two used dental floss picks lying next to the car.  Who picks their teeth in a parking lot - let alone toss their used stuff onto the pavement?

2.  Yesterday I was crossing another parking lot in a crosswalk no less - and a car actually sped up to try to get by me rather than stop.  I'm really glad I was wheeling a shopping cart or he might have gone ahead and hit me.

3.  Which brings up the whole leaving your shopping cart in a parking space thing.  If you were able to wheel the damn thing TO your car - you certainly are capable of wheeling it back - or into a cart corrall - or something other than leave it.

4.  And handicapped spot users are actually the worst.  They keep leaving carts in the striped zone next to their spaces.  Again I say, you got the thing to your car - you certainly can take it back.  I would have thought that those folks with "handicapped" issues would be more considerate - not less.

5.  At bowling the other night - we actually had someone who bowled while holding their cellphone to one ear.  I'm glad he wasn't on my team because I think that's just plain rude.  You owe it to the rest of the folks you are bowling with to give your full concentration to your game.  Imagine if football players took calls in the middle of a game. "Sorry about that  - I couldn't block because my daughter was on the line".

6.  Dumping trash on the side of the road.  There's a wooded buffer between the river and the road that leads out of my community and for whatever reason it seems to be the dumping ground for chairs and tires and whatever people don't want.  And the stuff just sits there until some kind community group makes a project of picking up the rubbish.

7.  Not cleaning up after your dog.  This week, I was out walking and of course there are lots of people walking their pets.  I actually saw one woman bend down with a bag and pretend to scoop the poop...but as soon as I went by she put the empty bag back in her pocket and left the crap on the grass.

8.  People who let their small children "drive" shopping carts unsupervised.  I'm tired of getting run into.....especially in checkout lines where the kid keeps pushing the cart forward until it stops in my back over and over again.

9.  Usually happens while mom or dad (or both) have their cellphone stuck to their ears, which is another thing that I think is rude.  Cashiers are human beings, and the least you can do is hang up the phone long enough to interact with them politely rather than make them get louder and louder until you finally notice they are asking you a question.

10.  Tossing cigarette butts out the car window and/or on the ground.  Come on people - you smoke, you should have an ashtray.  I can't tell you how many times I have to clean up cigarette butts left outside my house....and none of my friends smoke - so its clearly just random passersby.

11. Not completely flushing a public toilet.  How difficult is it to turn around and make sure what your deposit has left the bowl?  I wish those same people would leave cash envelopes half deposited in the night slot at the bank ;).

12.  Parking in a no parking zone when there isn't enough room for traffic to clear.  For whatever reason, folks seem to think it's OK to park there long enough to use the bank machine/pick up their dry cleaning/run in the liquor store.  But what it means is that a two-way lane becomes one way and traffic gets stuck trying to get around Mr Inconsiderate. Including the police officer who chose to drive by rather than stop and ticket the fool.

13.  I'm going to leave this one for you.....tell me what inconsiderate act you saw this week.........