What is it With People, Anyway? II


Wherein Our Heroine Expresses Some Frustration.
Before I even begin this rant, let me introduce a caveat: everyone has moments where they are irretrievably spacy. Everyone has moments where they inadvertently block the aisle at the grocery store while they mull over which type of soup to buy. Everyone has had several instances of embarrassment in their lives when they came into a new situation and unwittingly committed a faux pas. The following rant is not about the occasional witlessness of Everyman. It is about the bone-deep, navel-gazing sort of obliviousness that is committed by people who believe - nay, know - that if they are not the only person on the planet, well by jingo they are The Most Important One.

Okay, on to rant:

I have noticed a disturbing trend lately. I wondered for a bit if I was just going through a phase of oversensitivity, but have since seen too many egregious examples of disturbing behavior, and I am pretty sure it's a bona fide phenomenon. The most pervasive example of the behavior comes while driving. Somehow, at least in the greater DC area, there seem to be thousands of people who not only don't know what a lane is, but don't care to know either. Examples of this range from some idiot making their drifty way down a local road, oblivious to the funny marks on the tarmac, to high-octane morons weaving in and out of traffic at high speed, straddling lanes and pretending they are on the NASCAR circuit. It has gotten to the point that I cannot get in my car without witnessing an example of this. I seem to recall entire days and perhaps weeks when I could drive somewhere without seeing some chucklehead endanger himself and those around him. No more.

Other, smaller examples of this sort of thing have always existed at the grocery store - it's such a common sight to see someone blocking an entire aisle that it's not worth ranting about. But one particular witless wonder John and I recently encountered deserves special ranting attention. This smug, self-righteous little git in front of us in the checkout line informed us that the cat food brand we were purchasing "tortures" cats and then went on to torture us by spending ten minutes arguing with the cashier about a rain check. This argument eventually involved several employees of the store and boiled down to the fact that this self-appointed Defender of Cats cannot subtract round numbers. Oh, the humanity....

My last rant is one I am somewhat conflicted over. I do want to be a yoga teacher one day, so that argues for my acquiring a more forgiving nature. However, I am on a rant-roll, so: I give you the incident of "That Bloody Woman." A brief explanation before I start. I bring my own mat to my yoga class on Sunday mornings for a couple of reasons. First, Yoga has a tradition of treating your mat as a "sacred space." On a more prosaic level, I don't particularly love placing my hands (and sometimes my face) where someone else's feet have been. So - I arrived at class yesterday, rolled out my mat and went to the bathroom. Upon my return, I found Someone sitting on my mat. In my best, politest voice I said, "Excuse me - that's my mat." She quickly rose to her feet, wittering away in a defensive voice that she didn't know - she thought the teacher laid the mats out for people, etc. etc. (The fact that it is a deep blue and the mats provided by the studio are pale purple had completely escaped her notice). I smiled, and said internally, "Let it go." And I did let it go - until later in the class, when she walked across it several times and then during the final relaxation somehow managed to inadvertently kick me as I lay still, trying to relax. When she later told my teacher that she probably would not be a regular attendee of our class due to her church activities, I reflected that I would not miss her.

It's not like I need any more encouragement to rant.
Posted: Monday - July 19, 2004 at 08:39 AM         | |

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