September 29: I titled this piece Human Nature, but the more I thought about what I was writing, the more I realized that it was not human nature but rather ignorance, stupidity, self-centredness or arrogance. These are things that people do; things that bother me enormously. A rant from an aging curmudgeon follows:
My apartment sits in a lovely landscaped court, and is surrounded by the leafy properties of Leaside. Not surprisingly, there are more than a few dogs – usually very big dogs, which I assume connote status of some sort, or very small dogs, which must be aiming for the “cute factor”. In any case, I am astonished at the number of times I see sacks of dog shit left on someone’s lawn. The dog owner has gone to the now politically correct extent of bagging the turds, but then leaves them behind precisely where the dog dropped them in the first place, neatly transferring the responsibility of dog ownership to the homeowner.
I detest timid drivers. The current bane of my existence is the flock of drivers who seem unable to move off the stop bar into the intersection when they are making a left turn at a signal. Everyone behind them is forced to sit and wait until they can complete their turn – usually at the end of the green cycle. If only they would pull into the centre of the intersection, as they are allowed and I was taught to do, others could pass on the right and we ( OK, I ) would all be much happier.
Similarly, there’s the driver in the left lane resolutely going precisely 2 KM/H over or under the speed limit. Much has been written about these idiots, so I won’t say any more. An interesting variant I have encountered is the guy (it seems always to be a guy) who enters the expressway and then aggressively switches lanes across to the left. I’ve been cut off many times by these bozos, who seem to be in a huge rush that only access to the left lane can satisfy. But no. Once there, like others mentioned above, they dawdle along at or under the limit forcing everyone else to pass to the right. Please, just stay to the right. It makes our roads safer and much more efficient.
My Sunday morning running clan meets for a coffee at Starbucks after whatever torture the instructor prescribes for the day. Usually the café is busy. For some reason, it seems to take an inordinate amount of time to get a simple cup of coffee, so there’s always a long line. On several occasions I’ve watched couples standing chatting in the line right up to the point where the server asks them for their order. Then – and only then – do they start to consider what they might have. We’ve all been waiting for many minutes and they could have been thinking through their options like the rest of us, but no. Now we all wait while they hem and haw about what to have. All I want is a damn coffee….
I could go on. And perhaps in another post, I will. Thanks for indulging my self-centred, arrogant, self-indulgent rant. I feel better.