Another
thing that annoys me is being behind people who walk incredibly slowly on the
pavement. I have what appears to be a
fairly unique skill in that I can negotiate my way through crowded areas very
well without bumping into people or causing an obstruction. Whenever I’m faced with a large amount of
people, my mind does a little map for me telling me the route I need to take,
probably as a result of doing so much figure skating on crowded rinks when I
was younger.
Other
people, however, will walk very slowly while texting or something, or worse,
just suddenly stop in the middle of the street causing me to bump into
them. What’s worse is when people
(especially fat people) walk very slowly in front of me on the pavement and
ignore me when I say “excuse me” trying to get past. Conversely, it annoys me when I can hear
someone walking up behind me quickly and then just hovering in my personal
space when there’s plenty of room for them to walk around me. When I walk down a pavement I do so in this
fashion:
So
that people can overtake me on the roadside.
Foofy
is very funny when it comes to this kind of thing. On Thursday he said this:
And
then, less than an hour later:
To
be fair, the first was on a boring street and the second was up the Eiffel Tower
where there were lovely views, but it was still very funny how cross he seemed
to be about it.
The
absolute worst crime against humanity (apart from things like genocide
obviously) is when it is clearly MARKED that you need to be on one side of the
walkway and people ignore it, like on the escalators in the London Underground,
which ask you to keep to the right if you’re not going to keep moving. People, however, will just stand on the left,
not realising that a queue is forming behind them.
Actually,
scrap that; the absolute MOST annoying thing someone can do is when that state
of affairs has happened, and I’m about tenth in line behind the idiot who has
stopped, and someone comes up behind me and says:
Usually
when this happens I just look at him like this:
And
say nothing.
People
are idiots. This is why I prefer
animals. Does a duck ever stop suddenly
and prevent you from going any further? Was a ferret ever so fat that you
couldn’t overtake it on the street? Do guinea pigs ever block you on
escalators? (Don’t put your guinea pigs on escalators please.)
Now
these things are in my head, I’m going to have to draw them, aren’t I?
Probably:
Escalators, yes. Try not to let Veolia get hold of any of your train franchises, their policy is that walking on escalators is dangerous and should be discouraged. Naughty frog eaters.
ReplyDeleteFootpaths and shopping centre walkways should be painted with four lanes, one for fast and one for slow traffic in each direction. That would reduce frustration and stress levels in the whole population, while encouraging aerobic exercise - both of which help prevent heart disease. I think we can save $314,159,000 from the health budget (that's about a hundred pounds in your money at the current exchange rate) and save ten thousand lives a year.
Can someone get me a research grant?
I think the escalator thing is an invitation into a social game. The ideal exchange goes:
ReplyDelete"Excuse me, could I get through?"
"I'd love to let you through but there's a big queue of people who DON'T KNOW THE LEFT IS FOR WALKING…"
And then the person at the bottom can realise their mistake and move, and everyone is amused and catches their trains. Rather than the other thing.