Things that don’t make sense!
So here I was sitting in a restaurant having a quiet time enjoying my lunch and reading a book. Yes, I still read books. (I never had the batteries in my book run out) but I digress. People around me were speaking in reasonable tones that we all learn to shut out when we’re in public places. You hear little snatches of conversation but I’m able to keep my concentration. Then a contractor sitting three tables away, I know he’s a contractor because he’s telling everyone in the restaurant, and get’s into a discussion on his cell phone about a sub-trade who hasn’t paid his workers.
Then, he’s thinking his phone batteries were weak and so need to supplement the fading batteries by speaking very loudly. So loudly in fact that I can’t concentrate on my book, so loud that other people are just staring at him. It didn’t seem to make any difference. He must subconsciously think he’s protected in some sort of virtual phone booth, a cone of silence. Good for him, bad for us. What do you do with these types? I wonder if singing a rousing chorus of God Save the Queen in full voice might do the trick. He’d probably tell me to shut up he can’t hear his phone cal, right? Sigh!
That provoked me to speak out about all the goofy and stupid things I run into: 1 - Why do many pubs and restaurants want to run their music so loud you can’t talk? Is it for the entertainment of the staff who, having misused iPODS as children, are mostly deaf? I have never run into anyone that says, ‘let’s get dressed up and go to the restaurant so we can listen to the elevator music at extreme levels.’ Turn it down! Better yet, turn it off! No wonder we’re all neurotic. We are bombarded with sound all day every day because some people simply can’t handle silence (or hear it). 2 – Why do operators of restaurants, convenience stores, any building with two doors, lock one of them? Like, this makes sense. It’s not like leaving a light on. Not locking one of the doors doesn’t cost more. In fact it’s aggravating when I walk smack into a door marked “exit” that doesn’t, and peel my glasses off my face, or get a brace for my sprained wrist! 3 – What in the world possesses the human lemmings in the world to walk behind me, or drive behind me, when I back out of a parking spot at the mall? What arrogance seizes these people who don’t think twice about walking behind a ton of metal in motion? I’ll get an air horn like the semi’s have and mount it just below my back bumper. However. with my luck, somebody will have a heart attack and I’ll end up getting sued. 4 – While we’re on to people with cars, who is teaching people to stop a full car length behind a stop line? Stop doing that! If they wanted you to stop ten feet before the intersections, they’d have painted the line back there! Most intersections have sensors in the road to detect when a vehicle is waiting for a light. In some cases unless you trigger the sensor the light won’t change at all. You could die of old age waiting for a light to change.
There! I feel better. See you next week.