My H is one who has invisible disabilities; he has been both physically and verbally assaulted for using disabled parking spots by those who erroneously assume he is abusing the disabled parking system
I always bag my own groceries; I don’t understand the people who allow the groceries to pile up on the belt, waiting for the checker to bag! hat’s more annoying to me that the wallet fumblers!
“A few were in wheelchairs or elderly, but many just seemed to want to get on ahead of everyone else.”
Remember that each person with needs to board early is allowed to bring one companion with them to help them and board early as well. And, yes, disabilities aren’t always readily apparent.
In general, I like to use airlines where I buy a certain seat and I sit back and let others jostle for position and board first while I read my book. They can all line up like cattle but they aren’t getting to the destination any quicker than I am.
That’s really crappy. I’ve seen people with heart conditions or neuro-muscular conditions questioned and it stinks. It’s bad enough to feel exhausted by a trip to the mall without having to justify yourself to some nosy Nelly.
It the case I refer to in #157 the plane was small and they’d already announced people in the last boarding group would have to gate-check bags. All of a sudden there were people glancing at their partners and stepping into line.
Maybe I’m particularly sensitive. When I was going through chemo and every day was a struggle I regularly dropped off and picked up my child at a local program where a woman parked every week in the handicapped spot. When someone else mentioned it she said she was in a hurry and was just there for a few minutes. Walking that extra 20 yards felt like a mile, but the last thing I had the energy for was a debate with some stranger.
However, with pre-assigned seat airlines, you may still have incentive to board as quickly as possible to compete for space for your carry-on, so that you will not be forced to gate-check it so that it can be lost along with whatever essentials you packed in it.
Of course, in the carry-on space competition in the airplane, there are the passengers who place their carry-on bags in the bins in space inefficient ways, sometimes because their bags are slightly too large for the bins to close when put in the space efficient way.
We are supposed to preboard. I fly with an invisible disability and medical equipment that I have to fly with and use in flight. I suspect folks may believe I’m a faker “because I look healthy.”
Sure wish I didn’t have to travel with so much bulky and heavy medical equipment and could just travel with my light carryon, as we used to decades ago. I can’t check my luggage which has medicine and medical equipment.
“However, with pre-assigned seat airlines, you may still have incentive to board as quickly as possible to compete for space for your carry-on, so that you will not be forced to gate-check it so that it can be lost along with whatever essentials you packed in it.”
I pack accordingly. I don’t mind gate checking if needed (rare) and smaller bags/purses can always fit under the seat in front of me which is fine for the few essentials - headphones, book, laptop, any medication, etc. Granted, having spent a good chunk of my life flying nonrev, I’m used to being the last to board and now prefer it. I can waltz on when most are settled and less time in the plane, the better IMO.
^That reminds me of another of my pet peeves (am I getting old and grump or am I just generally a b…? :))
-People who are seated at the back of the plane but drop their bags of in the front of the plane, forcing those in front to put their bags in the back of the plane and totally messing up deplaning as the front passengers have to ask those in the back to pass up their bags.
I tend to buy the “extra legroom” seats because it puts me in an early boarding group and as someone who frequently travels with only carry-ons it’s worth the extra $50 not to have to wait at the carousel for a gate-checked bag.
I can’t stand drivers that have their radio blasting so loudly. I want to say can you put it louder because I can’t hear it. (sarcasm)
At the grocery store I use self checkout because I like how I bag my own groceries.
I don’t like parents at a store focusing more on their phones and not paying attention to their kids who think the store is a playground. The other day a kid ran into the glass wall by the exit area in Target. The parent yelled at the manager for having a glass wall there.
I dread the Trader Joe’s parking lot so I try to go there when it first opens in the morning.
Apparently all Trader Joe’s Parking lots are awful. Ours is a nightmare and when I posted on FB once about it taking me half an hour to get out, multiple people commented that the stores in their town also had terrible parking lots.
OK - regarding the bag packing at checkout. I sometimes wonder if that’s a regional thing. Where I grew up, there was always someone to bag the groceries. I had never heard people complain about others not helping to bag until I came to the Philly area. It really doesn’t bother me at all if other customers don’t bag, although I’ll admit, I usually shop during down times. I try to do it if there isn’t someone to help bag, because I know how judgmental people can be, but honestly, I have ADHD and having to bag and handle the payment transaction is really stressful for me. My brain doesn’t work quickly enough to process all that at one time. Maybe that sounds pathetic, but it is what it is. It is such a huge relief to me when the line is either set up so that customer bagging isn’t possible, or there is another person there to help.
This cartoon was published by the LA Times. One CC Cafe poster posted a link to it back in the days… the link does not work, so here it is on the cartoonist’s site:
Thanks for the link @BunsenBurner While I do not share the parking lot frustrations, the cartoon reminded me that TJ no longer carries Tofutti Cuties; my kids used to love those! Ah, memories…
Basically, it funnels all of the cars into “road” in front of the store(s), where all of the people walking in and out of the store(s) are crossing. I.e. it funnels the cars and the pedestrians all into the same area, maximizing congestion.
The comments about planes reminded me of another pet peeve…when the person seated behind you stands up by pulling on the back of the seat in front of him and your seat jerks back and then bounces forward. If your legs aren’t strong enough to stand up without using your hands, then use your hand rests. No need to bug the person in front of you!
This happened to me multiple times on the first leg of our recent flight back from Tel Aviv. The gentleman behind me was old-ish (maybe 70’s?) and big/heavy and an orthodox Jew who isnt supposed to touch a woman who is not his wife. Well, with the number of times he got up and down and up and down and pulled on my seat to get in and out, he violated that rule.
People that set the preferences on their iPhones such that messages sent to them are never marked as “read” only as “delivered”. Obviously, they are going out of their way to conceal that they have read your message, leaving you guessing if they saw it or not. What’s up with that?