<p>At my age, I take “young lady” as a compliment. Under 40, not so much.</p>
<p>I am not a parent, but I feel the urge to rant anyway.
I am annoyed with the following things:</p>
<p>People who came into a buffet and pick wherever they want to sit without the waiters or waitresses leading them. I stood in front of my table with my plate full with food, watching the waitress explaining to the stubborn customers that this is my table and that they were supposed to check in with the front counter. The stubborn and rude customers snapped at the waitress and told her how they had put their keys on the table already (as if your keys would reserve your table, ugh). They wouldn’t move, so we had to find another table.</p>
<p>Drivers who tailgate. (I don’t know how to drive yet, but one time there was a lady who tailgated us and hit our car).</p>
<p>People who roll down their car window and shout out rude things when you didn’t do anything wrong.</p>
<p>Drivers who spit out from their window when their car is moving. (Imaging that you are driving behind.) </p>
<p>I am a hs student, and some students in my school are very immature and irksome. I am an Asian, and sometimes when I pass by the annoying students, they would shout out random Asian words or phrases ( one time they shouted out “hello” in Japanese, even though I am not Japanese). There was a boy who kept calling me sushi girl with his annoying little friends laughing behind him. (I didn’t even know who he is or have any class with him. Very rude and annoying students in my school.)</p>
<p>People who do not pay attention to pedestrians.
H & I walked to the grocery store this afternoon.
When available, we crossed with the walk signal, ( not all corners had lights).
Woman pulled out of McDonald’s, nearly scuffing my shoes & talking on the phone.
When she was forced to stop at the stop sign, I banged on her car with my hand to let her know there were pedestrians, since she wasn’t visually aware.
Then on the way back home, another car was mostly stopped in the intersection, but still blocking part of the crosswalk. I was afraid they might back up & not see me, so I banged on their car too.
Very satisfying.
;)</p>
<p>When someone asks me a question, and I give them an answer, and then they ask, “Are you sure?” YES, I’m sure! If I wasn’t sure, I would’ve said so! And if you doubt that I really know, then why’d you ask me in the first place?! </p>
<p>This would mostly be my husband.</p>
<p>EK-
We were walking with neighbors to a nearby restaurant. On the way back a similar thing happened with a guy in a truck who pulled out into the sidewalk from the parking lot we were crossing, nearly hitting my DH. My DH tapped on his truck to let him know we were there. The guy got out of his truck and threatened my DH (who is the most mild mannered person you could ever meet) for “touching” his precious truck, and tried to start a fight. I had to call the police. I stayed on the phone with 911 until the guy left. We were afraid he was going to follow us. What a whack job.</p>
<p>Things that annoy me? High school seniors who have a longstanding appointment at the children’s hospital to begin transitioning to adult care who say on the morning of the day of the appointment “oh wait-I have an IB psychology exam today. I can’t go.”</p>
<p>
Amen to that! On my walk to the express bus I have to cross a t-shaped intersection in which on street dead ends into another. The long part of the T is one way coming down toward me. As I cross the other street, cars can only turn one way which is toward me. They never, ever, ever look for pedestrians coming up the street, only for cars coming down. I’ve been tapped several times and there are three schools within a two-block area so a lot of kids have to cross there. The concept of one way being for cars and not for pedestrians hasn’t registered.</p>
<p>
I will confess to doing stuff like this to tailgaters.</p>
<p>No matter how nice you are to someone, they will still stab you in the back. Makes me want to stop being nice to people, but I wasn’t brought up that way.</p>
<p>Coworkers who think that they can do what I do just as well without my training and experience, then make a huge mess of things.</p>
<p>Friends who ask if we can reschedule for later in the day, then end up cancelling anyway. My whole day has been wasted.</p>
<p>People who give advice on topics they know nothing about. Kids giving marriage advice to 50-somethings on Parent Cafe threads come to mind.</p>
<p>(I must be feeling like a crotchety old lady today.)</p>
<p>When I run across something I want to put on this thread, but by the time it pops back up again, I can’t remember what it was that I wanted to put on here.</p>
<p>Racists.</p>
<p>Not the obvious ones, but the ones who are “socially conscious”, but then, after five minutes speaking to them, you realize that they are really racists and just doing their “good deeds” so they can get awards, scholarships, political office, etc.</p>
<p>Oh yes, drivers who turn right without looking right. When I used to run, I saw this all the time. </p>
<p>I live in Long Island and there are a lot of really terrible drivers here. They are all on their cellphones (even though it’s illegal), and probably drunk as well, but worst of all, they have no understanding of the concept of right of way. They think that if they have a stop sign, everyone else approaching the intersection has a stop sign, so they pause briefly at the intersection and then they go, regardless of whether cars are approaching that have the right of way and no stop sign. Same at the red lights, they pause for a second and then turn right on red regardless of whether there is oncoming traffic that has the right of way.</p>
<p>Here is something that happens to me at least once a week. I hope this is only a Long Island thing. I’m in the first car at the intersection, waiting for the light to turn green so I can go straight through the intersection. The driver behind me wants to turn right. He wants to turn right on red. He can’t turn right on red because there is a car in front of him. So he honks his horn furiously. I can’t imagine what this is supposed to accomplish. Am I supposed to turn right, when I don’t want to turn right, just so the guy behind me can go? Is he just venting his frustration? It’s bizarre.</p>
<p>Unrelated: People who say, “let’s get together sometime, let’s have lunch sometime, let’s have coffee sometime,” every time you run into them, when they don’t mean it at all. If you try to pin them down to a specific date, they are so, so incredibly busy these days, way too busy to make any plans any time soon, but “hey, I’m so glad I ran into you, it was great seeing you, we should definitely get together sometime . . . . blah blah blah.”</p>
<p>^^^ Not just a Long Island thing - it’s more of “driver who never learned he/she isn’t the center of the universe” thing.</p>
<p>Related: when I’m behind a vehicle that’s signalling to turn left, and I want to go straight ahead, the cars behind me will beep, wanting me to swing right around the first car into the parking/bike lane. People are ticketed for doing that all the time here, and it’s unsafe for pedestrians and bikers - I won’t do it. But a majority of people will, and a fair minority of them don’t mind giving me the finger when they do.</p>
<p>There are impatient drivers everywhere. I think we may have fewer of them in VT than some other places, but we certainly do have them.</p>
<p>Un-arrested sociopaths. They are dangerous, and abound.</p>
<p>This is random, but, women pushing 40, who flip their bangs up and clip it back the way a 2nd grader does. The harsh florescent light strikes the forehead at an odd angle accentuating all the furrows, and the appearance is grotesque and comical. The appearance makes one want to mention something but there’s never really the right time for that usually. Not much different I suppose from men with big bellies who wear their slacks too tight so as to tempt the ladies.</p>
<p>^^^LOL!</p>
<p>On the driving line, people who make left hand turns from the far right lane, or right hand turns from the far left lane.</p>
<p>My son and I call this phenomenon “doing a Houston”.</p>
<p>simpkin - I grew up on LI too and remember the crazy drivers (although they seem to be everywhere now). Anyway, I was in Stockholm with my sister once, waiting to cross the street, when we saw a Cadillac come into a complicated 5-way intersection and do a ridiculous 270 degree turn while all the polite Swedes didn’t beep at all. As I was turning to her to say, “Cadillac drivers, they’re the same everywhere”, the rear of the car turned into view. It had Florida plates! I bet it was an ex-NYer, probably from Long Island.</p>
<p>Oh, more:</p>
<p>My neighbors across the street, who have a habit of backing out of their driveway without looking and hitting whatever car is parked on the other side of the street.</p>
<p>And my son, who parked his car across from their driveway last night even though he’s been warned not to do that.</p>