People Start Pollution

Remember this guy?  When I was growing up, this ad campaign was a big deal.  It got our attention and pointed out that littering was destroying the natural beauty of America.  For my generation, littering became taboo.  So what's happened?  You can look around and see trash everywhere.  Take a look in empty parking lots before businesses open and you'll see where people have cleaned out their cars and left piles of garbage right there on the pavement.  Fast food bags, cups, bottles, cans, and even dirty diapers.  More often than not, there is a trash can within walking distance, but apparently, that's too haaaaaaarrrrdddd.  Seriously?  You really think it's ok to just dump your crap out on the ground?  Years ago I visited Yellowstone National Park with my sister.  We saw the Morning Glory Pool which is a hot spring where a certain type of bacteria grow giving the water a beautiful blue color.  Over the years, so much debris has been thrown into the pool some of the natural vents have been blocked and the color has slowly faded.  In 1966, the pool was a periwinkle color.  Today, it's a pale aqua.  There is a large sign, titled Faded Glory, that explains how this hurts the spring, yet every year, the Park Service removes hundreds of rocks, coins, and other debris (trash) that tourists throw in.  My sister and I witnessed a family letting their kids throw pennies in and making wishes.  Apparently, they didn't think the sign applied to them and weren't very appreciative when we pointed it out.  Maybe they should have been wishing for some smarts since it was obvious they didn't have any.  The city I live in has an annual Ethnic Festival where 65 countries have booths featuring native food and merchandise along with a stage where dancers and musicians perform from all over the world.  There are trash cans every 10 feet and at every booth and those cans are emptied regularly.  Yet, at the end of the festival, when everyone has gone, the ground is covered in garbage.  Empty water bottles (and some that are completely full), programs, paper plates, napkins, empty beer cups, plastic bags, dirty diapers, broken sunglasses, shoes (seriously, shoes?!), paper fans, and all kinds of other flotsam and jetsam are strewn from one end of the park to the other.  I was completely stunned the first time I saw it.  With so many trash cans provided, how do people justify just dropping garbage where they're standing?  Do you really live this way?  The one that really bugs me are cigarette butts.  Look at the ground at any intersection or at any drive through. There will be hundreds of cigarette butts lying there.  I was driving home one afternoon on a beautiful spring day with my windows down and the woman in the car in front of me tossed out her cigarette.  It came through my window and hit me in the face.  Just what I wanted:  to be hit in the face by a nasty smelling butt that was on fire and had been in a stranger's mouth.  At the next intersection, I got out of my car and gave it back to her.  Granted, she was horrified that it had hit me, but why do smokers think the world is their ashtray?  Cigarette butts don't break down.  All this trash that people so cavalierly toss on the ground can end up in storm drains which empty into streams and lakes.  It can attract feral animals.  Wildlife can ingest it or get caught up in it.  It looks and smells horrible.  So why do people still do this?  People start pollution, people can stop it.  People behaving badly.

The Express Lane Means Express

Since everyone likes to eat, most of us make regular trips to the grocery store.  Heck, a lot of grocery stores have whole sections devoted to salad bars and hot meals, so you don't even have to cook to eat.  Plus they carry everything else from wine to motor oil to birthday cakes so there's something for everyone.  It really shouldn't be a surprise to me that people behave poorly while they're shopping, but somehow, it always is.  What is it with people who park their cart in the center of the aisle, blocking traffic, while they read labels or rifle through their coupons to find the one for whatever product they're standing in front of?  Other people with carts end up backed up on both sides of them while they continuously stand there, oblivious to the world around them.  They're always so surprised when they finally notice or someone says "excuse me."  Seriously?  You're so unaware of your surroundings that you don't notice 5 other people within 6 feet of you?  I also can't stand the people who put something in their cart and then change their mind about it somewhere else in the store so they just put the item on whatever shelf is closest.  Hey, that's right, the bread shelf is exactly where that can of Raid should go. Don't worry about poisoning any of the rest of us. How difficult is it to walk yourself back to the right location and put it away?  Apparently pretty difficult.  From what I've seen, on a scale of 1 to 10, it's impossible.  I absolutely cannot stand to get behind the people who want to carry on a long conversation with the cashier at checkout.  I don't mean the people who are friendly and chat while their purchase is being scanned.  That's actually a nice thing to do.  I mean the people who have known the cashier since she was 4 and want to catch up on every detail of her (or her family's) life since the last time they saw her.  It's always during a busy time when every line is backed up with full carts three and four deep and this bozo wants to know who the girl is dating and how her mother's hysterectomy went.  You can't make a phone call to catch up?  You have to do it right this very minute while the rest of us are glaring daggers at you and you don't see that the poor cashier is trying to be polite but clearly wants you to move on?  Really?  What is wrong with the people who see a sign for something on sale and pick up the item right next to it?  They then pitch a hissy fit at checkout because the cashier rang it up "wrong."  No, you're just a moron and either can't read or you're trying to pull a fast one.  If brand X is on sale, that doesn't mean brand Z is because it's on the same shelf.  And then there are the people who want to take 40 items through the express lane because they're all the same.  I'm sorry (ok, no I'm not), 40 cans of tuna doesn't count as 1 item!  Who do you think you're kidding?   How about people who can't put their cart in the cart corral in the parking lot when they've finished with it?  They just leave it sitting there where it rolls into other people's cars and takes up parking spaces.  You'd think that the corral is located all the way on the other side of the lot, at least 200 yards away, instead of conveniently located every 10 spaces.  How lazy are you to be unable to drive an empty shopping cart 20 feet and put it in the corral?  People behaving badly.

Limes Are For People Who Order Margaritas

There are a few things that people do when dining out that completely flummox me.  Things that make no sense to me what so ever.  Of course, I'm aware that they probably make perfect sense to the people who do them, but their reasoning escapes me.  For instance, people who insist on being seated in a booth when they're shown to a table.  Now, if you have small children, I get why you want a booth.  You want to trap them between you and the wall to prevent them from escaping your clutches and running around like monkeys on acid.  I get that, really I do, and I thank you for it!  What I don't understand is someone without small children who militantly demands a booth in a closed section instead of the perfectly nice table available.  We're not even talking about the people who want the dirty booth instead of the clean table that's ready to be seated, standing in the aisle, waiting for someone to bus the booth and clean it, disrupting the flow of seating and lurking over the people already sitting at tables around them.  Seriously?  It makes that much difference in how much you enjoy your meal?  I also don't get the people who demand a lime with their water or soft drink instead of a lemon.  Limes are more expensive, generally kept at the bar where the server has to ask for them, and taste no different than the more easily accessible lemon.  Requesting a lime slows down your service, since every time you get a refill, the server has to make another trip to the bar.  That's part of their job you say?  Of course it is, but they can serve you more efficiently if you don't make silly requests that don't make any difference in taste.  A lime in your water doesn't make you look more sophisticated either, it makes you look pretentious.  Then there are the people who want their toddler to order his own meal.  The server is forced to stand there and wait while Mommy keeps saying "Tell her what you want, go on, tell her, tell her what you want, you can do it, say it, tell her what you want, tell her, use your words, you can say it, tell her," while said toddler is hiding his face or trying to get under the table or coloring or anything except telling the server what he wants.  Newsflash: restaurants are busy places and servers really don't have time to camp out while you try to get junior to use his words.  That server has other tables that also need her attention and if they don't get it, she'll lose money.  What about the people who don't unroll their silver from the napkin?  Instead, they just pull the utensils out of the roll and ask for extra napkins, and that's if they use the utensils at all.  I've seen this with both cloth napkins as well as paper ones.  People are animals.  Guess what?  We give you the silver and the napkin in one tidy little package for your convenience.  If you don't use it, we can't reuse it on the next table.  (Would you really want that anyway?  Ewww!)  We have to unroll it, wash the silver, and throw away a perfectly good napkin that you were too lazy to unroll, after we had to give you another one.  Napkins (like limes) cost money to restaurants and when customers use (or demand and then not use) more and more, the restaurant will eventually pass that cost on to you.  I also don't understand the people who want to pay their modest ticket with a $100 bill.  Most servers carry a "bank" to make change that usually consists of about $20.  The restaurant doesn't provide this.  If you come in to eat early in the shift and want to pay your $25 ticket with a $100, chances are the server can't break it and has to get change from the bartender or the manager.  If either one of them are busy, this could take some time, holding up not only you, but also all the other tables in that server's section.  Since you almost always have to ask for $100's from the bank and ATMs generally don't give them, the people who do this are doing it intentionally.  I don't get it.  It doesn't make you look wealthy.  It's a pain for everyone involved and most of the time, you get change that consists of $1's and $5's.  That fits in your wallet really well, right?  What about people who walk in talking on their cell phone and continue to talk on it all the way to the table?  Seriously?  You can't finish your conversation in the car?  How about the people who don't read the menu?  Instead, they want to ask me three hundred and one questions involving the possible three thousand and one ingredients the restaurant has.  "Do you have this?"  Believe it or not, the menus are tools created just for you, the customer!  It has all the information you'd like to know! The best one ever was the woman who came in one day who left her reading glasses in the car and demanded to use my prescription glasses that I was wearing!  I wish I was making this up. They aren't reading glasses and they aren't for perfect strangers to use!  Who does this?!   People behaving badly.