The General Public is equal parts annoying, boring, disruptive, and horrifying.

Cute li'l evil dog from ICanHasCheezburger.

Although I've seen it performed before, the boyfriend would probably like me to credit him for the fact he always brings this up - As the late, great George Carlin has said, "Believe it or not - I like people." Yes, hard to believe, but I actually don't hate everyone. There are some people that are downright pleasant. By "some", I mean "few", and by "few" I mean "I encounter a person I enjoy about once a week out of roughly 600 encounters of the social kind", but let's not split hairs.

I realize everything in this blog would indicate otherwise. Yeah, I've got a helluva lot of frustrations. And yeah, people, in general, do tend to rub me the wrong way.  But it's just customers and melodramatic Facebitch whores, right? Right? ...maybe?


Sadly, not really. So, in the hopes, once again, of being brief and not making you scream, "TL;DR!", I bring you another list -

Social Interaction With Strangers: Why it's a good thing I'm passive-aggressive and not a serial killer.

***

Scenario A: I am walking to work.

Cars are expensive. Driver's ed is expensive. Insurance is expensive. I support myself, no mooching, no borrowing, nada. Therefore: I don't drive. I don't live with anyone who drives, either. That would require my one roommate, Marcus, to have his license. As Marcus is a cat, you can see where this leaves me. I walk everywhere.  Now, this may not be considered "social interaction", but it is some kind of interaction. I have been:

• Purposely splashed by people driving by. They've gone out of their way to hit puddles. I have seen it.
• Egged. Yes, eggs have been throw at me. More times than I can actually recount to you.
• Hot drinks have been thrown on me.
• Garbage has been thrown at me.
• I have been yelled at for crossing at intersections (when people have waited for me), crossing in crosswalks, and crossing when the sign says "Walk".

And I have been nearly run over countless times. People have no respect for those of us less fortunate, who are forced to be pedestrians. It "grinds my gears", as Peter Griffin would say. Y'know, if he were real and shit.

Scenario B: I am in a store, shopping. Assholes are all around.

I've become a bit of a hermit in the past year, especially the past few months. Work is enough forced social interaction to have to deal with, so I've essentially stopped going out. People just... irritate me. To put it mildly. However, even hermits have to eat (the cat does, too. And so far, all attempts to train him to get my groceries have been unsuccessful). So once a week, I venture to the grocery store, or Wal-Mart.  Some of the worst things that happen when I am a customer are:

• Getting cut in front of in line: Normally, I have 10-15 items. Is it really worth looking like a gigantic piece of shit to save yourself the 2 minutes you'd have waited if you hadn't jumped me?
• Not being able to get anywhere: You are blocking the entire aisle with your cart while you browse the soups. Why are you doing this? Drag your cart - long-ways - to the side. DO NOT have it horizontally splayed so no one can pass.
• Getting stuck behind a Sunday driver: Know what? I hate shopping, and a lot of other people here do, too. We do not treat it like a leisurely drive, we walk at a normal pace (or in my case, a pissed-off sort of sprint with the cart). There's just no need for you to walk roughly .5km per hour. This is not a pleasure stroll.
• 11 items: GTFO of the express lane, asshole. Yes, the line is shorter, but that's because the majority of people in it are paying attention to that big-ass, illuminated sign that says "10 ITEMS OR LESS"*** in bold. I don't care if you "Just have an extra thing or two!" What if everyone had an extra thing or two? THERE'D BE NO POINT FOR THE FUCKING LINE.
• Being a sucky customer: Obviously, I've been in the cashiers position, and I know you're being a totally out-of-line prick. Stop arguing. It was not on sale. She (or he) is not lying to you. As a cashier, they're already guaranteed to be having a bad day, and they're definitely just waiting to be off work and go the hell home, so trust me: The cashier is not lying and is not intentionally trying to make your day worse. There's just not enough energy left in any of them to waste it on you, jerk. The people behind you? Like me? Yeah, we're waiting for you to STFU and get out of line.

***that should be "10 items or fewer" to be grammatically correct, but this is about people. That's another rant for another day.

Scenario C: I am waiting in line at the bank.

Yeah, the bank usually doesn't have enough tellers working to make the line move in a speedy fashion when it's busy. Is it annoying? Yeah. But know what's more annoying? Being the person on the other side of the counter, having people say to you, "You really should have more people on." This one always got me at the theatre. Believe me, I didn't want to be the only box office clerk with a line up of 900 people out the door on Rememberance Day (when nothing else was open). So hearing it 50 times a) did not make me move any faster and b) did not make another person magically appear, all it did was option c) make me want to stab you with my pen.

That being said, I can't fucking stand when someone in line near me at the bank attempts to get me to hate on the tellers. "Don't you just hate how slow it is?" Uh, sure. "You'd think they'd have someone else one!" Er.. yeah. "I wish they'd move faster!" I bet we all do. "Can you believe how unfair this is to us?" This is where I actually blatantly ignore the person talking to me, because it stops me from saying,

"CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW UNFAIR THIS IS TO THE FEW PEOPLE WORKING WHO HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE WHOLE LINE UP THEMSELVES, AND HEAR OLD BATS LIKE YOU COMPLAIN ON TOP OF IT?"

I will not join in on your negativity, lady (or man), so please leave me out of it.

Scenario D:  I am (unfortunately) conversing with a stranger, when - BAM! The overshare

This can happen anywhere. Strangers telling you unnecessary things that can range from Incredibly boring and pointless to the even worse Completely awkward or disgusting. 

Examples:

Customer and I are talking about the movie No One Would Tell. About an abusive relationship, etc. Customer (who is painfully awkward to begin with) explains about how she was in an abusive relationship.

Well, duh, of course I feel bad for you, but, what the hell am I supposed to say? This falls in to the awkward. Actually, this fucking DEFINES the awkward. Honorable mention: The time I was talking to someone about how we didn't watch Sex and the City (the show, not the movies), and she said "Well, I've had sex in the city." She was like 40. Don't do that to me.

Scenario E: I am on the internet, commenting happily about something I like, when...


I'll be wandering around Facebook, minding my own business, when I'll see a post about something I like, like Glee. People will share the love, and I'll be happily conversing with like-minded people when BOOM! - someone comments about how "gay" Glee is. Usually they'll say, "I'm sorry but..." before making their comment. First of all - opinions on movies, books, music, tv shows, etc... are subjective; you can't say something sucks. Second of all, why did you go out of your way to point that out? Are you so incensed about something (that makes many people happy) that you actually have to take time out of your day, and expel the necessary energy to call something down and out, on a thread full of cheerful, positive people who are happily discussing something? (Glee being the example only because it kept happening on the local radio station's page. Full-grown women commenting on statuses aimed towards fans of the show, saying "I'm sorry but that sho is so stupid. It sux". So does the fact that you're middle-aged, can't spell, and are that petty and bored.)

Hey, I dislike Justin Bieber and Two and a Half Men and a whole myriad of other things people like. And I might blog about it, but I'm not going to purposely comment on something aimed to any of their fans, simply to state that I don't like it, and don't agree. What's the point? I don't even take the time to tear Twilight apart on Facebook. It just seems like such a waste of energy.

I feel the same wandering along my newsfeed, and seeing a status about, well, anything that's trending on Facebook (like a certain note or whatever) and how "Omggg so sick of these!" It bothers you, so instead of blocking the offending peoples' newsfeeds, you have to bitch about it? Really? Some people are sad. 

Scenatio F: I am ... anywhere public. People are there with children.

I love kids. I do. I don't have any, and don't think having any anytime soon is anything other than The Worst Thing That Could Happen, but I like other peoples' kids, and want my own someday (when I am not 21-years-old). Kids make me smile.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep them on a damn leash from time to time.

There are few things that bother me as much (this is again relating mainly to customers in my own store, but it is more universal that that and can therefore be included in this list) as when parents let their kids run around and shriek and basically destroy the fucking place. I don't care if it's my video store, if it's Wal-Mart, or McDonalds... if it's anywhere other than a goddamn playground, there are going to be people there who don't want to be cut off by a child running in front of them with no warning, who don't want to hear high-pitched shrieks, and who bascially are ripping the place apart and making a mess and getting under everyone's feet.

But no one must ever, EVER say anything to Mommy and Daddy's pweshus widdle angel. People get pissed off when you tell their kids not to do something. Why? PROBABLY BECAUSE THEY'RE EMBARRASSED, as they should be. 

• If your child does not know how to behave, do not take them to public places. How hard is that, really? You chose to have a child (you can argue you just "got pregnant" - you may not have chosen that, but believe me - you chose to have that kid, no matter what you say otherwise. Options, people. And I don't just mean the "bad" A-word, there's also the one that has "OPTION" right in it... adOPTION), therefore you chose to make sacrifices. Those may include not getting to go as many places as you used to.
• DO NOT. I REPEAT DO NOT take babies, toddlers, or older kids who still like to wail and scream, TO RESTAURANTS. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR THAT WHILE THEY ATTEMPT TO ENJOY FOOD AND CONVERSATION.
• Why did you buy your kid shoes with wheels in them? Because every other kid has them? Why would you do that? They're going to wheel around, get in the way, irritate the shit out of everyone around them, and maybe even fall. But if that happens, and they get hurt, it's not your fault for not telling them, "There's a time and a place to be an obnoxious little fucker with wheels in their shoes," it's the company's (if you're in a store or other establishment) fault! And dagnabbit, You's gon' sue! 
• Which leads to people like me, telling your kid not to run, to use their damn feet, not the wheels, to stop climbing on things, etc... not because we're worried about them (you should be, however), but because we know you're just going to blame everyone except yourself if they do get hurt, and we've gotta cover our asses.
• Which leads to you yelling at us, again, for telling your pweshus widdle angel not to do something... that they shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Rinse and repeat.

So I guess the moral of this story is, you can't even escape idiots on the internet, if you want to eat, you have to be prepared for morons, and if you don't know how to teach your kids how to behave, you've gotta suck it up and stay home.