Meccanized

Dear Woman On the 3,

You are so griding my gears right now.  Sitting across from me, yelling into your cell phone, repeating the phrase “O.M.G.  It was Hi-Larious, Becky.”

I don’t know who Becky is, but if she thinks your stupid story about how you passed some guy your number at Rickhouse is, indeed, Hi-Larious, I hate her too.

I am the first person to champion loud phone conversations on the street.  In fact, I’d say that more often than not, if I’m walking around, I’m on the phone.  Walking from Point A to Point B provides the perfect dead time to make and return phone calls.   But on the sidewalk, with a zillion people caught up in their own chats, said phone calls are unobtrusive.

On the 3, a small enclosed space that is bad enough without your whiny voice, high-pitched chortle and staggering insecurities being broadcast through it, they are pretty damn obtrusive.

Where is the bus justice in the world?  I sit quietly and always give up my seat for the elderly and am repaid by the universe by getting sat on, drooled on and groped by middle-aged men just “trying to find the ’stop requested’ button on the bar by the back door” (here’s a hint — it’s not anywhere near my chest).  You’re using Muni as your own personal phone booth and the worst you get is a written slap on the wrist on this blog.

If the guy you met at Rickhouse actually calls, I sure hope I’m not on the bus when you answer.

Meccanized.

Sincerely,

Lindsay

I think people show their true colors in laundromats.

I, for example, despite feeling under the weather, gave up my seat for a woman with a cane.  Because I am awesome.

But for every sweet, there’s a sour.  Another woman, we’ll call her “Selfish Bimbo With No Soul,” decided that she was entitled to use 7 dryers for her laundry.  7 dryers in a laundromat with only 12 dryers total, 5 of which were already being used.

This was annoying in and of itself, but, to make matters worse, she only put a few items in each dryer.   Apparently, in her mind, it’s perfectly acceptable to waste enough energy to power a small country and make everyone else cool their heels so that one pillowcase doesn’t need to be dried next to the other.

As I waited – standing no less – I had a lovely daydream of hearing the roar of her 7 dryers buzzing “off” simultaneously, running over and dumping all of her clothes onto the dirty laundromat floor in an act of defiance.  Of course, I’m not that kind of person.  Instead, I emptied just the one dryer I needed — a pair of sweatpants, a blanket and some socks.  And while I am above throwing other people’s things on the floor, I am definitely below smushing them together so they are good and rumpled.  It’s the small victories…

Selfish,  inconsiderate, wasteful and Meccanized.