It’s been a while since I’ve had a good bitching session about People who Do Annoying Things, and it’s high time that this oversight was rectified. So, I give you my latest list of people who deserve to be cursed with a chronic infestation of pulex irritans.
First up, pedestrians. Yes, South African motorists hate them, but some of them deserve to be hated. Really. Especially the ones who walk in front of you just as there’s a gap in traffic, forcing you to sit for ages until the next gap appears. It would be just as easy for them to walk behind your car, but no. I am convinced this is a passive aggressive way to get at motorists.
Slow walkers. This is more of a problem in cities like London, where people generally walk everywhere; in South Africa, it manifests itself in shopping malls where people waft about like drifts of sea foam with no sense of purpose at all, causing needless congestion. Also, people who decide that doorways and the areas in front of escalators are appropriate places to have a confab about where to go and what to do. They should be hauled off and placed in solitary confinement where they can reflect on their lack of consideration for their fellow citizens.
People — usually men — who don’t use towels on gym equipment. Sis man.
Rattlers in cinemas. Honestly. People who rattle chip packets and sweet wrappers in movies should be shot at dawn or, at the very least, divested of their reproductive organs with a blunt spoon.
Those cleaning ladies who swing their yellow warning signs violently back and forth in order to dry the floor they have just cleaned, thus clearing a sort of force field in the entire surrounding area while you’re trying to squeeze past them in an effort to pick up a punnet of rosa tomatoes. I have never witnessed this behaviour anywhere else in the world. Perhaps we could persuade tourists to visit in the hope of witnessing it.
And finally, people who do not use earphones to listen to their crappy choice in music on their computers, thus forcing everyone else in the cubicle farm to share, unwillingly, in their love of Celine Dion (in an ad agency?!) and the Black Eyed Peas. I swear, if I hear about how Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night once more, I’m going to … do something. I don’t know what yet, but rest assured that it will result in the infliction of injury upon the person of the offending individual.
You have been warned.
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28 Responses to “It’s time to declare a pox on annoying people”
Hahahaha!
I would also add people who blast Sean Kingston from their little computer speakers. Annoying twats!
AT HOME. I would go into the study, close the door, sit down behind my computer, put on my headphones and then listen to all my favourite artists - Josh Groban, De-Phazz, Diana Krall, Gotan Project, Seal, Matt Monro….GOOD STUFF! I bother my cubicle farm has a cluster of four speakernobody.
AT WORK. Hanging from the roof, belting out pop-rock all day long (as well as that ‘Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night’). In that corner over there sits Veronica. She doesn’t like 94.7 and lets het little clock radio spew metro sound. In the opposite corner Mukondi piously listens to a preacher excitedly spreading the Word.
To top all of this, some smart ass, a cubicle or two down, decides to make a phone call. He dials the number and puts the phone on speaker and the ringing starts, and it rings, and it rings….rings….rings…. Answer that effing phone !! Jissis !!
What about shoppers that park their trolley on the left hand side of the aisle, then browse the shelves on the right, thus blocking the whole aisle. And the family shopping, stopping for a discussion in the middle of the aisle totally oblivioius of fellow shopppers.
Pale rocks. When I was in school, all the jocks would laugh at people like me who didn’t tan.
Now they are all dead (from cancer) or look 20 years older than me.
LOL.
That song about using sunscreen is only half right. Sunscreen will not help you. The only way to stay young into middle age is not to expose yourself to the Sun when you are young.
Shoppers slamming trolleys into ankles while talking on the mobile. Mobiles in restaurants and hospitals right under the sign prohibiting them. People taking 15 minutes to get into the car, put belt on, start up, indicate and pull out while you are waiting in a full parking lot. People walking lion-size dogs and leaving tank shell sized turds all over the place. People attempting to pay for a 21.99 purchase with a cheque or card. Farting in queues or cinemas. Humans are full of shit, a Stephen King size novel could be written about irritting behaviour.
People who habitually drive slowly in the centre lane of a 3 lane motorway… There is ONE driving lane for slow drivers. All the others are for overtaking.
How about those who do their personal hygiene in public. Like coughing up flem and spoeging it out, especially love the audio effects. Those who pick at their split ends or floss teeth on the bus. Hello people, this is not a public bathroom?
Add those who start up loud conversations with accidental neighbours on an airplane: having 2 hrs of expat south african + inpat s/african discussing the detail of their gripes and then move on to their grandchildren between Johburg and Cape Town, or two US expats between Johburg and Nairobi exchanging tips and juicy experiences of exotic Africa (after a couple of months around they have become greater experts than Africans themselves) - takes a lot of civility out of their fellow passengers who wanted - and do have a right to - some silent space.
Christine Anthonissen on November 20th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
LOL! I completely emphasize with you about those idiots who walk in front of you when I’m trying to turn right out of a sleepy little Gillitts lane into Everton Road at 0730. A long line of joggers, maids walking to work, etc, walks down the sidewalk and seem to take a perverse pleasure in looking me in the eye as they walk across my bows just as a rare gap appears in both lanes. I agree - passive-aggressive behaviour at its purest!
Sorry for you, but as a person concerned about climate change, I am going to be as passive - aggressive as possible towards motorists when I walk. Why not try and walk/cycle too? It’s much less stress I promise
Getting angry or irritated with the type of people spoken of in the above comments is probably not going to change them but it is certainly going to prepare you for health problems in the future.
In defence of pedestrians: outside Claremont police station there is a pedestrian crossing with clear pedestrian right-of-way. I walk it regularly. No drivers ever obey the rules. I was vloeked by a larney in a Merc eating chips, speaking on a cellphone and travelling about 100km/hour in a 60km/hour zone.
I pointed to the sign and gave the finger. Sarah, you need to think about pedestrians and how they are screwed over. Always and everywhere.
When I’m feeling irritated, just about anyone can irritate me. I’ve been known to think you very irritating on occasions. No, don’t rush to Facebook to unfriend me. I’m not there!
The idiots of the world congregate in Shopping Malls. Its their temple! They worship their gods by stopping in the middle of nowhere, aimlessly staring into empty void, and striking up conversations with fellow idiots. It is also known that they take communion. They can however only do one thing at a time, not stuff their faces and walk at the same time. My wife refuses to give me the trolley as I have the ability to turn it into a lethal weapon. Unfortunately I am only reduced now to verbally abuse the idiots, but it is wasted breath. If they had 2 braincells to smack together I would not need to abuse them as they automatically woud have direction.
Motorists who happily wave not just one but twenty waiting vehicles into the traffic flow while you sit waiting behind them, AND THEN they go just as the robot is about to change and you have to wait at the robot.
Motorists who dont indicate that they are actually turning into your road, so you sit and wait for them NOT to go past.
People who step off at the bottom of an escalator and then STOP.
As a motorcyclist I see them all: the taxi (obviously), the lady in an obscenely big SUV (fortuner, mercedes et al) talking on the phone, texting!, drifting into my lane while castigating the three brats in the back, the young guy with larney sunglasses and a starter BMW and raging sexual frustration crossing lanes at high speed, sattelite installation bakkies, ouks from Bellville in white double-cabs. Jaywalkers aplenty, guys who piss in public (an epidemic), motorcades, drunk “parking” attendants. I always promise myself I won’t swear like a sailor before I get to my destination, but I fail every time.
And cellphones in the movies. Kids don’t switch them off, they’re busy on MXit while watching the bleeding movie! Oh, and the talkers. Why, pray tell, did they come to the movies to talk??? And my favourite pet peeve - mothers with babies / kids on their laps instead of in the back seat with a seat belt or baby seat.
I agree with you 100% Sarah but the thing that really gets my blood boiling are mothers with prams. Specifically Jeep prams. Your baby is very very small, it does not need something that takes up the entire passage to be ferried around in, they are the most illogical things I have ever seen. So unless you are an Amazon and your baby daddy is Goliath get a normal - sized pram or leave your kid at home. If you can afford a big pram, you can afford a nanny.
Another thing, at the gym the people who can’t follow the circuit sequence. The apparatus is numbered you inbred hillbilly fools.
Last one, kids who are not disciplined. Why must the rest of us suffer your insolent brat because you are too lazy to actually parent.
“Those cleaning ladies who swing their yellow warning signs violently back and forth in order to dry the floor they have just cleaned, thus clearing a sort of force field in the entire surrounding area while you’re trying to squeeze past them in an effort to pick up a punnet of rosa tomatoes”
echos of this weeks midrand reporter…it seems like it only affects really short people…
Car drivers never consider/see pedestrians or cyclists imo.
You can be starting to cross over at a stop street, as is your right, and they’ll just ‘put foot’.
When they’re parked on pavements - which they shouldn’t be anyway - they reverse without looking behind them.
And as for going through red traffic lights … enough said!
I can tolerate pedestrians under any circumstances. They are saving the world a good deal of carbon emissions. Imagine if we all had cars! I think more and more people want to buy a car the first minute they get some money because motorists are not very nice to them.
On the issue of fake tans; Well, it is better that frying yourself in the sun for hours or worse, in one of those scary sun-beds where you feel like you’re in a mortuary.
Somebody once asked a brunette with a very deep tan: “I love your tan, what can I do to get one just like that (and it looks so natural)”. The brunette responded:
“Well, get a black dad”. LOL!
oh Theodore reminds me of my personal pet peeve, all the rage for sure. My 11 year old daughter always sits on the far left on the way to school so she gets the good view… I think the poor child has seen more piels than I have in all my years. WHAT THE HELL? Why do men think it’s their g*d given right to piss full into the street or the drain - or the worst ON MY CAR in full view of everyone? Do men spend longer in taxis than the women who also get off at the same stop? Do they walk further from the station? Do women’s cars have built-in lavatories? When have you ever seen a woman aiming into the road shoulder or letting it dribble down your rear tyre? Ugh, ugh, ugh.
Men are filthy creatures yes, but they haven’t been afforded bladders of the same capacity as women, mainly because their bladders don’t have to be squashed because they’ll never be pregnant.
I think that public urination is more disgusting than annoying. Flies are annoying. Male parts flapping about for all to see is vomit - inducing.
how about people who leave thier shopping trolley behind your car or next to it………. guess after walking around in a mall you’re too lazy to just leave the flippin thing where you’re supposed to
and from my taxi riding days - the guy who uses roll-on sparingly but feels it’s his God-given right to lift his arm and cradle your head in his toxic armpit the whole way to town (oh and don’t even thingk about opening the window someone will complain)
A set of circumstances recently has introduced me to the pleasures of walking in Cape Town. Living close to my offices (or should that be working close to my home) made the idea of walking to and from the office do-able.
So for the past three weeks or so I have walked the street - so to speak – more specifically walked the pavements and crossed the roads of Somerset and High Level (and some of the smaller roads in-between for variation) from the start of Sea Point to the edge of the city.
Connecting with the city at this level has made me so proud to be a living in this city. Every day I walk past the magnificent stadium and all the construction and building going into making it ready for 2010. The improvement of the pavements, so necessary now that I see how many people are walking instead of driving, is being sensitively executed and has created a very pleasant walking surface. I would wish that this improvement could be extended to all suburbs as it is really pleasant on the feet and must surely improve the value of homes and businesses. It also seems to be a good way of giving employment to a number of people. Three cheers Cape Town.
And a round of applause for the street cleaners and sweepers. When the leaflets from Dr. Bumabashi promising an improvement in my lovelife in just 7 days or the bright red flyers from Spar on its
Flaneur Gillespie on November 30th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
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Sarah Britten has written three books on South African insults. During the day she is a communication strategist in the ad industry; by night she writes books and blog entries. It helps to have insomnia.
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Hahahaha!
I would also add people who blast Sean Kingston from their little computer speakers. Annoying twats!
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