So, I’ve decided to add another category called Rants & Random High Assholiness. Basically a spot for me to vent about…well, it’ll likely be about people most of the time. They’re what makes me angry every day. I’d joked awhile ago about how I wanted to write a guide to help members of the general public be less asshole-y, and while I’m not sure I’ll actually write such a guide, I thought it couldn’t hurt to create a spot where I could dump such random nuggets of wisdom…largely in rant form.
This is my first post in that direction, though it’s not specifically a rant. Just a couple of things I was thinking about on my way to work, and these things have come up in my mind before, so I thought I’d go ahead and drop ’em here for a change. The only real problem today is that I am hugely distracted and busy, so I don’t have much time, but a post is a post is a post, so here goes.
It was a slippery walk to the subway this morning. I fell, but so far today only once. I’m pretty sure the world has a hate on for pedestrians, because nothing is really set up to make our lives at all easier. The roads are clear, but everything gets pushed to the side, to become a swamp of slush and rock salt and mud, which we get to wade through just so we can cross the nice clean street. Then the particularly douchey drivers think it’s hilarious to roll on by as close to the curb as possible so they can spray the swamp slush all over us. Wwalking on a snow-and-slush-covered sidewalk is a workout just to keep from slipping and falling (which I failed at this morning), and then some people all but pave the sidewalk with salt, so everything from the mid-calf down gets destroyed. And since salt just creates more slush (it’s not a substitute for shovelling, people!), it makes everything more slippery and messy than it would have been otherwise, which means that when you finally slip and fall, you can’t just brush that shit off like you can with snow. It stays with you until laundry day.
So my morning started with a slip-and-slide walk on the sidewalk (complete with drain covers and the like, which are extra slippery when wet – not a euphamism), then a wade through a slush swamp to cross the street – carefully avoiding those white lines of doom that get painted on crosswalks to make things even more harrowing – a quick dip in the slush swamp at the other side of the street (get to keep that mess until laundry day), and then a Risky Business-esque shuffle-slide downhill and across some fancy (aka more slippery) sidewalk stones to the intersection outside the subway station.
The subway ride was uneventful but for all the regular noobs who seem to have no idea that there is an acre of space in the middle of the train, as they would prefer to sardine themselves into the doorways, instead. Then, as I was about to board the streetcar to complete the last leg of my journey to work, some tool pulls up in his truck, RIGHT in front of the streetcar door. At a red light. So we had to go around that fool just to get on board.
There are a billion examples of why being a pedestrian is akin to being the lower life-form on the totem pole (anything non-human is, of course, the lowest, as they apparently aren’t even worth stopping for), but winter seems to bring the most of them to the surface. Pedestrians are out in the elements, drivers are not. Exercise a little patience once in awhile to be less of a dick. That goes for any season, really, not just winter.
But speaking of winter, I wonder what it’s like living in places that don’t have as many seasons as we do here in Canada? Like here, everyone measures the turning of the seasons in different ways. Some measure by calendar dates, some via groundhog, some use the weather and/or temperature as an indication of which season it is. And everyone’s IQ drops as soon as there is the slightest hint of precipitation in the air. Long winter, early spring – everyone has their own way of determining what defines a season.
Guys – what does the groundhog do if there are 7 more weeks of winter, instead of 6?
Inventory Of Everything 