Saturday, February 21, 2009

Back Up Off Me Lady

Spending time waiting in line is a part of life. I read a statistic that I just made up that the average American spends 7 years of their life waiting in line. That's a large fake fact. Or maybe it's accurate? Who has time to research this stuff anyway? My point is that since we have quite a bit of experience as a people queuing up for stuff you'd think that we'd have better line etiquette. For the most part we do really, but there is a faction of society (and their numbers seem to be growing too I might add and just did) that don't follow the rules of waiting for something with others.

One of these places I have noticed this is the cafeteria in my office building. I'll be standing in the salad bar line and I'll get what I call "Salad Pressure" from the person behind me. They must think that I'm going to just take all the good bits and leave them pitiful scraps to pick through (if this was the cake bar line or the scotch bar line then their fears would be well founded. I'm a fat drunk you see). Look lady, just wait another 3-5 seconds and let me get my 6 fucking cucumber slices and then you can swoop in ok? Sheesh. When I feel the dreaded Salad Pressure I think it makes me prepare an inferior salad for myself. The person pressuring me has entered my personal space (and is threatening my food...bad idea. I will scratch your eyes out) and so I rush to get away from them as quickly as possible leaving me with a shittier salad than I had planned.

Another place where I feel this same pressure is at the little kitchenette area when I'm using the coffee maker. At work we have one of those coffee makers that makes one cup at a time and the mug that I use takes two of the little pod things to fill it. Invariably while the first pod thing is finishing up someone will come by with their empty mug and start going through the containers of coffee. This gives me Coffee Pressure. Look lady, just wait over there by the sink until I'm done futzing with this goddamn thing. I promise I won't use up all the hot water ok? Sheesh. This is usually at around 8:15 or so in the frickin' morning by the way. I drink one cup of coffee on my drive into work (I have modified my commute so that I can drink the bulk of my coffee on this one road. It's straight and not crowded which means I can leave the car in 4th and just sip away. And bonus: the road is right on the beach. It's quite lovely. Caffeine and salt air) and this is my second crucial, nay CRITICAL cup. I need this coffee to be able to deal with you humans. Oh, and this is also when the person giving me Coffee Pressure wants to chat. "Oh, that coffee smells good huh?" Yes it does. Fuck off. It's enough to ruin my day. Is that overly dramatic? It's true though, I just want to be left alone until I can get more coffee in me. Ok, that's not completely accurate. I just want to be left alone. Period.

There are other examples (Printer/Copy Machine Pressure, Parking Space Pressure, Getting a Drink at a Bar Pressure) but I'm slowly drowning in my own mucous right now and I need my rest.

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