Does the shushing help?

It's a cool, calm, still night as I sit next to an open window reading.

A car alarm goes off. They do that. They do that all the time. Once we had to live through a car alarm going off every couple of minutes all night long. Visions of throwing a large piece of furniture onto the car were dashed by the spotting of the objectionable car too far down the street for us to drop anything on it. Shit happens. It's the insurance company's way of making life hell for everyone even if they don't own a car and can't be financially tormented with it. As if it helps cut down on cars being stolen. I "pssff" in the insurance company's general direction.

There is now a bylaw on the books where we can call the police and waste their time coming to tag and have a car with an endless alarm going off towed away with a stern talking-to promised for the car owner. That way people all over the city can listen to the offending car whine as it is being towed away.

Last night the silliest of all methods was used to try to silence the car: "Shhh!" A little voice in the night said "Shhh!" I almost laughed out loud.

A minute or so later the alarm stopped. Maybe that was the first stage of the car alarm stopping. First, you chastise your car with a stern "Shhh!" and then you put the key in the door and turn it. I can see technical writers all over the place implementing that suggestion for the instruction manual. "For idiots who set off their own car alarms, give the car a stern shushing, and then turn off the alarm and open the car door properly. Look embarrassed."

Is that rude, or just end-of-term staring into the distance?

I was on the UBC campus yesterday on my way to an appointment when I stopped to have some coffee and lunch. (oooh, she stopped for coffee, that's unusual - I think she may have an addiction going here...) And I was wondering if a woman in the cafe was being rude, or just trying to avoid doing the term paper she was working on.

The front of the cafe had windows that could be fully opened up, and since it was such a gorgeous day they were wide open, so I sat at a table facing outside for the view. There were a few other occupied tables, most with a single person facing outside as well, but there was one woman at a single table who was facing inside.

And she was staring at all the people who were facing the other way. Or was she?

She had a very thick book with her - Don Quixote - and a lot of paper with hand written notes and a computer. Aha! I recognize that, it's a term paper in it's primeval form, on it's way to becoming an end-of-term must... finish... this... damned...paper assignment. I remember those!

So she probably wasn't staring at other people to be rude, she was just desperately trying to avoid the term paper!

I remember being a student. It was great to be able to reduce the world into something to stare at when trying to avoid term papers. But, when you leave school, you have to avoid staring at strangers in case they get upset and think it's a challenge they have to respond to... similar to why you don't stare into the eyes of predatory animals unless you want to be attacked by them.

But for now, in a cafe on campus (right beside a great pub... I love that campus, it would have been so much fun to study there) a student can get away with end-of-term staring into the distance, and at other people.

Life will get more complicated later, so she should enjoy it now! I envy the place she is at in life right now.

Why are there so many SORRY busses?

In Vancouver we have a lot of busses. They are typically stuffed with people and are a very useful, if crowded, way to get around the city. But why is the most prominent feature of these busses the SORRY message that shows when the bus is not in service?

When a bus is in service the number and name of the route is displayed on the electronic sign on the top of the front window. This is always done in mixed upper and lower case letters, so it's not an obtrusive sign - just a very useful one.

Sometimes when there is a sports game on, like a hockey game, the sign occasionally flashes Go Team Go. The message goes back to the number and name of the route fairly quickly, so the cheer does not interrupt or confuse potential riders that much.

Typing anything in all capital letters is considered rude. It's called "shouting" at your readers. It's almost as bad as using all lower case letters and actually expecting people to go through the pain of trying to read what you didn't put enough effort into writing to properly capitalize. Life is too short to bother with text written in all lower case and too stressful already without having text shout at you.

So the busses that are not in service shout the fact out. You can't miss these shouting busses, even if you weren't waiting for one. And if you were waiting for one, it's rather disheartening to be passed by so many screaming SORRY ones! It's nice to know when a bus is not in service, but do they have to be so noisy about it?

Isn't talking on your cell while driving rude?

So, ignoring the fact that talking on the phone while you are driving strikes terror into the hearts of pedestrians on the sidewalks around you, and flares anger from the other drivers around you as you do such a bad job of driving... isn't it rather rude?

Putting aside the possibility that it really is All About You...

1. Are you really supposed to mount the curb while parallel parking?
2. Are bumpers really supposed to be used to hit the cars ahead and behind your parking spot when you are parking your car?
3. Is the terrified passenger in your car ever going to want a ride from you again?
4. If you are talking to someone while driving, shouldn't it be your passenger - or do they really enjoy having to hear half of someone else's phone conversation?
5. Does the person on the other end of the phone conversation really only deserve a small part of your attention?
6. Is talking to you really a pain in the ass for the person you are talking to on the phone - so they aren't really paying attention to you either?
7. Have you noticed that no one wants to talk to you when you don't catch them on your phone? Is that the only way you can pin them down to talk?

Hints are flying at you, lets hope they don't hit you like that telephone pole that just jumped out in front of you...

Why is it always the rudest people you meet who complain that everyone is so rude?

While waiting for a bus a couple of days ago I was in a small crowd at a bus stop. I was trying to pay attention to everything going on in the street and on the sidewalk – more for personal safety than anything else – and I was staying back from people who were walking down the sidewalk as a common-sense courtesy to give them room to move.

A man who was walking down the sidewalk had to push his way a little bit through the crowd a few steps up from where I was because there was no room for him to get by on the sidewalk. One of the people who was in his way and needed a bit of a shove got really annoyed and started saying “That was rude!” and remarking to anyone who looked even remotely like they were listening to her that society was getting really rude – but she waited until he was a block away before starting her speech.

There were about 3 people with canes, and 2 older people waiting to get on the bus. The complaining woman was not one of them, but she got on first.

There are signs on buses saying the seats up front are for handicapped and elderly people. She sat in one of these seats. She was middle aged and had no visible physical handicap.

There were some obviously mentally challenged people getting on the bus. One of them showed the bus driver the wrong pass, and had to dig for the proper bus pass, blocking the way for everyone else getting on. The annoyed woman was telling him that there were people behind him that he was holding up. This did not help his already flustered search for the bus pass, which he showed when he found it – he wasn't trying to fool the bus driver, he just had the wrong card at first – an easy mistake anyone could make.

As the bus trundled down its route almost everyone who got on or off the bus was disdained by the woman who felt the world was getting very rude. It was almost amusing to watch, but it wasn't doing her any good, and she may actually have not been middle-aged, but maybe just old before her time, due to the negative aura that she kept feeding with spite for any other human she saw.

Is it a secret that you can't control other people, you can only control yourself? And that includes your reactions to others and your own outlook on life. If you truly want to be miserable, no one will stop you, but do you really want to take the actions of strangers personally? Did that woman really think it was everyone else who was being rude, and not mostly just her?