Educated Insolence

Through the course of my daily routines I’ve noticed there are some facets that constantly irritate me. As such, I thought I might list a few and see what others had to offer. Note: I’ll be continually adding to this list. Who knows, one day you might be on it.

1. Bathroom signs that are not clear on what door leads to the women’s room and what door leads to the men’s room. Now, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate artsy, non-standard ways of doing things. But putting up ambiguous signs, say figures where you can’t determine who is the women and who is the man or even putting the words men and women in different languages, is not my idea of fun. Anytime I encounter this, I have to pause for a minute to figure out that I’m really going into where I’m supposed to be. And if I’ve had something to drink, the time required to discern where I should be increases. Adding time to me getting to the restroom…not cool. And making me nervous about going into the forbidden women’s room of flowers and waiting chairs (speaking of which, what’s up with the discrepancy between men and women’s bathrooms?), also not cool. That makes ambiguous restroom signs doubly not cool.
2. Faucets that I can’t tell how to turn on. You know the kind, the fancy new designs that rotate, twist and turn but yet no water seems to come out. They could at least give some indication of perhaps the minimum movement needed to turn it on. The reason these two are my first two on the list is a result of my encounter with both of them in one night. I went out to this nice restaurant (Caribbean, Southern, Pittsburgh food if you can imagine…but trust me, it’s good) and their bathroom, once I found it, had cryptic Caribbean sculptures designating the men’s and women’s restrooms. Then, inside, they had a faucet that took me a few seconds to figure out how to work it. All in all, I think that bathroom unnecessarily cost me a minute and a half of my life.
3. People who can’t walk.  I’m not talking about the physically challenged.  I’m talking about the individuals who are on their cell phones meandering about, seemingly incapable of walking in a straight line or noticing that I am trying to pass their slow incapable asses.  I mean, come on, walking is like driving people.  If you’re slow, move over to the right side of the sidewalk.  If you’re merging, actually look to see if you are going to cut somebody off…namely me.  In the very least, walk in a straight line.  If you did only that I’d be a lot happier.
4. More to come…