Is This Your Beer?

A few tiny things that annoy me on an average day.

When people pronounce the word "Alzheimer's" as though there were a "T" in it. I think it helps people remember because it's like "Old Timer's Disease", but of course, that's not what it's called. This wouldn't bother me as much, except newscasters do it all the time, and they should know better because a.) they are supposed to research these kinds of things and b.) they are reading it off of a teleprompter, so they can see it right there.

When people step onto an escalator that isn't running, and wait several seconds before realizing that it isn't moving and then start walking down/up because they are oblivious to the world around them. Most people have used an escalator enough times to be able to tell just by looking whether or not it is moving, and even if they can't they should know immediately that they are just standing still. Really, when an escalator is turned off, it magically turns into stairs, and after all this time if you don't know how to use stairs without needing to think about it, perhaps you should just stop leaving your house in the morning.

When people sit on the floor in the aisles of a Barnes & Noble, thus blocking access for both walking and for paying customers to get to the actual books. If you are spending enough time reading in Barnes & Noble that your legs can no longer support you, you're not browsing...you're stealing. Buy the damn book already, or go to a library (and don't sit on the floor).

When people leave their garbage just lying around, especially in a city where you are almost never more than ten feet from a garbage can. This applies to the people who take 20 napkins at a movie theater/starbucks/fast food restaurant and then leave the 1 dirty one and 19 slightly dirty ones on the table along with their empty cup and the gum wrappers they emptied out of their purse before leaving. It's even worse when they do it in a park. I'm sure that empty cup and snickers wrapper is weighing you down, but seriously, just carry it until you get to a garbage can. You were able to carry it while it was full, so now it should be easier since it's empty. Why should other people clean up after you, when clearly you wouldn't do it.

When politicians complain about things being politicized. Who do they think politicized it? They did. And if they weren't politicizing it, it would simply be called "governance", and Fox News isn't going to put their face on TV for that.

and finally....

When people talk about how everything changed after 9/11. And yes, the lives of the people involved and the people they knew changed. And certainly the political climate changed, and then we went and started our global rampage. What I mean is when politicians and pundits say it, implying that before 9/11 the world was a happy and peaceful place and then the day after, terrorists just appeared from thin air and we had to do something about it. In fact, there were many terrorists and many terrorist attacks before 9/11. North Korea had nuclear weapons programs (and rudimentary weapons) before 9/11. Iraq was ruled by a dictator and Iran was ruled by a hardliner all before 9/11. Afghanistan was a hotbed of terrorist activities long before 9/11. The world didn't change on 9/11, we just started paying attention to all the bad things that we'd been ignoring before 9/11.

Mind you, each of these thoughts pops up for about 2 seconds out of my day, and the rest of the time I am content to listen to my iPod, enjoy the beautiful weather, and read a good piece of fiction. It would just be extra nice if these little speed bumps didn't pop up in the middle of my great day.