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My Gears, Ground
There are few subjects about which I can say — with confidence — that the definitive take belongs to an Italian toad puppet from New York. Proper subway etiquette, however, makes the cut:
https://youtu.be/NIqqmtpidOU
Since watching this, I’ve twice belted out “Let people ouffa da train first!” on the Boston subways as someone tried to squeeze their way on the moment the doors opened. I can’t say it’s done me any practical good yet — the emotional gains, however, are immeasurable — but I nurse the hope that someone might take it to heart, even if it sounds like it came from a Yankees fan.
Courtesy is both a matter of knowledge, conscientiousness, and empathy; you have to know what’s expected of you, be aware of your surroundings, and make some effort to put yourself in others’ shoes. Mild failure leads to irritation, major failure to justified Hulk-like rage. Besides the subway, I find my temperature ticking higher most often over:
- Drivers who use the wrong lanes on highways. This is directed as much at those who creep along in the left lane as to speed-demons who think nothing of passing on the right without good reason.
- Long telephone messages where the person forgets to leave their number until the very end and then rushes it.
- People in line who have insanely complicated and lengthy food orders — usually for their entire office — but don’t bother to call ahead or even write it down. I have an amazing ability to get behind such people.
- Retail employees — or, more commonly, postal workers — who are behind the counter but neither helping customers nor visibly doing anything else when there’s a long line.
So what gets you these days? What — besides quoting puppets — can we do about it?
Published in Culture
All driving illegalities get my goat. I mostly miss my truck not for its ability to haul things or offend Pius drivers, but rather for its ability to scare the [expletive] out of tailgaters when I brake check them. A little courtesy goes a long way when we all have to share the roads, and I can show you how exactly inconvenient a little discourtesy on my part is to you if you can’t back the [expletive] off…or change lanes more than 3 inches from the exit…or wave me through a four way stop after I’ve come to a complete stop and you’re still rolling forward…
That video is great. Pretty edgy for a public announcement.
That last thing Tom mentioned–employees milling about doing nothing while customers wait in line–gets my goat badly. Postal employees seem to relish in not giving a crap about customer service. Fiscal and technological realities will ultimately catch up with them, however.
Tailgating really gets me lately because I often have kids in the car. The worst is when tailgating is an ineffective tactic, i.e. the person directly in front of you is not the cause of the slow down. Take it easy, Speed Racer, you might live longer.
I had someone on I-5 slowed down to 35 (I judged it to be a safe speed for his following distance) before he got fed up, shot across the 5 EMPTY lanes and went his way. 4:30 on a Sunday morning and he thought honking and flashing his lights would make me speed up. It’s like I tell the riggers at work: there is nothing you can do to make me go faster, but you have unlimited resources with which to slow me down.
I was in Hawaii long ago and after a while I just started letting the Japanese tourists bounce off me.
Let’s start a pool on how many comments this post will generate. Dibs on 200.
I love Glove and Boots. They rock.
The line “Let people ouffa da train first!”cuts both ways, actually.
There are people who are sitting or standing in the middle of the subway car who wait until the last possible minute, gather themselves together and amble on over to the open doors.
And there are people who get on, and stay in the doorway for the long ride home, never moving into the middle.
The last minute Bolters are also annoying.
I am in the middle of the car until two stops away from my destination, and when the people getting off at that next to last stop for me, follow them, and position myself at the door to be off the subway car with a step.
Tony T’s advice on bringing your bike on the subway is also spot on.
That’s true, and I’ll plead guilty to being on the offending side of that a few times.
<pedantry>Johnny T</pedantry>
I keep calling the character Tony T.
Tony T is a British Rapper of Jamaican extraction. He probably doesn’t even sound like Johnny T.
We drive on the right-hand-side in North America.
So, why are people incapable of following the same model when walking on the sidewalk?!?!?!
So will the heat death of the Universe. The question is, which will come first?
Good question!
I’d also add to my list “Couples who hold hands and walk slowly.” Walking slow is okay; being a cute couple is okay. It’s not okay to combine these things.
Prawn, that’s ridiculous. There’s no excuse for tailgating on open highways. I loathe being tailgated when there are 10 cars in dense traffic in front of me and the right lane(s) are filled with slow moving tractor trailers. I’ll get out of the way if I can for someone who wants to drive even faster than I am, but I cannot in that situation.
Honking – as a form of expression.
Often, the entire stalled mob of frustrated drivers outside my window will just lay on the horn (and stay on the horn) until things start moving again. Throw a large commercial truck into the mix and it sounds like the Queen Mary is pulling up alongside my fire escape.
It’s very hard to get back to sleep once you’ve started fantasizing about adapting medieval castle wall defenses for modern residential building use . . .
Letting people off first also applies to elevators!
I didn’t hear the puppet say he was Italian.
What drew you to that conclusion?
He says so in another sketch. Plus there’s his “Italian Stallion” jacket.
And his car horn plays out the Godfather theme before he crashes into the trash cans. Not only is he Italian-American, he comes from Bensonhurst. The lights on his mother’s house (he lives at home with his parents) help guide the planes in at Christmas.
I have a NY Jets jacket that doesn’t mean I’m on the team.
If the speed limit’s 55 and I’m doing 65 while the traffic to my right is doing 50, you might as well be patient because it will be a l o n g time before I’ll move over so you can do 80.
I had not seen that one before. I loved it.
Except for the horn, of course.
Tommy did you actually watch the video? The puppet is Italian. It seems odd that you are making a thing out of this.
What do you mean?
You asked Tom why he thought the puppet was Italian. He linked you to a video (in which the puppet says his father is Italian) and mentioned the Italian Stallion jacket. You came back with a quip saying that you have a Jets jacket, but it doesn’t mean you are on the team. To me, this implies you didn’t watch the video that proves Tom’s point and only responded to his point about the jacket.
Oh no, I watched the video. The jacket didn’t convince me. What other part of the video was supposed to convince me he was Italian?
Is this worth the squabble? Johnny T is a Toad, which means he’s got a thick enough skin to not care whether you call him Italian or Albanian. Well, he might be upset to be called Albanian. Albania and Italy are close enough for natives of the two countries to have swapped spit a few times, but Italians do sometimes sniff at Albania, given its recent history.
I learned this from a Croatian who had both Ustase and Partisans in his family. Talk about tense Thanksgivings!
To make sure we are talking about the video Tom linked to a separate video called “Introducing Johnny T”. In this video he says explicitly that his father was Italian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8REihYxB5Y
No I meant the video embedded in Tom’s post.
And all those people clog up the aisles on airplanes.
Carry-on luggage was the death of civility. :)