A Call For Remedial Kindergarten and Driver Ed Classes

I want to first start off with an apology. I used to come back from trips overseas and criticize the people there for things like, oh, not knowing how to line up (or "queue," for those of you that talk the Queen-speak) and generally violating my personal space. (The idea of "personal space" is, I believe, largely an American principle. We here in the U.S. expect -- and rightly deserve, in my opinion! -- 15-18 inches of "personal space" normally be kept between us and whomever is "gettin' too close." This is almost a necessity, because we're prone to anger and we like to shoot people.)

I now know that I was wrong. Wrong to judge. Wrong to criticize. Wrong to elbow the smarmy guy behind me in line to exit the airplane who was applying gentle but constant pressure to the small of my back in the hopes that somehow doing that would get the line, which wasn't moving at all, to somehow miraculously start going... But most importantly, wrong to think that people here are any better at little things like lining up! So, to you "for-ners," I apologize, sort of.

Now, on to some observations from the homeland. Keep in mind that I use public transportation, like the subway, every day, and live in D.C., the city with the nation's 3rd-worst traffic and absolute worst personalities, so I may run into more of this than the average commuter...

1. Single-File, Folks! Didn't they teach us in kindergarten how to get in line? Every morning I watch people rudely cut in front of me and others in some line, somewhere, even if there's only 1 or 2 people in that line. I don't care what kind of a hurry you're in, Ronald from Accounts Receivable, there's no way waiting for an extra 1 or 2 people ahead of you is gonna make you miss that buy opportunity on the stock market, the connector bus at your subway stop, or the 11 a.m. cut-off to get breakfast at McDonald's. For those of you that ride the metro in D.C., you'll see this every morning at the escalators. There will be 2 lines of people waiting to ride the escalator up from the station, the fast line on the left (we'll get to this later...), and the slow or standing line on the right. People will get off the train, and cut into the line on the left right at the foot of the escalator, no matter how many people are already lined up to get on the escalator. Hey ya'll, see that third rail? The one with the sign that says "Danger! Do Not Cross!"? Yeah, you guys should hurry up and step on it before people start forming a line. Suckers.

2. Escalator Eddie's ugly cousin, Train Car Tammy. She won't wait her turn to get on or off the the metro car, but instead has to elbow her way onto the car before anyone can exit to ensure that she can reach the vertical center pole, wrap her body around it like Reed Richards, and hog it all to herself while other people are left to grasp onto handrails, shoulders, people's heads - anything they can reach - to steady themselves, as our well-trained and very skilled metro train drivers play their favorite game: Full-speed ahead/Slam on brakes (to be repeated at least 5-6 times between each designated metro stop.) You two, you know who you are. Don't let me catch you on the last train with a car all to ourselves...

3. The Good, the Bad, and the Wide. Hey, Tubby-Tubby, when you're walking down the sidewalk with your 4 or 5 buddies, do you really need to form a line across that sidewalk, arms interlocked, looking like a poorly-executed rugby scrum and blocking every one behind you from passing and everyone coming from the other direction from getting by? People, you're walking down the sidewalk, not filming a slo-mo, pre-shootout scene for a spaghetti western, and you're certainly not filming a "Hands Across America" commercial. Just keep to one side like they teach you in driver's ed, ok? (Preferably the right side, this isn't merry old England.) I also offer an alternative solution: try moving like you actually have to be somewhere.

And hey, if your a$$ is more than 24 inches wide, this applies doubly to you, couch potato, because you're taking up even more space. Yes, if you're not sure this applies to you, just use this simple rule of thumb: if you've ever been charged for an extra seat on an airline because you are too big to fit into 1 seat, then don't stand side by side with your equally large friends and block human traffic in both directions. If you're still not sure this applies to you, check your clothes. Are they O.R. scrubs? OK, now look where you are. Are you standing in front of Macky D's? If the answer to both of these questions is "Yes," then I'm talking to you. Or, more likely, I'm behind you yelling "excuse me" for the umpteenth time, and late for work.

4. Beepy McHonksalot. Hey you. Yeah, you there, stuck in the intersection. Yes, you. The one that's really ticked off because there's a truck blocking your path. Yeah, you. The one that's been laying on the horn -- for so long that it has evolved to a state of consciousness and is now communicating with all the surrounding horns -- because the light's already changed color and that truck ain't going anywhere. Yeah, you. Guess what, YOU ARE ACCOMPLISHING NOTHING EXCEPT INFURIATING ALL THE PEDESTRIANS TRYING TO GET ACROSS THE CROSSWALK around you. Yes, and you're drowning out my IPod, and that's a serious no-no. And guess what? That dude in the truck? He's listening to his IPod, too, with the windows rolled up and the A/C cranked, and he either doesn't care that you're blaring the horn at him, he can't hear you, or he's toying with you because you look like such a schmuck. And the longer you lay on it, the better your chance of getting the fender of your Jetta kicked in by one of those irate pedestrians. Namely, me. Any questions? (Oh, p.s., when you drive a Jetta, you're just begging for truckdrivers to make you get stuck at intersections. Just a tip...)

5. Evil Glare Guy in the Crosswalk. Yeah, that's what I called you. The one giving me the Medusa death gaze with a twist of woman scorned topped off with the stink eye from one of the old geezers on the Muppet Show (I can never remember if it's Statler or Waldorf...) Yeah, the one who won't move his butt out of the way even though I have a green light, a full tank of gas, and Linkin Park jammin' on the CD player, and you have a Don't Walk sign. The one who thinks that by making me wait at the intersection while you amble lazily across to no particular destination, that you're getting back at me for some unknowable slight you or your friends or ancestors may have suffered at the hands of someone who likely had little or no resemblance or ties to Yours Truly. Look, I drive a beat-up jeep. And I have a short temper, as anyone reading this blog already knows. And no one's probably going to miss you and your passive-aggressive shuffle. Don't tempt me.

6. Evil Glare Guy's latino cousin, Hefe (and his rather large family). Hey, hombre, look, I fully support you taking pedestrianism to new heights with your uncanny ability to dart across no-matter-how-many lanes of traffic at any time of the day, any day of the week, for no discernible reason, but could you not do it on my watch? I'm already irritated at being cut in front of, beeped at, and elbowed out of the way. And like I said before, my jeep's already beat up. The last thing it needs is imprints of you and your 12 kids on it.

7. Out with the FADs Already. I'm sure anyone who's been on the road for more than 2 weeks has learned to avoid the Female Asian Driver at all costs. This creature feeds on the fear it causes other drivers around it. It has several preferred tactics to induce us to believe that it has included us in some kind of secret, vehicular double-suicide pact. It's favorite is the "Atari Lane Change." This technique is very simple: get your car (preferably a Honda Civic) up to cruising speed, match the flow of traffic around you, and then, suddenly, and without warning, change lanes for no particular reason. This technique can be followed up with the equally effective and no-less-deadly "Tri-County Tailgate" - this is where the FAD rides up on your bumper for at least 10 minutes, taking breaks only to execute more Atari Lane Changes in order to involve several other drivers in the feeding frenzy. A lesser know, but again equally effective, technique is called the "Don't Make a Left Turn While the Light is Green and No Cars Are Coming Despite a Half Dozen Cars Behind You Beeping for You to Go, But As Soon as it Turns Red Dart Out and Almost Collide With Another Car," for lack of a better term...

When used in combination, these techniques present a formidable fighting style. One last warning - if cornered, the FAD will turn one or both of its blinkers on and slow down to a crawl in the fast lane (usually during rush hour) - they call this "The Creeper." Do not be fooled! This is done only to induce other drivers into a false sense of security, and will likey be quickly followed up by an Atari Lane Change, so watch out!

As an aside, a lot of those FADs are pretty cute. Unfortunately, the closest you'll ever get to them are the grills of their brothers' souped-up, tricked-out Acura Integras, so don't bother, Romeos...

8. The Griswalds. I love to travel. and I really think it's great that families get out and travel together. And I also think it's great that D.C. has a huge influx of tourists every year that come here to see the monuments, the Capitol, the White House, the memorials, and the museums, buy "FBI" tennis visors and "CIA" t-shirts, and drop off all their hard-earned Confederate currency at the dirty-water hotdog stands on 2-dollar bottles of water and melted ice cream sammies... I just wish they could take all of us that have to live and work here around this time, and move us somewhere during tourist season. Tropical island, holding cell, it really doesn't matter. As long as I don't have to watch and listen to Bob and Harriet on the subway trying to figure out the *color-coded* metro system with their Captain Crunch decoder rings...

Seriously. Do you remember the scene from the Lion King where mufassa gets trampled to death by the frightened, stampeding heard of wildebeasts? Well, imagine how Mufassa felt as he was getting trampled -- multiply it by about 100; replace the wildebeasts in your mind with chubby families wearing straw hats, Hawaiian shirts, and fanny packs, with 8 kids in tow, 4 missing, 1 or 2 still in the oven, and the rest running up and down the wrong way on the escalators, hopping back and forth over the metro turnstiles, or B-lining straight for anybody walking in the opposite direction on the sidewalk, put some maps in their hands, binoculars around their necks, and a stream of Cheerios trickling out behind them -- and you know what we go through from about June to the beginning of September.

I do have a few words of warning to tourists in D.C., though, because, well, I'm a heck of a guy:

(1) If you have the audacity to *stand* on the escalators you better either do it on the right-hand side or, well, let's just say that if you haven't prepared yourself to fend off a vicious secretary who's 30 minutes late for work and hasn't had her double-shot Colombia Nariño Supremo espresso from Starbucks yet... you're in for a world of hurt, my friend, a world of hurt.

(2) If you're going to visit some of the sites in D.C., like oh, the Children's Museum, or the Titanic Memorial (never heard of that one, did ya?), you'd better either bring along an off-duty LAPD vice cop that's packing heat, or at the very least, change out of the "I'm a tourist, could you please take a picture of us, then mug me" outfit you bought at L.L. Bean last weekend for the trip.

(3) Don't bring the kids. At all. It's like 120 degrees here in the summer, folks, and muggy as a sauna. I appreciate, and I'm sure you'll appreciate, too, seeing a memorial to the men and women who died for our freedom and liberty during World War II that may or may not have been a bit too pricey. But if you think your 10-year old kid wants to see it, and wouldn't rather be sitting by the pool at the Howard Johnson instead gettin' groovy with Pitfall Harry on his Gameboy Advance, you're wrong. He'll just resent you for it. And eventually, when you're older, and he's in charge of YOUR welfare, he'll stick you in a run-down home where the orderlies beat you and make you watch Dharma and Greg every day. Bank on it.