Tiny Moments of Stupidity and Woe

- People that walk 6-8 abreast in groups, taking up the whole sidewalk (you see this one in college towns a lot). I'm not sure which is more annoying--getting stuck behind them, or having them stare daggers at you when you walk on the grass to pass them. Do they expect you to meekly follow them, or is the level of cluelessness so high that they assume the sidewalks of the world are theirs by birthright?

- The line at the post office. My schedule usually means I only have a few minutes to spare when mailing things, and I always get stuck in a huge line of semi-literate people mailing stuff to Uzbekistan while all but one of he casheirs are taking their three-hour breaks or something. And all I usually need is a stamp, but the machine in the lobby is broken and eats dollar bills and quarters like candy.

- People that get angry at you for not providing a service, especially one that you have never and will never provide (you see this one a lot in retail). I recall a woman getting huffy because Wal-Mart wouldn't let her make photocopies--isn't that why God invened Kinko's?--and another insisting on a 50% discount because "the stereo in the box doesn't match the one on display." At the library where I work, people get angry because we don't have vending machines. What they don't seem to realize is that, in addition to not being a bistro, the library doesn't allow you to bring food in at all. So of course we should sell some anyway.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

An addendum, inspired by this weekend:

- People who don't have their headlights on when it's dark or shitty out. I had to drive in horrible, foggy, rainy conditions this weekend, and it was made worse by the fact that many people didn't have their lights on, making them all but invisible (they were usually driving silver cars too, which blended perfectly into the gray morass of the day). They're like ostriches, assuming that if they can see other people, other people can see them.

There's nowhere I can't reach.