Little Things That Tick Me Off

I saw a woman with her iPhone in one hand, a grocery bag in the other, a lit cigarette hanging on her lip, with a small child (aged 3, maybe 4 at most) cross a 7 lane stretch of road between two very busy intersections.  There was a zebra pedestrian crosswalk at the spot, where one presses the button and yellow caution lights flash to get drivers to stop.  This woman walked across the street without (a) pushing the button for the caution lights, and (b) most upsetting to me, not holding the little boy's hand, leaving him to stagger across a busy highway as best he could.  This was after a big snow storm and there were piles of snow and huge patches of ice all across the road.  To me, this was child endangerment….

   Today, walking the Labradors, I saw a man on an expensive bicycle riding toward me in a construction zone on a residential street.  He had a clearly home-made, jury-rigged carrier over the rear wheel, and this feeble-looking construction had an infant seat attached.  There was a baby, I'd guess less than a year old, in the infant seat.  What ticked me off here was that the man did not have his hands on the handlebars, or anywhere near the brakes…. He had a Starbucks coffee cup in one hand, and an iPhone in the other.  Heavy equipment was in use in that construction area - dump trucks, a grader, a Bobcat, and a cement mixer.   I was terrified and appalled.  What the hell was that man thinking?

   People who believe that they are privileged, and that the law doesn't apply to them.  This includes (1) pedestrians, who don't press the button for the pedestrian crosswalk lights, and just step out into traffic believing that everything moving can stop instantaneously; (2) pedestrians who just step out into traffic, believing they have the right to cross the street even when they have a red hand saying "Don't Walk" and the cross traffic has a green light; (3) joggers and runners who believe that the sidewalks are not meant for their use - they run and jog, sometimes with one or more dogs in traffic lanes on busy roads; (4) bicycle riders who believe that stop signs and red lights do not include bike riders; (5) bicycle riders who have a clearly marked and clean bike path, but ride on the sidewalk or in traffic; (6) people who wear thingies (head sets, ear buds, Bluetooth sets, etc) covering their ears or in their ears so they cannot hear traffic and then get angry because they almost get struck by something or someone; (7) bicycle riders who ride up behind pedestrians and do not make themselves known by speaking (or ringing their bell, which is the law in Boulder), and then brush by you, usually hitting you with a handlebar, backpack, or pannier; (8) drivers of vehicles who are so intent on their tablet or phone or make-up or passengers or personal hygiene or changing clothes or simply getting to their destination - while driving - that they never see pedestrians at stop signs or traffic lights and run into them.  (I have been hit by 6 cars in the last year, and had the toes of my shoes run over by car tires 7 times while in pedestrian crosswalks at intersections because the driver was too intent on whatever he/she was doing and did not look at the crosswalk.  Beatrice and I were nearly struck by a car when we ran out to grab a man in a motorized wheelchair who was in the crosswalk and the on-coming car never slowed down until it almost hit us - the driver was running late and never even saw the man in the wheelchair, and was speeding up to make a right turn into traffic without stopping at a stop sign.)

People who make assumptions without listening to another person.  The Assistant Maintenance Manager for the lost-cost housing company where we live comes to mind immediately.  He decided we were two old ladies who didn't know anything when we first reported the leak in our bathroom ceiling.  He told us "it was nothing," "it's not an emergency," and that he had "fixed it."  Turned out there was a hole in the main water line to the apartment above us, and our apartment.  When Rex found it, 11 days after we first reported it, the water was spraying in a fan pattern into our bathroom ceiling.  Apparently, when the pipes were placed when the place was built, a saw had cut into the PVC main water pipe - not quite through, but with a deep gouge and a half-inch long - it was left. in place, but after 4.5 years of changes in water pressure, the cut finally wore through, and we had water spraying in our ceiling for 11 days.  Most of the ceiling has been re-plastered (as of Thursday), but it still needs work and the wall beside the tub and the baseboard in that area needs to be taken out and re-placed and re-plastered, too.  But young Tyler assured us that the water dripping down from the ceiling was normal and nothing to worry about.   Yeah.   Let me sell you some ocean front property in Rocky Mountain National Park…..