March 23, 2016

Rudderless Annoyance Nearly Throttled!

First up, an original brand spanking (ooh baby) post up at I Are Writer!, in which we talk about one of my favorite writing topics (ooh baby).

Secondly, the topic of today's post is pretty much a given, if you can connect the dots from the title. How this came about was pretty simple: I did a little surfing of the archives at my old blog Cedar's Mountain, and came across an interesting tag called Anger Management Issues. For those of you who have been reading my scribblings for the past 8 years, you know that I wrote some seriously juicy and beefy rants on that blog. You name it, I probably wrote about it. The bulk of my rants were tagged under the aforementioned phrase and if you have the time, I strongly suggest checking them out. Give yourself a little flashback to a time where G.B. was exceptionally passionate about his blogging and the world around him.

In the meantime, here is a rant to make you stop and say to yourself, "I know exactly where he's coming from!"

Last Saturday (3/19) I had to work a few hours of mandatory overtime. No biggie, but it does cause my major errand running to be moved back a few hours, so instead of finishing say, around 1p, I'm finishing around 3p. Anywho, I did my banking and went to the post office branch I now go to. Alas, the line was out to the lobby and almost to the parking lot. Normally I would hang ten and wait, since I usually had nothing better to do, but because I was pressed for time (brother's b-day, ya know), I went to my local branch.

Now for the 99.9% of you who have never met me in the flesh and blood, when it comes to unnecessary waiting in line, I am obnoxiousness personified. I don't like being bothered by people, save for children under the age of 10. Then our demeanor softens and we become almost human. But, I'm also an observer of people, so being obnoxious has its advantages.

Anywho, I saw a man that was about my age having a one-sided conversation with a lady who had a service dog with her. Now I'm sure you had encounters with people who just don't know when to keep their yap shut. They keep on talking no matter if you're giving off hostile vibes or feigned indifference to what they're saying to you. So this guy spies me wearing my old school Patriots jacket (has the Minuteman hiking the football) and the following conversation occurs (to the best of my recollection):

Twit: "Wow! An old school Patriots jacket! That is so cool!"
Me: "Yup."
Twit: "I don't like the Patriots, but you have to give them credit, 'cause they can take someone out of the stands and stick them on the team and they'll still win. Blah, blah, blah, but they might have problems if they lose Brady. How old is Tom?"
Me: "I'm sorry. I didn't hear a word you said 'cause I was in my own little world. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going back into my own little world." (yes, I really did say that)

He mumbles an apology and heads back to the counter, where his wife yells at him for bothering people.

Friends, the moral of this story is this: Don't start up conversations with people that don't want to talk to you. If you want to give a compliment, do so, then continue on your merry way, regardless of whether they acknowledge you or not. And for God's sake, don't give a compliment and in the same breath, insult the person. You want to compliment my jacket, good. But don't stand there like a moron and insult me and my team in the same breath. It's just plain stupid and rude, and unlike some people, I probably won't deck ya.

So folks, that's all the personal encounters of Uncle Social that's fit to blog about. Tune in next week when I'll have something more scintillating to talk about. Or, at the bare minimum, I'll just pimp my books, 'cause we all need a good book to read, no matter what the genre. You can meander over to Books by G.B. Miller, to Amazon or to Smashwords and check out what I got on tap.

(c) 2016 BOOKS BY G.B. MILLER. All Rights Reserved.

15 comments:

  1. Hey, I like that "my own little world" angle -- I may use that next time some Chatty Cathy wants to bother me in a lineup!

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    1. Be my guest. I really do detest being bothered by other people while waiting in line. I am so anti-social when it comes to forced waiting that I sometimes will answer questions from the clerks in monosyllables.

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  2. I've encountered people like that. They comment on something and then say they don't like it. Not a very good icebreaker.
    Funny how even his wife knew he was an obnoxious chatterer.

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    1. You be amazed how many times this has happened to me. I don't mind the stray positive/neutral comment on my attire, but don't insult me in the same breath. If you want to comment negatively right off the bat, that's fine. Just don't expect me to respond.

      I had a little sympathy for his wife because I could see how annoyed she was getting with him.

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  4. That happens to me a lot. I was in line at the post office and an elderly gentleman behind me starting spouting off politics to me without ceasing and as if I had responded to him. Thank God I was finally called up to the window. :)

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    1. Now that is irritating. When you're minding your own business and someone starts talking to you for no other reason than to hear themselves speak.

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  5. Bothering people. it's what some folks do, as if it were a highlight of their lives, an avocation, or a job.

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    1. Absolutely. If I have to bother someone in public, I usually say, "Excuse me." followed by the reason I'm bothering them.

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  6. I was thinking of a compliment that I could turn into an insult.

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    1. I say those type of compliments for people I don't really like.

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  7. AH, the two-sided compliment! As an inner-city teacher who dealt with so many long years of test-score-based school invasions, it was only through figuring out what my current evaluator's "compliment" actually meant (reading through the lines, as it were) that I came to understand my actual low-income-teachers-are-totally-irrelevant status. There's only smoke and mirrors now: so much "positive" press to hide so much actual abuse.

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    1. Thanks for stopping by to share your thoughts.

      I usually experience the two-side compliment more at work (state guv'ment worker drone) than I do in the real world. It's more in the vein of "That compliment from a co-worker is nice, but you still don't share the sandbox with others, so no cross training for you."

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  8. Fortunately for introverts like me, Toronto is such a crowded, unfriendly place that I've never been bothered by annoying chit-chatters while waiting in line.

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    1. Now that, is a very good thing indeed.

      I'm not totally anti-social, because if someone asking a general question while in line, I'll sometimes chip in with an answer for their question.

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