People who've had enough and take it out on random people on the street

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I've raised the question of sidewalk warriors before-- you know, the people who will not budge one inch on the sidewalk and will run into you to remedy some personal injustices they've suffered-- but today, I actually accidentally got in someone's way going up the stairs to the subway and got a little unwanted "etiquette lesson"...

Suddenly, I realize there's a person standing right in front of me (she's on the wrong side of the stairs, btw) and as I look up, I see that she is trying to make some sort of point here, while I have about 5 seconds to get up the stairs and onto the subway before it leaves. "Why don't you go around me," she says in this faux polite way, as if I was obviously the one being rude, when she really means to make an issue out of nothing and we are in fact the only 2 people on the whole damn stairwell (besides her kid)! Yes, I am just another member of the world set against her that gets in her way!

Somehow, I pulled out a great response and still managed to make the train. With a cute and condescending voice, I said, "Lady, you already have a kid. Maybe it's time to grow up."

YAY! As I sat on the train, I thought of the ILX post by donut bitch the other day about the random stranger commenting on her banana.

How do you deal with "sidewalk warriors" and the like?

Also: women with baby carriages, if you're carrying such precious cargo, why do you use it as a weapon to get you through sidewalk traffic?

Scaredy Cat, Wednesday, 23 July 2003 15:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Why do people always think Brian is a chick?

Texas Sam (thatgirl), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 15:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe she was paralysed. Did you think of that?

N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 15:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Why do people always think Brian is a chick?

SHE'S NOT?????

Larcole (Nicole), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 15:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh btw Scaredy, great come back!

Texas Sam (thatgirl), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 15:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe she was paralysed. Did you think of that?

She wasn't, believe me. She had the head-bob going on.

scaredy Cat, Wednesday, 23 July 2003 15:40 (twenty-two years ago)

SHE'S NOT?????

Hate to break it to you, Larcole, being the upstanding young gentleman you are.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 15:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Fanks , Texas Sam and sorry Donut Bitch, always thought you were a woman.

Scaredy Cat, Wednesday, 23 July 2003 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Dude, I hate people who pull those stunts, wtf? It's like get out of the goddamned way even an inch. It's like when you got those walls of people who all walk across the sidewalk like 20 across and none of them will let you pass. I purposely throw my shoulder into those fuckers.

Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 16:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know, Ally. I think it's like what causes revolutions. People feel restricted and so they fight for their freedom or something. Or else, they're just assholes, I guess.

Scaredy Cat, Wednesday, 23 July 2003 16:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it's just assholism, to be honest with you. I mean what exactly are they fighting for? The freedom to take up 4 subway seats with their bags?? What kind of crap freedom is that? It mocks our entire sense of revolutionary constitution.

Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow I mentioned this on the 'pet hates' thread before seeing this one. I am getting so fucked off with this, on three occasions in the last week people have tried to start some shit after blocking the sidewalk, except this being fucking London it's all snivelling shit-ass underclass kids who never hang out in groups of less than 30 at a time. Yes I know they've nowhere else to go and nothing to do in the concrete wasteland when it's ridiculously hot and no hope or prospects whatever in their hideously stunted shouldve-been-aborted lives and everywhere they go they get hassled by cops and their drunken useless parents beat them so the street in front of their building is the only thing they can call 'their own', but am I sympathetic? Am I fuck. I want to see the repression of the underclass escalate beyond belief until they're just sprayed with machineguns like in Rio. All the pinkos here shouldn't mind, that's the kind of thing that leads to revolution rite? So it's all good. I won't fuckin' be here when they finally burn down the whole city tho, that's for sure. Watching it on TV in some air-conditioned compound, hopefully. Let them lose their souls and keep their precious fucking sidewalks.

dave q, Wednesday, 23 July 2003 16:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I really dislike it when a macho teenager (or more often a group of macho teenagers) blithely crosses in the midde of the street, stopping traffic, typically coming within inches of a car. They will toss a very quick, almost subliminal glance at the driver as if to say, "I want you to know I'm doing this asshole move on purpose, but not so much that I would actually seem to care about anything." I suppose it's something to make them feel powerful, since they're asking you to risk something--running them over--that they know you wouldn't do. So Dave's sociology applies here as well. Doesn't make it any less annoying.

amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 16:52 (twenty-two years ago)

If people get in my way unreasonably, especially if they are clearly in the wrong, like going the wrong way on stairs on the Tube, I tend to barge them aside. I think me doing it might have rather more impact than when Ally does it.

Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 19:25 (twenty-two years ago)


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