Pick a side, PLEASE!

Pick a side, either side

Since it is a sea day and I am not presently on line to complain directly you are just going to have to put up with a remote diatribe. Or tolerate it, or delete it. Up to you.

I don’t know what it is with people, but they always and everywhere insist on walking down the middle of anything. Pick a location – stairway, corridor, escaltor, hallway – it doesn’t matter how wide or where it is located. There is this nasty tendency to take one’s half (or more) right out of the center.

Obviously this bothers me. It might have something to do with the fact that I move faster than most people around me. Or perhaps it is because I think it is rude to block the way for others. Acknowledging the fact that it is important on a ship for people to use the stairs for exercise rather than the elevators for weight gain I still get frustrated.

What is so hard about going to the left or right? Pick your side depending on your home country of origin; I really don’t care which side you chose. But to crawl up the stairs or down a corridor for five minutes – a journey that would have taken me fifteen seconds at the most – and I get frustrated.

But then it really doesn’t matter does it? I can get exercise in the fitness center or jumping to conclusions. I could use a stairstepper rather than walking up and down the stairs. I could push the young and stupid out of the way…

Oh, wait a minute – I am upset by the lack of other people’s manners. Looks like I need to go and find mine!

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20 Responses to Pick a side, PLEASE!

  1. Carmen says:

    Heck, yeah. It is the drivers that bug me more than anything!

    Perhaps, at a certain point in decrepitude (or pain) you become unaware of the traffic you are holding up, I guess. (That is if you are walking – not the case with drivers – they are on their cell phones.) If the alternative is being in the back forever, one could figure out a way to offer assistance. (Again, not the case for drivers, owing to the difficulty of offering assistance inter-vehicularly except with hand signals or the horn. Oh, that’s that manners issue again…)

    • Holly Doyne says:

      Three down and four to go?

      I shudder just thinking of turning any of these people lose with cell phones. If you have a mobility problem, normally you are using the railings. These …..

      ah, never mind

  2. Mitch says:

    Remember, we live with cats who sleep (or try to) in the middle half of the bed.

  3. Bill R says:

    My best tool for coping with these road, stair, hallway hogs, is to remember that there are lotsa good people with spatial undevelopment. (:-))

  4. Steven says:

    You are such a pip! Sounding more like Andy Rooney with your own flavor of “Y’know what really bothers me?” 🙂

  5. Bob says:

    Maybe it’s how we learned to drive on the Autobahn — stay right except to pass. One of my pet peeves is now a major irritant: In the left lane driving at the posted speed limit, passing a truck or slower vehicle, and some fool doing 10-20 mph faster in and out of traffic has to pass on the right. People seem to have just lost being courteous.

  6. Steve says:

    Impose Navy rules, starboard goes foward, port goes aft…deviations from this will result in said offender being keel hauled and will not be accepted.
    steve

    • holly says:

      and after we have keel hauled the idiots on the ship, can I please! move on to those who can’t walk, talk/txt without interfering with any reasonable traffic flow?

      I really don’t want to just shove them under the bus – it would be bad for the driver….

      • Steve says:

        Betcha they’d move if you used Navy Language…, as in “MAKE A HOLE” rather than the one most folks think of…’gang way’ which is rarely, if ever used….
        Seriously, these must be the same folks who cross the street with their cell phones plugged into their eyes and ears…or do that do that onboard too?

        • Holly Doyne says:

          They do it on board as well – at least till they figure out that satellite connections are not cheap

          Not sure if Brits would understand the “Make a hole NOW!”

          • Steve says:

            Funny..I looked it up
            Make a hole: Command to a group of people to separate to allow a senior ranking
            person to pass through. Especially common on submarines.

            The first part obviously applies to you Col Sir!!!

          • Holly Doyne says:

            Snicker
            But obviously these people think they are more important otherwise would they be taking more than their half, much less out of the middle

  7. Bill says:

    My best tool for coping with these road, stair, hallway hogs, is to remember that there are lotsa good people with spatial undevelopment. (:-))

  8. AlisonH says:

    I tend to hug the right wall with the cane on the left side and holding out for that extra bit of balance with the right touching the wall when there are a lot of people streaming by, ie the visual overload sends my brain into a tailspin re the balance and I need the extra tactility to straighten me out; we would do fine together! Pick a hall, any hall!

  9. AlisonH says:

    (I guess that means I’m in it for the long hall.)

  10. S & P says:

    YES I agree with you about people taking over the majority of the stairs, especially when they go slow, I do get a bit cross eyed

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