Today I present you with yet another one of my mobility-related rants, entitled:

“Walking Courteously: It’s Not Fucking Rocket Science”

Point the First
Explain something to me, please. Why is it that the slower you walk, the more apt you are to walk in the middle of the freaking sidewalk, thus inhibiting anybody passing you on either side? I have NEVER seen a fast-walking person barreling down the center of the sidewalk, most likely due to the fact that the center of the sidewalk is usually occupied by someone going about 0.00002 miles per hour. While weaving.

Point the Second
Walking while talking on a cellphone automatically lowers your IQ by about 30 points. This is a fact of life. Walking in a group consisting of more than two people lowers your IQ by 25 points for each person in your group. This is another fact of life.

When you combine the two by seeing groups of four or more people with two or three of them on their cell phones, you start to get negative IQ scores, numbers that are only represtented elsewhere in the Republican party and in people who don’t like Leibniz (sorry, one political slash per year is required). Why do people do this? Are most people so unaware of their surroundings that they fail to realize that other people use the sidewalk that they’re clogging up with their social sludge? Ergh.

Point the Third
Anybody who’s been in this city for more than 15 minutes knows it rains incessantly here. As such, people are generally courteous about their umbrellas. But then you get these guys who decide to carry around—and I’m not exaggerating here—umbrellas that are 3’ in diameter. Is it just me, or is this just a little bit excessive? I mean, unless you can’t fit your frame beneath a standard umbrella, I don’t know how much more a ridiculously large umbrella’s going to help you stay dry.

Here’s the bottom line: the reason you don’t see every person carrying around a 3’ diameter umbrella is because there is no practical reason that any human being needs a 3’ diameter umbrella to stay dry. I don’t know what these assholes who carry around umbrellas that are large enough to be accurately-sized replicates of the firmament are compensating for, but they need to find a less obnoxious way of doing it.

/rant.