בשוק סמייא צווחין לעווירא סגי נהור

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

(This post's name is a similar, early phrase, meaning, "In the street of the blind, the one-eyed man is called the Guiding Light".)

I'm sure we all know what this means. Even as we recognize it as ableist, we recognize the truth of the gist of the saying.

Things are relative. I am tall relative to some standard (my basketball team, or my peer group, or the Lollipop Guild). There are objective standards, but even those have built-in assumptions. I am tall relative to the average population of humans, for example.

Personally, I think that we have evolved to normalize. We don't get too happy when things go well, because the earlier human-ish folks who thought everything was going well were more likely to get wiped out by the early frost or the tribe in the other valley that wasn't hungry but was sure as fuck not going to get wiped out by the early frost.

So, within limits, we acclimate to what our condition is. We generally are cool with moving at any speed--it's the acceleration that gets us. Of course, as you move closer to the speed of light, even a constant rate of motion becomes an issue as subatomic particles might mess up your body (I can't find a link; trust me).

This explains (to my basic monkey brain) why someone who hits the lottery can be unhappy. Or why someone who has almost nothing in her life can find joy in a sunrise. We get used to stuff, and we find pleasure and displeasure in different things.

My life is pretty cushy. I have a great, healthy family that is close to me (emotionally, if not geographically). I have reasonably good health, hair, teeth, shoes, and vocabulary. My bed is comfortable and my friends are fun and my cats are snuggly.

Life is good.

But, because my brain is telling me that I don't want to be wiped out by the early frost, I get irked by things. Even as I recognize my frustration over these things, I am able to see that these problems aren't a big deal. That helps me keep an even keel in the intermediate (and, I hope, long-) run, but I still feel a flash of irritation at them. And I'm still going to blog about them.

Here, then, are some the "one-eyed men" of problems in my "land of the blind" good life.

Unfortunately, I can experience all three of these on one commute home from work.

Umbrella/Overhang 

I live in Seattle. Seattle has rain. Being rained on generally sucks.

Much of downtown Seattle has overhangs where folks can walk along the sidewalk without being drenched.

Some folks here also have umbrellas. Which I get. I don't use them, but I don't have hair that I can't get wet. And I'm not a pussy (cat).

The source of my irritation is when folks with umbrellas don't pay attention. Don't pay attention to the overhang. Don't pay attention to other folks, like, me, without an umbrella.

This is a life-like computer-generated simulation of how this situation should work:

See how nice that is? You can see the smiles on both of their faces as the water, ever the destroyer of happiness, is foiled in its efforts to make them miserable.

Unfortunately, this sort of commonsense heaven on earth doesn't occur to everyone. Instead, we get this:

Stupid people (I know "stupid" is ableist--I'm sorry) keep their umbrellas up, walk under the overhang, and force me (at risk of getting my eyeballs poked out) to edge out, under both the rain AND the overhang drip.

That. Annoys. Me.

Waiting at the Bus

I like order. I like being in a line and making steady (even if slow) progress towards my goal. Whether it's at the grocery store or waiting for a restroom or a drink or a prostitute, I don't want to feel like I'm getting skipped over.

In certain situations, a strict line is just not realistic. Which is fine. I don't require a line. But when a line exists, I want people to play by the rules.

Whenever the bus pulls up at a busy stop, there is some uncertainty. The buses often pull up to slightly different spots, so there's no clear "perfect" spot to wait (trust me; I've tried to find it). Additionally, buses allow riders off before the folks waiting can get on, so there's always a bit of swirl.

With that being said, order usually asserts itself to a certain degree. People wait, people exit, and people then start to sort themselves.

Often into (yay!) a line. Or lines.

If there are multiple lines, the zipper merge method should be used. One person from line A, one person from line B, one person from line X, another from line A, another from line B, etc.

It's very simple and people should do it.

I get, though, that some people are incapable of understanding this logic and/or inconsiderate. So I don't expect the zipper merge to be perfect.

What I do expect, though, is for people to not come from outside any of the lines and start to walk right up to the door. It drives me nuts, and I do my best to obstruct people who do that. I recognize that they have their own stuff going on, but they can wait in line like everyone else (to be slightly more fair, I do a quick scan of the person... if it's someone who obviously needs to sit down more quickly, then I will get out of the way; if it's some dude who's obviously just stolen five collared shirts from Ross, I'm not going to let him get around me unless I fear he'll stab me if I don't).

I like order. Adults who act worse than first graders in terms of waiting in line really tick me off.

Backpacks on the Bus

People are different sizes. Heck, I'm a different size than I was a year ago. I respect personal space, and if someone is a bit bigger, then I am going to do my best to give them their space.

This is not a rant against heavy/bulky people on the bus. This is a rant against this:

Actually, it's even more specific than that. It's when fuckers wear them like that on a crowded bus.

Few of us know that someone is standing right behind us but then choose to pivot into that person... we have a sense of how much space we take up, and (in the interest of everyone's safety and sanity) we avoid unnecessary collisions.

That is... unless you're one of those fuckers that wear a backpack on a crowded bus.

I'm not the first person to complain about backpacks on public transportation. I even saw a sign on the bus (which I took a pic of, but it has been lost in the massive amount of photos on my phone), asking folks to place their backpacks near their feet to reduce the assholedry (my word).

Gawker has this nice summation:

You think you are out of other people's way, but your backpack is still in other people's way. This is profoundly annoying to other people. 

Get your backpack out of everyone else's way.

It's obvious, and that it is SO obvious makes it all the more annoying that so few people actually do it.

Grrr.