What's Wrong With People!?!?!?!

I'm getting really fed up with people's bad habits and even worse, their bad--no, horendous--attitudes. I've traveled quite a bit, and I don't seem to find the same issues I find here in the NYC tri-state area. Well, it's not the whole tri-state area (that being New York, New Jersey and Connecticut). It's more New York City, northeastern New Jersey (including the entire Jersey Shore) and southeastern Connecticut more over by the Greenwich/Stamford areas. So, what are these bad habits and horrendous attitudes I'm talking about? Let me give you a little insight into my day...

I commute from central Jersey everyday. I recently changed my bus route, but that doesn't mean the rest of the commuters attitudes have changed. So far, I've experienced being yelled at, sat on, having my pocketbook thrown at me, and today, today was the final straw. I had dozed off (as most commuters do in the early morning), but I was in and out--not really awake, not really asleep. Apparently I started to lean on the woman next to me, and instead of tapping me or saying excuse me, she literally shoved me with full force. Okay, so I was leaning over. What public transit commuter doesn't lean over at least once in their life. Excuse me! I refused to apologize to the woman. She had an issue with me from the moment I sat down. She crunched herself as far into the window as she could. I gave a slight cough and she had to wipe herself down. Now if she had been nicer about waking me up, I would have apologized. I'm not a rude person, but after just so much you have to give some back.

Now that I have changed my commute to a rest stop/park and ride up the highway about 20 miles, I have to take the Garden State Parkway every morning and every afternoon. I can't even begin to tell you how horribly people drive these days. I've been cut off, beeped at and given the finger (just as a few examples). I see drivers do these things to the bus drivers. Hello! A bus is about 2 tons of steel, glass and working parts. I wouldn't want that plowed into my back seat.

My number one pet peave about driving is those people who see you coming onto the highway from an on-ramp, they're in the lane closest to you and they refuse to move over. Granted, you can't always move over to the next lane if another car is there. I'll give you that much, but when you're the only one on the road and you refuse to move over, you deserve every curse word I can stir up and every hand signal I can manage while keep the other one on the wheel. Have a little common courtesy! It won't hurt you. I promise.

Now that I've managed to actually get into the city without going ape on someone, I have to walk to my office. I don't dress provocatively, but I do try to look my best. One day I'll wear a skirt, the next a nice pair of slacks and sometimes jeans, but it seems that no matter what I wear, I get catcalls from dirtbags. And by the dirtbags, I mean dirty, grundgy men standing on the streets with nothing better to do. It's nice that you think I'm attractive, but perhaps you should find a nicer, more pleasant and decent way of expressing your opinion. And, no, I'm not interested in sleeping with you. One guy was walking with what appeared to be his girlfriend, and he actually had the guts to say, "Nice t*ts" as he passed me. Talk about a scumbag!?! You're walking with your girlfriend! Piece of advice for the girlfriend: Run fast...run very fast in the opposite direction and never look back!

And to end my day (after squirming my way through the dirtbags and before getting in my car to face the torrents of bad drivers on the Parkway), I'll stop in the ladies room. First of all, the stench in most public bathrooms these days is out of sight. I'd rather play on a pig farm than venture into a public restroom, but sometimes it's unfortunately necessary.

However, my biggest complaint and disgust is the way women urinate on the seat like they're really supposed to do it that way. Ninety percent of the time, I can't find a clean toilet seat. I'm not going to hover myself over your pee, and I'm certainly not here to clean it up. What's even worse are those people who miss the seat completely and proceed to urinate on the floor. Great! Now my shoes will smell like your bladder for the rest of the night. Did you know, a study was done that proved if you sit on the toilet seat like you're supposed to, there would hardly be any disease spread at all. Let's give up the target practice girls, because you're failing miserably at it. Let's try doing it the right way, like every other woman in the country (from what I've seen, this isn't a problem anywhere else in the US). In fact, most drunk women at bars have better aim that you do because they can't hover over the toilet. Stop letting them show you up and have a little respect.

So, there you have a regular day in the life of me. Can you see why I'm so fed up? And the horrible truth is that this isn't just happening in New York City. It's happening in my town, and probably in your town if you live in one of the areas I mentioned. I haven't been to every state or every major city in the US, but I can tell you that this isn't happening in most of the country. My husband and I went to Salt Lake City, UT, and it was like going to another country. The same for Arizona, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, upstate New York. I can keep going and going, but this problem seems to be more of a local issue.

Let's all take a few micro-seconds to smile at someone we don't know, be courteous to someone of the opposite gender, let someone merge onto the highway without fliping them off and please, if you do nothing else, please, please, please wipe the toilet seat before you flush.

Pirate fact: While fighting Captain Maynard in his final battle, (Maynard was a buccaneer hunter hired along with Captian Hyde by the Governor of Virginia), Blackbeard was shot at point blank range. Though he was wounded, he continued to fight. He lost his head after two blows from a broadsword while fighting a Highlander from Maynard's ship, "The Jane". It's rumored that his headless body ran frantically around the deck of the ship before jumping off into water and attempting to swim.