Some Helpful Hints For Going Out In Public

Over the past several weeks, I have spent some time standing in various lines. The post office, the grocery store, the train station. And increasingly, I have been subjected to the grumblings of people around me, usually quite loudly.

In the post office a few weeks ago, there was a woman who wanted to buy stamps. The line at the window was quite long, and there were only two attendants working. Stamp Lady asked another employee if they could open a stamps only line. She was directed to the stamp machine, but the only stamp available in the amount she wanted to buy were the American Flag stamps. Stamp Lady didn’t want those stamps, she wanted something prettier. She then began loudly complaining that no one would open a stamps only line for her. She huffed and puffed up and down the line, alternating between harassing the employees, and declaiming loudly “This is our tax dollars at work, folks.”

The woman standing in front of me finally said to her “Actually, the Postal Service is not funded through taxes, it’s paid for entirely from postage fees and other services.” I wanted to kiss her right then and there.

This took the wind out of Stamp Lady’s sails, and she huffed out a few moments later.

Now I have those days. You know the ones. The ones where you think everyone you encounter is too stupid for words, and it seems there is some vast conspiracy to make you wait as long as is humanly possible so you will be late to absolutely everything. I have them frequently.

You know what I do about it? Nothing. I take a deep breath and try to relax, or I stew and think vindictive things about the metro system that has demanded that everyone who parks at a Metro facility buy one of those Smart Trip card thingys yet only has two machines per station that will let you add value to them and the guy in front of me invariably can’t understand the directions because apparently English is like his third effing language.

I don’t vent these thoughts out loud. I keep them to myself. If I am having a crappy day, there is no need for me to share that information with the world. Just because my life sucks, I don’t have the right to bring other people down with me.

So if you feel slighted because YOU have to wait in line with everyone else, and where you have to go and what you have to do is infinitely more important than the rest of us standing there:

Shut.

The.

F#&K.

UP.

No one cares. No. One.

Suck it up and deal with it like the rest of us.

And don’t be rude to the people who have to deal with obnoxious a**holes like you all day long. They don’t deserve it. These people have the crappiest jobs known to man. Dealing with the general public day in and day out would make me insane.