As we wave goodbye to 2012 all of the delights and aspirations of 2013 are welcomed gracefully, the first of which comes in the form of the new year sales. The opportunity to buy items you want/need at a price that is considerably lower than normal, all to make your life easier and make you happy. Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? That’s because it is.
Now forgive me in advance because this is going to be somewhat of a rant so if you don’t enjoy reading the moans of a pessimist I advise to wait for my next post.
Long story short I went into town today to get some things, but didn’t take into consideration how many annoying people there would be. I’ll refrain from going into specifics but I’ve managed to narrow down the four types of people I’ve encountered frequently today who have made me unhappy in some form. The list is as follows: ‘Blockers’, ‘Smokers’, ‘Shouters’ and ‘Project Leaders’. To the uninitiated these terms are meaningless, allow me if you will to explain.
Firstly we’ve got ‘Blockers’, now these are the people who stop to talk, or stop to look, or just stop altogether in inappropriate places. What do I mean by inappropriate places? I mean places like doorways to shops so anyone that wants to continue on their way has to either awkwardly squeeze past or wait until the ‘blocker’s’ business has reached a conclusion. The specific example I can give you from my experiences, is a man and woman who decided to stop and chat in the main entrance to a building, so everybody else had to squeeze in awkwardly one by one. Or the kind gentleman who decided to suddenly stop when I was walking behind him in a shop, so I could either nudge into him awkwardly or quickly turn and act interested in the nearest item on shelf. So when he finally decided to turn around he caught a glimpse of me looking at dance workout dvds. Brilliant.
Secondly we’ve got ‘Smokers’, which is less general than it sounds because it is reserved specifically for people who walk very slowly in front of you puffing away like the Flying Scotsman, creating a rather annoying smell and polluting the air I have to breath in. Lots of coughing and a mild headache is the resulting affect of these inconsiderate people. Also from this there are the ‘Smokers’ who will just happily blow smoke in my face as I walk past, instead of trying to contain it and wait to exhale at a more appropriate time. Thanks.
Now thirdly we have ‘Shouters’ who are less common but still annoying, these are the people who will stand in a shop and talk in a very loud voice, informing the entire shop (if not street) of their choices of what socks to buy, or what film to rent or whatever it is they feel is so important they must share with us all. They might as well just borrow the tannoy system so that we can all stay updated on whether or not the jumper they have is too dark a shade of blue. Oh go away.
And finally we have the ‘Project Leaders’ who are even less common than ‘Shouters’ but annoying nonetheless. These are the women who bring their boyfriends into a clothes store and bombard them with clothes that the boyfriend doesn’t necessarily want, but she thinks will be cool. They use these poor men as something of a project (hence their title) that they carry out for the entire shop to hear. So the boyfriends are bundled with shirts they don’t like, hats they don’t need, and trousers that wouldn’t even been worn by a Victorian grandmother. Oh, and while this continues it means blocking the fitting rooms for a long period of time so others can’t use them. Happy me.
I can’t complain entirely though because not all people are like this, but they do exist either way. But the day wasn’t all that bad and thankfully I did manage to buy the items i required, so minus the hassle I went home not filled totally with hatred.
I hope I’ve managed to enlighten you as to who to avoid whilst shopping and provided you with something of a spotter’s guide to these people, but above all I hope I haven’t bored you half to death.
Adam Lester. 