Things that make you wonder...

There are things that make you go “hmmmmmmmm” and then there are the things that make you perk up and say “What the hell?” A colleague recently shared the following:

Sitting in his car in our office parking lot, my colleague looks in his rear-view mirror, and a pick-up truck pulls in, parks perpendicular to the spaces, and the driver jumps out. As my colleague gets out of his car, he looks over to the truck, and the driver is standing there, relieving himself. There he is, just hanging out…apparently, our parking lot is now a public toilet.

Sure, growing up, if you were on a long road-trip, your parents would pull over and tell you to do your thing. In fact, sometime in the early 1990s, I was on my way back from a wedding in Batavia, NY (Attica!!! Attica!!!) when I was stricken from a large coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. Though I tried as hard as I could to make it to the next rest area, the restroom gods were conspiring against me, because the rest area was closed for repairs, and the next one was 48 miles away. This brought back memories from camp of funny book titles like “20 yards to the Outhouse, by Willie Maykit”. But, I digress…

Prior to moving into our current office location, we were on a lower floor of our building, with the bathroom, for the entire floor’s use, right across the hall. I would often email a couple of my friends detailing the “crime scene” in there. I will spare you the description now, but let’s just say that the “Delta House” has nothing on this. I don’t know who was trashing the joint, but they left it in worse condition than my fraternity house bathrooms after an all you can eat "hot dog and bean casserole" night.

All these circumstances, the parking lot pisser and the guys leaving the bathroom downstairs like a barn, make me wonder-what is wrong with people, and where do these people come from? What about basic manners? When they leave their houses during the day, do they plan their bathroom antics? As for the parking lot reliever, I have really got to wonder about him. I work on a busy section of a main road, with restaurants and gas stations every 10 feet. Instead of pulling off the road and into our lot, he could have gone 50 feet straight ahead and into a gas station. Maybe he thinks its funny, and maybe he doesn’t mind being charged with a sex-crime (Open and Gross Lewdness), and maybe he won’t mind having to register as a sex offender after his conviction. Frankly, I am now more concerned about what I might step in down in the parking lot.

And what about washing his hands?

Apropos of nothing—I went to see “I Am Legend” last week, and the theatre was not crowded. Plenty of good seats available. I put our coats in an empty seat to my right. Some guy with a bad attitude towards his girlfriend sits in the seat next to the coats, and throughout the movie, as he finishes whatever he’s eating, he throws his trash onto my coat. At first, because the movie is dark, it was hard to see it. But as the lights go up, he and his girlfriend leave, and there’s a bag of half-eaten gummie bears, and a bag of popcorn sitting there, on my coat, along with some used napkins!!!

Again, can someone tell me what is wrong with people? Under what scenario is it ok to throw trash on someone else’s coat? At the movies, that’s what the floor is for!

While I am at it…what’s up with people going out in their pajamas? I was at Stop & Shop the other day, and some woman, maybe in her 40s, is walking around in pajama pants and a sweatshirt. By the way, on the pajama bottoms, on her ass, was the expression “Bee-Ach”—one syllable on each cheek. Yeah, no kidding. Nothing says “I don’t care about myself at all” like going out in pajamas. Sweats move over, there’s a new player in town.

You’ve been a great audience. And now, taking my breath away, the hardest working man in show business…Rex Smith!