Tag Archives: etiquette

London Escalator Etiquette

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I can’t say how much I love the rule of standing on the right on the escalators in London. Keep to the right if you are just standing so that people can run down (or up) the left side.

Stand and hang out or run down the stairs, your choice!

If you want to get a dirty look and a curt “excuse me” from a Londoner stand on the wrong side. The other people standing will also shoot you a dirty look. It’s a BIG NO NO to stand on the left.

It always takes me a bit of time to adjust when I come home and people are hanging their lazy asses all over the escalators and I have to wait because I can’t squeeze by. I get over it but always think back to the wonderful rule back in London. Why can’t we make this a global rule? Like slower traffic keeping to the right, people standing on escalators should keep to the right.

Maybe I’ll start a campaign and see if I can get it to catch on.

What’s more annoying than a crying baby on a flight….

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How about a person in economy who thinks they SHOULD be in first class? Who complains from the moment they see they’re seat? Who does one of my biggest pet peeves on a flight and puts both of their bags in the overhead bin?

(ONE up top ONE under the seat in front of you, these are the rules!)

Once seated she took off her shoes and put them under the seat in front of me. Yes. I told her to move them and she did, while rolling her eyes.

She tried to settle in but couldn’t get comfortable, she must have elbowed me at least ten times during the flight and kept fidgeting. Then hanging her feet on the magazine holder and continuously kicking the seat of the poor old guy in front of her. She bent the magazines and tore them. She also kept stabbing the screen switching from movie to movie and apparently none were to her liking and her stabbing was not to the liking of the man in front of her.

When the food came she wanted vegetarian and was disappointed to learn that a vegetarian meal needs to be ordered in advance, even funnier she asked what her choices were with the red wine. Well I’ll tell you sweetie there is only one and it’s bad.

When she got ready to sleep she took out a blow up neck pillow and then kept squishing it so it would make a squeaky noise, this amused her. Annoyed the f*ck out of me. When she had finished her wine she put her glass on my tray and put hers up. Ummm no she can’t do that because she annoys me. If I liked her I wouldn’t mind but she was the worst person I had ever sat next to. So I handed her glass back to her, again I got an eye roll.

She would also continuously sigh and hum and smack her lips. While reading a magazine she would flip the pages and then turn each page loudly and sigh, hrrmph and make other random noises each time she encountered a new article.

Then she brought out the chips flinging crumbs everywhere and sucking on her fingers. This always grosses me out.

Eventually she did drift off and even in sleep kept fidgeting. She looked about mid twenties but I’ve met five year olds that can sit still longer.

At the end of the flight she jumped up and squeezed her way into the aisle to try and push by everybody, it didn’t work. She had to wait her turn just like everybody else.

I’m surprised nobody punched her, it looked close at one point when she came face to face with the man who had been sitting in front of her but she was oblivious to his dirty looks. What’s it like to have no awareness of others?

I wish her the best and am sure the sun shines all the time in her little world but I hope I never sit next to her on a flight ever again. Next time I might punch her.

Yoga Farts

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Sometimes with all the bending, stretching and twisting (especially twisting) in a yoga class people fart. It happens. Often.

Consulting my friend who is a yoga instructor I asked how she handles it. Apparently it is actually part of the teacher training and there is only one way to handle it. Ignore it. It didn’t happen. Carry on and just try not to giggle. The usual reaction when it happens to someone is to be slightly embarrassed, give quick glance around with an apologetic “oops” look and then back to the bending and twisting.

What happens though when you look over and somebody looks like they’re trying to fart? Like this guy was twisting and was trying to let one go. He had the trying to force it scrunchy face. He had already farted, several times. Had never given the “oops” apologetic face but instead kept twisting and bending and looking like he wanted to.

I tried to ignore him and just felt bad for the lady behind him. Then he let a big one out while seated and twisting. Trying to propel himself up into enlightenment I suppose but the lady behind him suddenly had the “ewww” face. On her behalf I gave him the stern babysitter don’t do that face. He didn’t see it. Too wrapped up in looking rather proud of himself and accompanied with this last great fart was also a great groan.

This is a yoga class, we don’t come here to fart on purpose. For the comfort and concentration of others most people try NOT to fart. Yes concentration, I mean if you are a bigger person than I and don’t have to stifle a giggle when you hear someone fart, congratulations. I hope one day to be that mature.

By the end of the class even the instructor, while avoiding walking near the offending person, was giving the guy looks like “What are you doing?” At one point she even lit a few candles because the room was starting to smell. Yep, it was that bad.

I understand it happens but to come to class for the seemingly soul purpose of getting out as many farts as you can is offensive. It does not make you more enlightened, it is not spiritual, in my mind it puts you in the same category as a fourteen year old boy.

At the end of the class when students say “Namaste” to everyone around them, not one person looked at him.

Shunned by yoga people, my goodness you must have offended. Yoga people usually consider themselves above being petty but this man was now out of the loop. He tried to be jovial after but nobody wanted anything to do with him.

So if you want to fit in with a yoga class. Don’t force your farts. Try to be considerate of those around you. Save it for stinking up your own home where you can blame it on the dog.

Namaste

Escalator Etiquette….

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When you step off an escalator KEEP MOVING.

Seems like common sense, right?

Why then are there people who step off and then stop?

Who seem to look around like they’ve just landed in a strange new land and have to figure out where they are. Like they were just transported from the USS Enterprise?

To the people who do this:

You’re at the bottom (or top) of the escalator. Keep moving so that the other people who are on a MOVING staircase can keep moving. If you stop the people behind will bump into you, they will give you a dirty look, some will say something (usually rude). From a moving staircase the only way to move is forward and with others coming you shouldn’t block the exit.

When you got on the escalator you must have had some idea of where you were going?

You must know that you were on a moving staircase, that other people on the escalator can’t stop. People who are getting off the escalator need somewhere to go and now you’re blocking their path.

If you are so stunned when you hit the top or bottom of an escalator and have lost your bearings, continue forward and step off to the side. This way you are out of the way and can figure out where you are and what you are doing. Even Captain Kirk used to do this after actually being transported.

If you don’t, I will bump into you and probably say something rude.

Elevator Etiquette…..

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Don’t you hate it when the elevator stops, the doors open, you go to get off but there is some over zealous person who can’t wait to get on the elevator. They try to push in. Blocking everybody who is trying to get off.

WHOA NELLIE what is your hurry?

Let everybody get off and THEN there will be plenty of room for you to get on. It only takes a moment and you won’t annoy the hell out of everybody who is trying to get off.

It always reminds me of my dog, when I go to the washroom the dog thinks that inside that closed door is a party that he should have been invited to. So he kicks up a fuss, until I come out and once that door is open he tries to push his way in before I can get out. Every time he is disappointed to find the bathroom, as it was, as it always is.

He’s a dog, he seems to have no short term memory, he isn’t very bright. I expect this behaviour from a dog but are my expectations too high to think that some office dude (or dudette) can learn that the elevator will wait for them, that they aren’t going to make it where they are trying to get to any faster if they try to push themselves on.

Do we need elevator training school?

I realize that with many things in life you get on before you get off but with elevators remember you let people off before you get on.