by Tom Blair
Columnist

I am talking about people who do the most irritating things, you know, like those who drive around with “boom” speakers full blast at 2 or 3 in the morning. Or maybe one of those people who accidentally call the wrong number and just hang up, instead of saying, “Oh, I’m sorry, I must have dialed the wrong number.

I’m checking out in a store the other day and there are plenty of employees around, but the clerk in my lane stops ringing my stuff up and answers the phone. I am the paying customer and she’s answering a bunch of questions from someone who is asking about store hours. This is at 2:l2 in the afternoon. Then she finishes the phone conversation and continues checking my stuff without a simple “I’m sorry, excuse me” or anything like that. It’s rude and I’ll never go back there.

Maybe I am getting a little old and slow, but when I pull into a fast food lane, I know what I want but I get a 60 second 90 mile and hour blurt of conversation that sounds like a screaming Donald Duck. Huh? I don’t have the slightest idea of what she said. “Pardon me,” I said and the same thing comes over the squeaky speaker. I go ahead give her my order. She repeats my order back and it’s the same thing, I just say “yeah, I guess” and hope for the best.

This time of the year, negative political ads irk the hell out of me. I would love to hear what candidates are promising, not that they will deliver, but after listening to the Heitkamp/Berg ads, it sounds to me like they are both going to change the world, but both accuse the other of being liars, who’s telling the truth?

Another thing. When you are talking to someone and someone else walks up and butts in, the person you were talking to immediately stops listening to you and starts listening to them. I usually just ignore rude people who butt in, they are inconsiderate.

And another thing. It makes no difference if it’s a casino, grocery store or the side walk, we have those who stop in the middle of everything to talk. There’s just enough room to get a couple grocery carts by and they block the isles to yak when you are trying to get your shopping done. I have seen 4 or 5 people standing in the middle of the isle at a casino and they ignore you while you stand there trying to get by, and then when you say “excuse me” ya get a dirty look.

Stinky perfume is another favorite of mine at a casino. I saw a woman sit down by a guy who was smoking and kept waving her hands at the smoke and griping at him. My eyes were watering from her cheap perfume and I was four stools away from her. They have non-smoking sections at most casinos; I think they need a heavy perfume section too.

Extremely loud mufflers bug me too, although I love the deep mellow sound of glass-pack pipes like we had in the 50’s and 60’s. I sometime wonder if some have loud pipes just for the attention, you know, “Here I am, look at me make noise” Kinda like a cry for attention maybe?

Lastly. It’s a mystery to me why they call rap “music.” Boom-a-chucka boom-a-chucka and no music in the background!

I guess we all have things that irritate us, guess I’ll quit, some people don’t like complaining writers.

Tom “Road” Blair

road742@aol.com

Website: www.tomroadblair.com