Modern Sensibilities

Sartre was correct in theorizing that hell is other people and they exist to torture us. Most people, myself included, have utterly annoying tendencies and it is our curse to suffer their idiosyncrasies. While washing my hands the other day in the men’s room at Rathus Hall, I could not help but notice that there was a low mumble coming from the stall behind me. At first I figured someone was talking to themselves, which I would have preferred in this case, unfortunately it was not. The gentlemen occupying the stall behind me was engaged in an argument with his significant other, a woman of obviously poor choice, named Natalie. Apparently Natalie did not wake this man up like he had asked her too, and because of her incompetence, he was late for school. I wonder how intense the frustration or anger needs to be in a person that it requires a toilet bowl call to quell. Unless we have finally reached the point where we need technological stimulation to distract us even in the bathroom, which, for humanities sake, I hope we haven’t. Either way, my sympathies go out to Natalie.
I’ll admit that one of my annoying and perhaps intrusive habits is smoking, and while others might not appreciate my behavior, I do not appreciate their efforts at avoiding my exhalations. I’ve noticed that there are two standard ways to approach the old carsonagenic shuffle. The first is to engage in an exaggerated bout of coughing while passing said smoker. Yes, cigarette smoke may irritate the throat, nose or lungs of the odd passer by and it may require a cough or two to alleviate, however, there is no way that passing by a plume of second hand smoke can cause you to violently convulse as if you are suffering a pulmonary embolism. If it does, then breathing in second hand smoke should not be your main health concern at the moment.
The second approach to “avoiding” second hand smoke is the hand wave. A person will either walk past you, most often while entering or exiting a doorway, see the smoke, exhale loudly and then rapidly wave their hands in front of their mouth and nose in rapid fashion. I see flapping their hands like Icarus avoiding the stratosphere while passing me is going down.
The lines at Starbucks are insufferable at times, but there is always a light at the end of the tunnel that makes the wait worth all the while, sweet, sweet coffee. It is hard to stand patiently while a gang of sixteen year olds clog the line, punching away on their smart phones placing overly complicated orders. Sure you can pass the time while they slow the line down with orders for drinks that take fifteen minutes to make by looking at the other patrons in the store. Most often the random sixty year old reading a book, do you not have a quiet room to read in your house to read, why would one come to a loud, over crowed store to read the latest New Yorker, and then leave it behind on the table along with the crumbs from their raspberry coffee cake. Alas, they finally all place their orders, ”I’ll have a grande, sugar free, caramel frappachino”, (Which I’ll also order without making eye contact to the human taking my order because I’m texting on my blackberry that my parents bought me and which I do no deserve). What a time to be alive.