Having grown up in a small town, I can clearly see the benefits of living in a big city. Cities have a higher proliferation of Hungry Jack’s than rural areas and they even have escalators so you don’t get tired walking up stairs. But it’s also clear to me that cities are full of crazy people and fuckwits. Living in a massive hive seems to rob some individuals of their rationality and basic human empathy. Here is a list of city folk who are really goddam annoying.
- Baristas who act like it’s a hassle when you ask them for a coffee because it interrupts the conversation they were having with a cooler customer about Kale Yoga Tattoos.
- People who, on the first day of autumn that the temperature drops below 20, roll out the heavy winter jacket and scarf combo, with the possible addition of a beanie as well. Come on guys. I know you’ve been super keen to rock your winter wardrobe, but this is not Yekaterinburg, this is ‘Straya!
- Drivers who completely lose the plot when it rains. That can either mean they drive ridiculously safely at around 35km/h, or they are so amazed about the water falling out of the sky they forget to do important stuff like indicate and stop at red light. These people make up approximately 23 per cent of the driving population and that is enough to cause calamity.
- Tossers who wave their umbrellas around like fat, flappy light sabres, or hold them above their heads so the spokes are exactly at my eye level and fail to move it out of the way as we cross paths (even when they’re under cover and don’t need to have it open). Do you understand the size of the object you are carrying?? Spatial reasoning people!!
- 30-year-old guys who still wear their high school footy shorts to the pub.
- Smokers who slink about outside city buildings in the morning, desperately sucking on their condensed pollution sticks like the last vestiges of a dying species which evolution has left behind and blowing stinging plumes right in my face.
- Bus drivers who are more jerky than a 14-year-old boy watching the extended cut of Kate Upton’s ‘Cat Daddy’ dance on YouTube, which runs for 10:20 and features numerous slow-motion replays. Or so I’ve been told.
- People who live in uber-hip neighbourhoods and never leave them, meaning if you want to see them you have to hang out at one of their local hole-in-the-wall bars and feel like a dweeb because you don’t know all the cool kids.
- Young, smug dads.
- Waiters/waitresses who keep coming over and asking how everything is when you’re trying to have an argument with your partner.
- Cyclists who expect you to treat them the same as another car, albeit a tiny, very fragile one, only until it suits them to become a bike rider again and ignore the car rules.
- Super-cute couples who brunch on weekend mornings in outfits that are so casually mismatched, yet somehow perfect that you know they have carefully co-ordinated everything. Even their gorgeous wanker dogs seem to think they’re better than me.
- People in shops who spend an eternity standing in front of the thing I want to look at, even when I’ve made it clear they are in my way by awkwardly milling about behind them and peering over their shoulder and under their armpit.
- Girls who wear giant sunglasses so I can’t tell if they’re hot or not.
- Those folks who are so spellbound by their phones they have to stare at them while they’re walking along the street, and consequently don’t look where they’re going or even actually walk in a straight line, just kind of drift about like an unmoored sloop until they almost run into you, whereby they look up, startled, and appear almost offended that you have wrenched them out of their Happy Phone Place back into the acrid reality of a street filled with thousands of other pedestrians.
Image credit: Trendhunter
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