Instead, it usually seems like they think there's no one else one the sidewalk except themselves. Or, if they are aware of other people, they not only don't make room, they go out of their way to make it impossible to pass. Like "How dare you try and pass our slow-moving group taking up the entire sidewalk!!!"

This happens all the time in Boston. You even get individual pedestrians who seem to sense you getting ready to pass and they swerve into your "lane"; then swerve back when you try to juke the other way. It's gotten to the point where I assume it's just the MA driver mentality carried over to pedestrians.

And I'm afraid, having grown up in Maine (aka Vacationland which = Touristland), and now living in Salem, my love hate relationship with tourists has moved firmly to the "hate" side of the spectrum, at least for the clueless (as opposed to uninformed) types.

Remember folks, it's tourist season again - shoot to kill, not to wound. There's nothing more dangerous than a wounded tourist.

Like "How dare you try and pass our slow-moving group taking up the entire sidewalk!!!"

I get this because I actually have the nerve to walk up the escalator instead of standing there like a sheep.

I am less bothered by the climbing gas prices themselves than by the fact that they've made the last convenience store in my area that let you pay after pumping stop that practice.

You must be glad to no have the commute you used to have. Or were you reimbursed for gas? Which makes me wonder how long companies keep subsidizing (or at least fully subsidizing) for gas.

I get this because I actually have the nerve to walk up the escalator instead of standing there like a sheep.

Oh how I wish it were universally known that one should stand on the right and allow walkers to pass on the left.

Oh how I wish it were universally known that one should stand on the right and allow walkers to pass on the left.

It's not even that people are in the way though, some of them just look at you passing like you're bothering them by, you know, moving past them.

Oh how I wish it were universally known that one should stand on the right and allow walkers to pass on the left.

In most airports this is both posted and announced on a PA.... doesn't help.

Dear McSnorty,

As you seem to have persistent issues with your sinuses, I'm just going to walk around the cubicle and stab you in the face a few times. I'm sure it'll help with drainage!

Sincerely,
shrift

It's not even that people are in the way though, some of them just look at you passing like you're bothering them by, you know, moving past them.

Mos def. I get that look a lot.

I have come to adore the weird looks I get when I take the stairs instead of the escalator. You'd think I was walking up the stairs with a hat made of half donkey, half terracotta.

The two things that I wish people visiting DC would learn on the Metro is "stand right, walk left" and "Don't stand in the doorways." I have seen a school group get into a metro car, the teacher told them all to stay right with her right by the door (even though there were STILL PEOPLE BOARDING), stay right by the door for six stops during rush hour, then exit at Metro Center and have them all wait directly outside the train door until they'd all left the train, and then complain about how people in the city are so rude and pushy.

Once, when I offered to help some lost tourists, they told me that I was so much nicer than what they expected in a city like DC. I told them I was from NYC and that was where I learned my manners. (Really, although I know it was nice and polite to help lost people, the main reason I did it in that case was because they were standing somewhere that made them block two escalators and a several streams of traffic. I was being nice to them, but I was being nicer to my fellow DCers.)

On days with evening Cubs games, the CTA Red Line often gets tons of people riding it to the game who don't normally take the train. So you see big groups of baseball folks standing in the train near the doors so others can't get in. And once I got into a shoving match with a woman who was pushing her way onto the train before those of us leaving the train had gotten off.

Oh, did I mention that people going to Cubs games are often already drunk on the train? Once a drunk woman screamed and laughed when the door she was leaning against opened and she almost fell out.