NYC is a hotbed for innovating things that irritate.
Old irritation: Idling sightseeing buses.
New irritation: Idling sightseeing buses with huge ads exhorting people not sitting on their ass on the bus to get in shape, like above.
Old irritation: Door jumpers. You open a door for yourself and someone a few lengths away jumps through it before you do. They're parasitic ghosts who slip through space between real people, stealing muscle power, avoiding having to touch the filthy door (probably some of the same people who use a store restroom, don't wash their hands, then fondle merchandise or clamp their polluted hand on the escalator rail on the way out).
New irritation: Door jumpers using cellphones, who consider it only right that others open doors for them because they are busy on the phone.
Old irritation: Spatially oblivious people. Like spaced-out tourist families that pick the most congested choke point in pedestrian traffic to stand around debating where to go next -- forcing everyone else to churn through their whirlpool of confusion.
New irritation: Spatially oblivious iPeople. They notice you are about to collide, so they consult their cellphone -- they actually stutter-stop for a half second to study it as you converge -- as though they hope to flee into Cyber Phone Space and avoid your onrushing mass of molecules.
I have seen people do this at the most inappropriate moments -- stepping onto or off a train, in the middle of a busy doorway -- and suspect they really are split between worlds, too lazy to choose one.
And speaking of "inattention to surroundings," the article at the link below is a hoot. It says that, even before cellphones, national park visitors would put their kids on a wild animal's back for a snapshot. Now they use technology to extend their idiocy. One quartet of hikers sent out high tech emergency signals three times -- each time sending a $3400 an hour helicopter into action -- and refused to fly out until forced. Their second emergency? They thought the local water "tasted salty."
- Technology Leads More Park Visitors Into Trouble, NYT
