Come ON, people!

Today I have a bit of a bone to pick with certain members of the human race.
No, not you.

THESE people:
1) Random vandalizers
2) Unhelpful shoppers

Here’s my beef with these people. (Are there any vegetarian-friendly clichés for arguments? Or do only carnivores have disagreements?)

1) This morning I took the garbage out to the corner and discovered that someone had bend over the realtor’s “For Sale” sign in our yard. And I mean bent the metal 90 degrees, right over onto the ground.

Now, I realize that the housing market is pretty tough right now with a lot of houses on the market, but I’m not really an advocate of solving a problem with violence. Especially wussy anonymous violence. If you feel that strongly about something, at least leave your name (preferably NOT in spray paint) so that we can continue the discussion.

This is actually the SECOND time something like this has happened. On a previous morning, I found our sign pulled out of the ground, lying on the grass.

I’m chalking this up to either a disgruntled home owner also trying to sell OR one of the drawbacks of living on a busy street with close-ish proximity to both the downtown area AND the university.

2) It was time to replace the battery in the van. It has died on us (with little provocation) twice – once while Aaron was listening to the radio, waiting for me to finish tidying up before the realty open house. We had to have the realtor give us a jump so we could leave. Aw-w-kward. The last time was the other day at Lowe’s – Aaron had left the lights on for the 20 minutes we were inside (swearing that there had been no warning alarm, of course!).

So we bought a new battery at Sears. Aaron had me bring the old one in today for recycling, and the $10 refund we’d get in return.

Have you ever carried a car battery? Those suckers are heavy. I don’t know if it weighed more than Ben, but it was quite a bit less helpful in the carrying, what with its lack of extremities wrapping around my waist and neck.

I parked as close to the appropriate door as possible without using Aaron’s handicapped parking tag (which I DID consider) and schlepped the thing across the road. Approaching the door just ahead of me were two young men. They ended up getting there about 2 or 3 long strides in front of me AND LET THE DOOR CLOSE.

Now, it has usually been my experience that even without a 20 lb. box in your hands, most people will hold the door for someone coming after them, or at least give it a shove in transition.
Considering my circumstances, I really expected this to be the case. It was not to be.

As if to counteract their lack of consideration, a girl heading OUT the same door saw me struggling to remove my sunglasses and then open the 2nd door, and hurried to open it for me. THANK YOU for accentuating the lack of consideration of the two guys. I thought it was just me.

Now if someone would just apologize to our innocent yard sign.