10 July 2010

A waste of our tax dollars

Leaving the street festival, I was waiting at the crosswalk near a family of four.

"Wait," the crosswalk voice chanted. "Wait."

"Mom, the pole is talking to us," said the boy, about 9 years old.

Just then, the light changed.

"Walk...walk...walk," said the pole.

"How stupid is that?" the mother ranted. "The government is spending our tax dollars on that stupid thing telling us when to cross? I can't believe they spent money on that! What is the point of that?"

"Um...it's for the blind," I mumbled.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" The woman covered her face in her hands. "Oh, that makes sense...I thought..."

"Not everything is a conspiracy to waste your tax money," said her husband, smirking.

9 comments:

Kizz said...

I believe that you are officially that husband's newest favorite person.

Rachel said...

*snickers*

when flying last week, some guy was all exasperated that the airline allowed people with no overhead carry-ons board before those of us who did.

Once we were on the plane, I had to laugh. He admitted the boarding process went much faster that way...

Dave2 said...

This is getting so damn old. Everywhere you turn, this crap is going on. People just don't think about things any more... they react with disdain, suspicion, contempt, mockery, and totalitarian judgement. And, more often that not, they have no frickin' clue what they're talking about. Far easier to just say "THE GOVERNMENT IS WASTING MY TAX DOLLARS!!" at everything you see that you don't like or take time to understand.

It's the new FOX News approach to living.

I would be fine with it if it only made these people miserable, but the non-stop conspiracy train over how every little thing is President Obama or the "Democrats" trying to screw America is making EVERYBODY miserable.

But whatever. That's our country now.

I had a similar experience to yours. As I was waiting at a crosswalk, the signal was chirping. The woman next to me was railing about how annoying it was having to listen to that noise and, when the sound changed to rapid clicking to indicate it was time to cross, she went ballistic. I finally couldn't take it any more, and screamed "IT WOULDN'T BE SO ANNOYING IF YOU WERE BLIND AND THAT WAS THE ONLY WAY YOU KNEW IT WAS SAFE TO CROSS THE STREET!" Her response? "There's hardly enough blind people to justify torturing the rest of us!"

I hate people.

Jess said...

This is SO not PC, and God if I can't stop snickering at it, so here goes....

Why aren't there any blind skydivers?

It scares the dog.


Tasteless, yes. But *SNORT*

Jessica said...

Ha, I'm guessing the wife is Sarah Palin to her husband's Obama.

I'm with Dave2 - I hate people. It gets harder and harder to hide my contempt.... I'm obviously going to die alone.

And, I'm evil, but I totally laughed at that joke.

Julie said...

The other day I was getting a bike rack installed on my car, and there was one other person in the shop. I had an appointment, marked clearly on the calendar on the front counter...he did not. When the guy behind the counter told him that he would have to wait, he decided to come over to where I was sitting to complain. To ME - the person with the appointment. He actually said "I've missed a few appts and now they won't take me immediately, and the amount of money I spend in this place...blah, blah. " I stopped listening but wished I would have told him off. Not that it would have done any good at all. People are assholes.

meno said...

You have funny readers/commenters.

Glennis said...

I was once in a planning meeting for a performance event where - for the first time - the producers were going to include a signer for the hearing impaired. This was not for all the shows, it was for one specific show where a large block of tickets had been sold to a school for the hearing impaired.

I was used to working for producers who routinely included signers for all their shows, figuring that there might be some people in every audience who would appreciate it.

So I was appalled when, after a discussion of where exactly the signer would be positioned on stage, a very senior level manager burst out, "Oh, put him in the balcony! We don't want our audience to have to watch THAT!"

Suzanne said...

I give the woman a lot of credit for realizing that her initial reaction was wrong and being embarrassed. There are a disturbing amount of people who would still find the talking pole to be a waste of money, even after learning that it helps blind people.

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