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| Door openingWhen you're walking towards a set of doors with other people, do you go through first and prop the door open behind you, or do you hold it open while standing behind the door (bellhop style)? I feel like the first one is perfectly socially acceptable, but I kind of feel rude doing it because a lot of people do the second one and it seems more considerate.
There's a set of glass doors between the elevator lobby and the hallway that my office is in. Yesterday, I was going inside, and I tried to hold the door open (bellhop style) for two elderly men who were also going in, and one of them practically shouted, "Oh no young lady, you go ahead! I wouldn't have it any other way!" (Incidentally he was a semi-bald Caucasian male with a fringe of snow white hair  ) Properly chastened, I let him take over the door holding and scurried through. Very considerate of him, but... are guys emasculated when girls hold doors open for them? Do guys feel uncomfortable being on the receiving end of door opening?
Conversely, I always feel weird about going in front of someone when they've opened the door, because I feel like it's hard to tell whether they've opened the door with the intention of letting me go first, or if I've darted in front of them while they were opening the door. Then I wonder if guys are like "I can't believe she just assumes that I'm going to hold the door open for her because she's a girl. Jeez." hahaha
A pregnant co-worker and I walked towards the same set of doors once and she was actually ahead of me, but I suddenly felt like it would be horrible manners to let a pregnant woman hold the door open for me... so I did some crazy maneuvering and got there first so I could hold the door open bellhop-style. She walked through, but it was awkward. haha
I think I'm probably overthinking this, but I think it does matter to a certain extent. Really, anything is fine as long as you do hold the door open. There's an um, relatively high-ranking female manager type at my workplace, and the one meeting she led that I went to gave me the impression that she was inconsiderate and overbearing. I saw her again in the lobby a few weeks later, and I was right behind her and she let the door swing shut anyway. I could either assume that she actually is unpleasant and inconsiderate, or that she was just very distracted that day. There's a fine line between being oblivious and being inconsiderate (or is there?) but I guess as long as you're not maliciously slamming doors on people, no one should hold that against you.
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| GeeseI was driving down a fairly major road with two lanes of traffic going in each direction, when I noticed that the cars on the other side of the median were slamming on their brakes to avoid a pretty large flock of geese who had decided to cross the street. There were at least 15, maybe 20 goodly-sized geese. They proceeded at a very calm pace, steadily making their way across both lanes. I drove past this debacle on the other side of the median just in time to see the geese enter the side of the road I was on, right into the path of the car behind me.
My eyes glued to the rearview mirror, I continued driving but almost fully expected to see some sort of fantastical goose-automobile collision and/or pileup behind me. Miraculously, cars in both lanes braked in time to avoid hitting the flock of geese (and each other!) and the geese continued placidly on their way, black beaks all facing forward. You'd think the geese might take a sideways glance at these huge machines that almost demolished them, but the geese were all totally unfazed.
I thought there would be honking, but there wasn't any... because really, who can blame the driver in front of them for braking for wildlife? Then I thought, wow, these geese get off scot-free. If a pack of people darted across four lanes of oncoming traffic, the people would have all kinds of repercussions to deal with and probably be taken to task for being so irresponsible. But the geese get to obliviously do whatever they please XD The real irony is that geese can fly, so they have no real need to walk anywhere, yet they chose to cross a major road. -_____- hahahaaa.
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| Bird at Death's Door DilemmaOk, so you guys might remember my ridiculous, litigious banana peel dilemma from a few weeks ago. Recap: I found a rotting banana peel in the parking garage at work, and wondered if I should pick it up and deposit it properly in a trashcan. Conclusion: Don't touch it. Contamination and Diseases. Guilt. haha XD
Today, on my way back home from work, I went to the parking garage and found a barely breathing bird (sparrow?) lying on its back next to the rear right tire of my car. At first I didn't even recognize it as a bird, because it was on its back and twisted at kind of a weird angle. I thought it was dead, and then I noticed it was breathing faintly, and looking at me intently, like "Save me!!!" AhhH! I thought briefly about taking it outside by somehow balancing it on the windshield scraper in my trunk so as to avoid touching it, but then I was like, how is the bird going to be any better off outside the garage? It would still be injured. Also, I'd have to somehow balance it down four flights of stairs, and potentially run into my colleagues. ...There probably wouldn't be a good explanation for that.
Then I figured that actually helping the bird would require finding medical attention for it. Thought: what am I going to do, put a tiny cast on its wing? Take it to a vet, who will then want to know if the bird has insurance? -____- Annnd I figured what with all the bird related diseases that have ravaged Asia, it probably wasn't a good idea to handle strange birds. We're past the day and age where finding an injured bird meant cradling it in your hands and nursing it back to health. Birds are much more sinister these days. lol
Feeling super guilty, I decided to leave the bird there. I steered carefully around it as I left, and tried not to look as the bird pleaded for help with its eyes. GahhH! What ethical trial will I find in the parking garage next? T.T XD | | |
| Ridiculous Day1) Dubious Ziplock Bag. I was talking to another one of my co-workers (not the Bed Bath & Beyond coupon hoarder), and she was holding an oversized Ziplock bag filled with dried green plants... which basically looked suspiciously like a smaller version of that giant bag of pot in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. I must have been staring at the bag fairly dubiously, because then...
Co-worker: "Sure looks like marijuana, doesn't it."
Me: "HAHAH Yes. Yes it does." <pause> "...So, what is it actually?"
Co-worker: "Wait." She then opened the bag and shook it a little to mix the contents, then offered the bag to me to sniff.
I leaned in somewhat reluctantly, but still curious. lol I was relieved to discover that the bag was filled with oregano and not illegal substances, but we were still on the receiving end of a very suspicious glance from one of our higher-ups who happened to walk by at that moment. (He's a Level 4. I am a Level 1. Durr!) Oops!! hahahah
2) Piñata of Steel. For my sister's bday, we got a piñata, but it wouldn't break. We were beating that thing forever! First a wooden broomstick got broken in half. Then we tried a metal broom handle (and I was all like "It's fine, it's metal, it can't break") and that got warped and bent in the middle. Then finally we used a two by four and the piñata at last relented. hahaha
3) The End is Near. The power went out at work today. In the last two weeks, there have been at least four massive thunderstorms (as in, lightning, electricity-knocking out, gumball-sized hail falling clunkily onto the roof of my car). My house was without electricity for almost four days. Traffic lights out! Total anarchy. Metro cars have been derailing, Metro tracks have been catching on fire, and there was a water main break in Maryland so there's a clean water shortage there. Massive power outage in DC a few days ago. O_O
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| Unusual dayIt was a pretty unusual day.
1) I got caught in a torrential downpour without an umbrella. One minute the sky was a little gray but still clear, and the next minute, the sky was leaking buckets. I was in a grocery store getting food for a barbecue (which of course got called off), and when I left, the sky was almost as black as night. Getting to my car in the parking lot was like walking through a carwash with three bags of groceries. -____-
2) Today is May 31. I was driving back home and saw Christmas lights on a house on the way. Not any neutral, non-season specific white lights, but the full-fledged Christmas red and green lights. An impressive lot of them. There may even have been a Nativity scene. I almost veered off the road from surprise as I rubbernecked. Pretty hazardous, but also pretty feel-good. More power to them
3) The backlight for the cold/hot air indicator on my dashboard died a few months ago (if not longer), so I'd been turning the dial in darkness. Today it suddenly and miraculously flared back to life at full power, as if nothing had ever been amiss. This happened right after I saw the Christmas lights, and then I was staring at my dashboard in disbelief, and overall driving kind of hazardously. Go figure... | | |
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