I went out to pick up something for lunch a little while ago, and came to a corner where the "Don't Walk" sign was on but, of course, people were crossing against the light.

A guy was standing with a woman who appeared to be his wife, who was wheeling a small child in a stroller; they were waiting for the light to change before they would cross.

As I strode past them into the crosswalk (against the light, natch), I caught the tail end of the woman saying something about people not waiting for the green light. Her putative husband replied "yeah, nobody listens to signs around here."

My immediate thought was, "maybe that's because signs don't talk."

~~~

I'm a grammar geek; I'll admit that right away. Reading a "your" when a "you're" is what's called for makes me crazy.

Grammar is the single most frustrating thing for me about e-mail. Personally, I'd much rather use e-mail than the phone because, really, who the hell wants to talk to people anyway? However, far too many people, in my opinion, seem to see e-mail as casual, not worthy of spell-checking, punctuation, sentence structure or even capitalization. Don't even get me started on "4" vs. "for," "U" vs. "you," etc.

I know that in this enlightened and sensitive age, we're supposed to be focused on what someone is saying, as opposed to how they say it (criticism might crush their carefully nurtured and protected self-esteem, don'tcha know), but I find it difficult to listen to or read something that isn't grammatically correct. It interrupts the flow of what might otherwise be a worthwhile idea, and all I can think about is what I perceive to be the glaring errors sticking out all over the place. I've no doubt this makes me an insensitive, hegemonic something or other, but I sleep pretty well at night, regardless.

~~~

On my way back from picking up a sandwich (mmmm...pastrami), I observed a woman wearing what appeared to be high-heeled sneakers. Upon closer inspection, it became apparent that they were actually pumps, although with a thinner heel, with the leather styled to look like sneakers and with fake "laces" attached.

Not to put too fine a point on it, these shoes looked both uncomfortable and stupid. I'd be interested in any thoughts that anyone who actually reads this might have as to why someone would buy, let alone wear, such monstrosities.

On another tangent, I've never gotten the whole high heel fetish thing. I mean, high heels are okay, and they do make a nicely turned calf look...uh, nice, but those really high heels? The stilty ones? Yuck. That just seems like torture to me. God knows it feels good when I get to take my shoes off at the end of the day, so I can't even imagine what it must be like to wear those contraptions and walk around on concrete and linoleum for 9 or 12 hours or so.

How do women avoid constantly breaking their ankles in those things?

Posted by mikeski at 3:15 p.m.