WHY DO THEY DO THAT???

After six decades on this earth, I find that Guy Noir is not the only one with persistent questions.  Here are some of mine:

Why do:

- men assume that they get all of the space in an airplane row of seats? 

OK.  OK.  Maybe women do this sometimes too, but in my experience it has always been men.*  I am not talking here about the dilemma posed by sharing a row with a large person. I am talking about the average-sized man who sits down in his seat and  immediately spreads his knees apart as far as they will go and plops his elbows on both arm rests.  Were these guys raised by wolves?  Oh.  Wait.  I have no reason to believe that wolves have such bad manners.

            *Of course, there was the time when I sat down next to a very young woman on a bus, and found to my dismay that it was not going to occur to her to uncross her stiletto-clad left foot from the top of her right knee, where it remained poised to attack my left knee for the entire trip. . . .

- store clerks refer to the inventory as if they own it?   

So, you walk up to a store clerk and ask, “Where are the frozen peas?” and the clerk responds, “My peas are on aisle three toward the back, or “I am out of frozen peas, but I have some nice fresh asparagus.”  Really?  Does s/he think that I will believe that s/he owns the store, but comes in to stock the shelves in order to stay in touch with the little people? 

-  store clerks ask for a phone number?

Really?  Any phone number?  It doesn’t have to be mine?

- store clerks ask for the “last four of your social”?

Not sure what this means, but it sounds personal. 

- radio stations announce that “meteorologist Joe/Jane Blow is calling for torrential rain/tornados/(fill in your weather horror of choice here)”?

I get that meteorologists have to predict the weather, however ugly, but why would anyone employ a meteorologist who calls for ugly weather?

- people leave their engines running while waiting for a bridge-lift to be over?

These events usually last at least ten minutes. This is not the Indianapolis 500, folks  – A fast take off is not imperative.

- robot voices on phone trees pretend to be real people?

Does company XYZ really think it is making this a more pleasant experience by having a recorded voice say, "I'm sorry.  I didn't get that.  Could you please repeat it?"?  If you want to make it a pleasant experience, how about HIRING SOME REAL PEOPLE TO ANSWER THE PHONES?, she asked sweetly.  

I feel better now.  I would love to hear your persistent questions.