I am someone who is easily irritated. I can’t stand the dog that barks incessantly in the apartment below ours, the fact that my husband scratches at his head until it bleeds, and groups that congregate in the middle of sidewalks. Today, I’d like to add two items to that list: people who take the elevator in our building to the second floor and those who tie their dogs to newspaper boxes and other outdoor locations without supervision.
Our apartment building is an old hotel that was refurbished (I can’t bring myself to say that a building is just out of “rehab”) into an apartment building. The elevators are a little slow, and a few weeks ago there were problems significant enough to render them virtually useless for a few hours. A few hours may not seem like long, I agree, but if the dog needs to go out to the bathroom during that time, it’s 15 floors down and, more to the point, 15 floors UP to fully accomplish that feat. Right next to the elevator shaft is the door to the stairwell that goes from the ground floor to the second floor. If you want to keep going up the interior stairs (versus the outdoor fire escape), you have to walk to the other end of the building on the second floor to do so. I can understand, for that reason, a lot of people on lower floors of the building not taking the stairs, especially when they’re carrying things. But I don’t really understand why people don’t take the stairs to the second floor – I mean, it’s one flight of stairs. You could walk it sooner than wait for the elevator to get down to the ground floor. What really irritates me, for whatever reason, is that the people who always do this don’t even live in the building. They’re all going to the nail salon that’s housed on the second floor of our otherwise residential building (I swear they need a permit or something to do this, and I’m sure they don’t have one). So all these fee-fee overly tan women with zillion carat diamond rings take up the elevators when I’m waiting for one! (My favorite is when Lucy is in the elevator with me and one of these women gets on. I keep Lucy away from people, but the look of horror and distress that comes over these women at the sight of a dog more than 5 lbs. cracks me up.) They stand at the door of the building looking confused as to how to use the call box to get in, then inevitably stand around and wait for a resident to come through. One day I held the door for a woman who was going to the nail salon, and she ran down through the lobby, jumped in an elevator (destined for the second floor), and didn’t even hold the elevator another 30 seconds for me to get in it, too. Maybe they should put an etiquette school next to the nail salon. The only thing goofier than taking the elevator one flight of stairs UP is taking them one flight of stairs DOWN. There’s a clearly marked stairwell. Ugh!
On to random annoyance number two. Chicago is a dog town. Lots of people have them, and lots of places accommodate them – enough so that many businesses have to put “Please, no pets” signs up so that people won’t take them in to, say, CVS or (and I’m not kidding) the grocery store that’s closest to our building. I love Lucy (hah!), but I’m not planning on parading her through stores (save the doggie store) anytime soon. I also refuse to tie her out to street signs and the like while I’m running errands. It’s irresponsible and inappropriate. Anyone who’s met Lucy will understand why she shouldn’t be left to her own devices. She’d chew through what she was tied up with, or she’d bark the entire time I was away from her. There are a lot of nice, calm, sweet dogs, too, but I don’t think they should really be out there either. For one, what’s to stop someone from stealing the dog? What’s to stop children from reaching out to pet the nice doggie (you’d think the parent, but it just doesn’t always happen)? Plus what’s to stop the dog from getting scared and acting aggressive towards people? And who’s to say that every person who walks past isn’t terrified of dogs? I’ve spent a lot of time around dogs, but I’m always nervous when I approach one that doesn’t know me, especially if it’s alone, barking, or running towards me. The reason I bring this up is that Monday night when I came home there was a black poodleish thing tied up outside of Potash Bros. (the small supermarket near our apartment with the aforementioned “Please, no pets” sign). The dog was tied such that he had access to most of the width of the sidewalk, and he was barking endlessly. The owner must’ve been in the grocery store, and there was no sign of her. Why would someone do this? It’s unfair to the dog and the passerbys.
For anyone out there who will respond by telling me that I let little, ridiculous things bother me – let me save you the time. This is but a short list of things that rile me. It’s one of my major shortcomings in life. I figure that if I just write them all down, that will be sufficient stewing, and I can move on to being bothered by people who stand on the left side of the escalator rather than the right (“stand right, walk left”), dog owners who don’t pick up their dog’s poop and dispose of it, the fact that our kitchen faucet leaks when pushed all the way to one side…
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