Friday, May 16, 2008

Urban etiquette: an occasional series

Todays' topic: Stand right, walk left

As any regular commuter by BART or Muni knows, the rule on escalators is a simple one - stand right, walk left. In fact, this rule appears to be universal.




So why is it so fucking hard for people to figure this out? Now, granted, at rush hours the system seems to behave as planned, either because there are more experienced commuters or because there are so many people trying to walk on the left they pile up and the left-stander finally gets it through his thick fucking WWE-addled skull that he's supposed to move. But at non-peak times, you'll often see some fucking retard just hanging out on the left, totally oblivious to the fact that everyone else is standing on the right.

Now, if there's no one standing next to the retard on the right, that's cool - I'll just cruise around him and continue down the stairs in my normal breakneck rushing-to-a-fire speed that I employ to jet around town normally. But when Calvin Clueless is jabbering away with his mouth-breathing girlfriend next to him, I have to get right up behind him and then go "EXCUSE ME" which has the double-barreled benefit of making him jump a little and hopefully teaching him the walk left stand right principle.

They've got the right idea in London. If you try that stand left crap there, they will run you the fuck over, no lie. I saw it happen several times. That's the way the natural order is enforced, folks.

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