It's time to declare a pox on annoying people

It’s been a while since I’ve had a good bitching session about People who Do Annoying Things, and it’s high time that this oversight was rectified. So, I give you my latest list of people who deserve to be cursed with a chronic infestation of pulex irritans.

First up, pedestrians. Yes, South African motorists hate them, but some of them deserve to be hated. Really. Especially the ones who walk in front of you just as there’s a gap in traffic, forcing you to sit for ages until the next gap appears. It would be just as easy for them to walk behind your car, but no. I am convinced this is a passive aggressive way to get at motorists.

Slow walkers. This is more of a problem in cities like London, where people generally walk everywhere; in South Africa, it manifests itself in shopping malls where people waft about like drifts of sea foam with no sense of purpose at all, causing needless congestion. Also, people who decide that doorways and the areas in front of escalators are appropriate places to have a confab about where to go and what to do. They should be hauled off and placed in solitary confinement where they can reflect on their lack of consideration for their fellow citizens.

People — usually men — who don’t use towels on gym equipment. Sis man.

Rattlers in cinemas. Honestly. People who rattle chip packets and sweet wrappers in movies should be shot at dawn or, at the very least, divested of their reproductive organs with a blunt spoon.

Those cleaning ladies who swing their yellow warning signs violently back and forth in order to dry the floor they have just cleaned, thus clearing a sort of force field in the entire surrounding area while you’re trying to squeeze past them in an effort to pick up a punnet of rosa tomatoes. I have never witnessed this behaviour anywhere else in the world. Perhaps we could persuade tourists to visit in the hope of witnessing it.

Fake tans and, more specifically, the people who wear them. Yes, I have been known to slap on a bit of colour in order not to demonstrate the first known case of bioluminescence in human beings, but subtlety is the thing. The people in this blog are not subtle.

And finally, people who do not use earphones to listen to their crappy choice in music on their computers, thus forcing everyone else in the cubicle farm to share, unwillingly, in their love of Celine Dion (in an ad agency?!) and the Black Eyed Peas. I swear, if I hear about how Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night once more, I’m going to … do something. I don’t know what yet, but rest assured that it will result in the infliction of injury upon the person of the offending individual.

You have been warned.