Friday, October 25, 2013

La gente aqui no pueden usar veredas correctamente

In case you're wondering, the title of this post translates to "People here can't use sidewalks correctly."*

And, well, you'll be happy to know that's the gist of this post. It's very short but I figured I'd make a post of it instead of a Facebook post or tweet. What's the definition of microblogging, anyway? Requirements, please.

Seriously, the majority of people here DO suck at walking on sidewalks. Most sidewalks are the normal width, comfortably fitting 2 people walking past each other, or 3 side-by-side (lado a lado) at most. Even Avenida de Mayo, which has sidewalks 3 times as wide, is littered with kiosks and chairs using the sidewalk as a patio, completely defeating the purpose of a wider sidewalk. When I'm walking, or God help me if I'm running, people either don't recognize that exist, and therfore don't move, or do recognize I exist and don't give a shit, and therefore don't move. Some people are actually quite nice and yield the sidewalk when I'm running, but that's less often than not. I usually try to get out of the way because I'm the one running. Lookit, kids, I don't care about you and you don't care about. Let's just get past each other and move on.

And it's not just when we're going the opposite direction. People, when alone, will walk in the middle of the sidewalk, really slowly, not realizing it makes it hard for people to pass them. They just don't realize other people exist in the universe. Pick a side, people! Yeesh, you greedy fucks. Or they'll step out of shop right into a busy sidewalk, not realizing they're about to cause a traffic jam. Jesus people, GTFO of the way. Seriously. I'm not walking 7 km for my health. It's because I don't want to pay for a taxi and forgot that the Subte here is actually very good. It's very frustrating, my stupidity and their lack of awareness.

In case you're wondering, or assuming at this point, that I'm taking this too personally, I am. But it doesn't mean I'm wrong. I've seen it with other people. The lady holding her child struggling to get past the old man lazily taking his afternoon constitutional, dreaming of birds and Edgar Allen Poe. The businessman in his business suit trying to pass the child stopping to look at everything all the while he's late for the 4:30 conference call with Wall Street. People just don't realize the impact they're having on other people. Butterfly effect, kids.

Also, I'm sure you've figured it out by now, this post has turned quite satirical/farcical/sarcastical. You kind of had to realize it with the title of the post. Without further complicating it, enjoy!

-B

*Vereda is the Argentine word sidewalk. In the US (ok, wordreference.com doesn't make sense. I get there are people in the US that speak Spanish, but is there such thing as US Spanish??), it's "acera" and in Mexico it's "banqueta". Whew.**

**Obviously I didn't know any of these words and am practicing my Spanish. The end.

1 comment:

  1. This speaks to me deeply. I, too, want to uppercut with an ice pick people who are totally oblivious to their impact on the rest of humanity. I see this in traffic more often but this is a perfect example of the same behavior.

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