Keep Moving When You Step Off The Escalator ... How Difficult Can It Possibly Be?

People who stop and look around in confusion as soon as they step off the escalator ... are they the stupidest fucking morons in existence?

“Der … der … umm … what do I do now?” Well, just about anything other than what you’re doing, you frigging cretin!

Some pair of morons did this to me the other day. Even worse, this was coming off the escalator ONTO the train platform. What’s to decide? Just walk onto the platform, then when a train comes, walk onto it. Presumably they believed their pension cards entitled them to inconvenience all around them with their abject stupidity as well as discount fares.

Of course, I banged into them. Not with any deliberately extra force, but what else could I do, particularly as they were standing side by side, doubling their cretinousness / cretaincy?

When I asked them where they thought the people behind them would go if they stopped there, I received the response: “Ohh … ohh … ohh”, all said in a bewildered, slightly high pitched voice. Perhaps their tiny brains were trying to think of something that would make me feel rude, but were simply not up to the challenge.

It’s not just the elderly who do it. The inability to absorb basic facts about one’s immediate environment and deduce appropriate actions seems to be fairly uniform across ages, genders and races.

If the offender(s) is not frail and looks like they can take a bit of a bump, I usually put a bit extra into the collision, accompanied by a look of “Would you like a punch in the face as well? Say something stupid or irritating and you’ll get your wish.”

One behaviour I have noticed to be correlated with stopping immediately after getting off the escalator is standing next to people, rather than in front or behind, thus blocking the aisle where people walk up or down. 

A plausible explanation offers itself: These people have extremely low IQ and spend almost all their time in a (very small) bubble of their horrifyingly barren internal narrative. The concept that other people might be unreasonably inconvenienced or irritated by their stupidity and therefore get angry is anathema to them, as is clearly the concept that courtesy begets courtesy and rudeness begets rudeness.

In Australia, we drive on the left and somewhat surprisingly, people stand on the left on the escalator and walk on the right, except of course those who have failed to grasp this idea. 

The other day, the train was on the platform, due to depart. A line of people were standing on the left of the escalator as it descended to the platform. Despite having made the effort to go to a train station, none of them seemed to be in any hurry to actually catch a train, but they were all politely getting the fuck out of my way.  

Lo and behold, two girls in their early twenties, standing abreast near the bottom of the escalator. They were fat and badly dressed as well. 

I said: “Get out of the way, you fat lumps!” as I shoved past them and onto the train, just before its doors closed.

Some readers may think this excessively rude, but I believe it is just about the right amount of rudeness. Why should I miss a train and be late because two fat blubbers are too ignorant to observe a simple social custom? They deserve a short, sharp bit of rudeness in return.

Once, I encountered an even bigger cretin. This bloke was walking TOWARD the escalator, then decided to stop and look around with a confused look on his face, about one pace from the entrance, completely blocking it. Naturally, I banged straight into him. 

I asked him: “Why stop there, you clown?” 

His response was a strange one, since he wasn’t a foreigner: “Ohh … can’t people stop and look around in this city?” 

Perhaps he was from Adelaide. He certainly looked like someone who might vote for the Australian Democrats. 

My response: “Anywhere but where you stopped. You’ve got the entire concourse to stop and look around, you dickhead. Why choose to stop right in front of the escalator?”

He then said: “Does everyone have to be in such a hurry?” 

I said: “Well, I am, so get the fuck out of my way.” I finished off with: “I bet you vote Green, you fuckwit!”

Christ, what a turd! “Madonna! Que stronzo!” as the Italians say. 

Yes, you’re right, fool … it’s all the fault of our intolerant society … everyone in such a hurry. You should be able to block any entrance or exit you like. People should just wait until your tiny brain conjures up another thought and you decide to move, because you’re so sensitive and probably care so much about Aborigines and refugees.

The final set of train / escalator morons I’ll describe are people who can’t walk through an open ticket barrier.

In some busy, city railway stations, the staff occasionally have sufficient common sense to open the ticket barriers for the morning peak hour rush, correctly surmising that even if a few fare evaders do slip through, the increase in public convenience is worth it.

Despite the evidence of the open barriers and hundreds of people walking through before and all around them, some fools still cannot work out that it is safe for them to do the same. 

That’s right … they actually stop and hold everybody up by trying to put their ticket in the machine. Just like when a car unexpectedly stops or slows down, the effect ripples back down the queue.

You’d think this degree of dumbfuckness reasonably rare and you’d be wrong: it happens pretty much every morning. 

I once asked one of these people for an explanation: “Just purely out of academic interest, why did you think you needed to put YOUR ticket in the machine when everyone else is walking through? Did you think the machine was going to single you out for an electric shock or something?”

I was met with a dumbfounded look on an otherwise vacant face. Eventually the lump stammered out: “I … er … well, I didn’t know.”

Didn’t know what? Whether the machine would suddenly decide to close on you despite hundreds walking through successfully before you? Even if it did, what would be the consequence? Death?

This is a singular type of stupidity: one incapable of interpreting simple, blatantly obvious, repeated instances of identical evidence. The most disturbing thing is, these people are on their way to work, so someone must have seen fit to employ them. Imagine the people who they beat for the job. Jesus wept.

Although, when you get off a train and watch 400 people all try to queue up for the escalator, with only about a dozen choosing to sit down and continue to read their newspaper or book or do the crossword, it is perhaps surprising that more of them don’t stop at the top and try to work out what to do next.

So how does this anger at idiots fit in with a philosophy of liberalism? Aren't liberals supposed to be tolerant?

Tolerant of what? Deliberate ignorance? No.

The liberty part of liberalism means people can do what they like if their actions don't unreasonably impinge on others' attempts to do the same. It doesn’t mean you can behave however you want and everyone else should tolerate it. An attempt to strike a reasonable balance between individual liberty and equality of opportunity in a large society implies individual responsibility as well as individual rights.

Someone is probably thinking: "Calm down. How much inconvenience are you really being caused?"

A small amount, many times, which is why the perpetrators get a brief amount of rudeness in return. It's not like a bump and a few harsh words equate to a head butt or a tasering.

Mr. "Can’t people stop and look around in this city?” got a bit extra because he tried to pretend he hadn't done anything wrong and it was all the fault of an uncaring society.

People have a responsibility not to be self absorbed morons, cretinously ambling about like mobile speed bumps. It is quite reasonable for those affected by said morons to point this out. No one is suggesting the right to summarily shoot them. Although …

It’s because in most cases these people genuinely believe they are not idiots that it is an important social service to disabuse them of their delusion. 

Like the scene I witnessed where a fuckwit had chosen to park in the residents’ area, rather than in one of the several, free visitor parking spaces in a block of flats. Not only had this prick parked in someone else’s spot, he didn’t even bother to look at the yellow lines and had in fact parked straddling TWO people’s spaces.

Someone (presumably one of the owners) had placed an (I assume) angry note on his windshield. His response was to say to his wife: “Some people are so intolerant”, the implication being the note writer was intolerant in general, not just of his behaviour.

No, dickhead, people who won’t suffer selfish, self absorbed, ignorant cretins in “polite” silence are not intolerant in general; after thousands of small, almost daily doses of moronism, they have simply had a gutful of people like you.