The Continued Devolution of the Species

First and foremost I have to say that the two people Chris and I watched practice at Indian Wells won the tournament, so I believe we have some magical powers and we should be hired on to travel around with Rafa and Maria to ensure future wins. I’m just saying, it could be something to consider.

Now onto the truth about a tennis tournament and absolutely baffling people. We were watching Djokovic play and because we had purchased our day tickets rather late in the scheme of things we were up pretty high. Now here they do let people come in on the points as it is unlikely to disturb the players below. There still isn’t a bad seat in the house, but the visual and audio disturbance created is not like having dude in a pink neon shirt walking up in your eye line, talking on his cell phone while you are trying to serve the ball.

 

These fine individuals start climbing the stairs, being as loud as humanly possible (I think they might both be hard of hearing) and pretty much sounding like a conversation you would hear between Jerry Seinfeld’s parents on the show as they take their seats. After FOREVER they finally settle down a few seats away from us, great.

Everything is just fine until the woman’s cell phone rings. Now for those who haven’t been to a tennis match, this is like going to the movies. They remind you repeatedly to silence your cell phones and you NEVER answer the phone. Oh, but she did. Now the already hearing impaired woman is talking on the phone, you know what that means. She is yelling as though she is somehow projecting her voice clear to the location of the person on the other end.

Multiple people shoot her dirty looks, I “shush” her no less than three times and she is oblivious to all of it. She is going through her laundry list of what she has done over the past two days including who she has seen. She then starts relaying shot-by-shot the match we are all watching. As if the Tennis Channel announcers are not bad enough, I am getting the expert tennis advice from the elderly Jewish lady who doesn’t know how to shut off her phone as “Djokovic obviously is loosing steam and might very well lose the match.” He didn’t by the way, won the second set 6-2 and pretty much eviscerated his opponent, so I am not sure what game she was watching.

Chris had enough and went over there to kindly remind her that she was not supposed to talk on her phone in the stands and she got off the phone and apologized. He was thanked by everyone around us and one man even applauded. Suddenly her husband gets his 80-year-old self all in a tizzy. He begins loudly complaining about “who is that asshole to tell you what to do. I should have done something about it, I am going to go over there…” you can imagine.

That would have probably been the end of it other than the man continuing to mumble (loudly) under his breath about how rude Chris was; clearly the world revolves around him. When it was certain who was going to win the man next to us decided to leave and get something to drink. This man is 20 years older than Chris, wearing a different color and looking nothing like Chris walks past the couple. Old, senile man has decided in his head that this is the man who told his wife to shut up.

He begins yelling at him and chasing him down the stairs as his wife tries to hold him back. He has no idea that he is yelling at the wrong person nor does his wife. When the man ignores him, he then proceeds to accost his friend about how rude and horrible that man is and he needs to be taught some manners. Again, SERIOUSLY?! The 80-year-old, who looks like he might stroke out at any minute, face as red as a tomato and sweat pouring down, actually looks like he is going to throw down putting his hands in fists. The younger man barely contains a smile, shakes his head and starts walking quickly away. The old man barely makes it back to his seat, I was half expecting him to roll down the stairs ala Looney Toons.

With that the entire section is laughing as the old peacock man finally sits back down and we all realize we have missed the end of the game because the sideshow was just so show stopping. Luckily there were a few more games in the set, but still. I guess I could look at it that it was nice the old man was defending his wife’s honor, but when did it become okay to be a total jackass? Isn’t he supposed to be the one who is annoyed by cell phones and people who don’t have common courtesy? We are devolving faster than expected, it is not good, not good at all.

Shed Collapse! Why are people so Rude?

What a poopy way to end the last year. Record snow fell in Mammoth as we endured the record rain in Long Beach. As we paddle around the area, Chris worries about the new shed we placed on his property up there, a shed containing his prized motorcycles. I optimistically say the shed stands strong and there is nothing to worry about. The snow falls off the slanted roof just fine. Apparently not.

The heavy duty Sierra Cement that passes as snow, sat on the top of the shed until the thing collapsed in on itself. Now normally I would say, fine, dig it out and start putting everything back together but instead I find myself endlessly frustrated with how a roommate tells us. You see we rent out two of the rooms in the house to people in order to make sure the house stays standing over the winter months. Most people would enjoy having absentee roommates/owners of the house because you have free reign, deal with the owners a few times a month at most, sometimes only a few times a year. Unfortunately our tenant and long time friend sees the situation differently. Every time we come to visit she acts like our appearance majorly annoys her, ludicrous given how cheaply she gets to live there, but whatever. Not to mention she thinks we need to tell her when we plan a trip because she might have friends staying...um, the rule actually reads you let Chris know when you want to have company so he can let you know if it’s okay. You see the joy of ownership includes the right to come and stay in his room, unannounced if he likes and being greeted at the door of your own house with "you are supposed to call before you come up" sounds not only rude, but particularly arrogant. Not to mention you are storing your crap in our room because you think we won’t know and you want a chance to move it. Did I mention we had to build the shed to have a place to put Chris's gear because the rest of the house, including his storage space became spillover space for her stuff and she never even asked? Apparently since his stuff fills only part of the space, it meant she could put her junk in there at will. Not exactly friendly or polite.

Her one job was to open her window every once in awhile, use the brush and brush the snow off the shed. Apparently that was too much to ask. She did travel for the holidays so maybe she had done it but the snow developed too quickly. But the way she tells us about a major shed collapse (this is a huge shed, one which we laid a foundation for) is to send an email that says "Bad News" in the subject line. An understatement? The body of the email reads, "I was out of town for the holidays and the shed collapsed. The old shed is still standing." No sympathy, no sorry I know how frustrating this must be, nothing remotely human or caring.

Chris is not known for using email and she didn't copy me on that one so I only found out about it because 2 days later when I was questioning something else she throws in a mention of the email neither of us read. She nonchalantly says Chris should read his email. I, of course, can't get her on the phone and have to enlist another friend to drive by the house to survey the damage. Now here's my question...if you were aware that someone's motorcycles were sitting in the snow, under a pile of a collapsed shed, do you not think that warrants a phone call? You have our numbers, all of them, why wouldn't you pick up the freakin phone? So if a tree collapsed on her car, I could just float her a note via email "Bummer, your car has been flattened." Why do people lack common sense and courtesy? I know it is what it is but we should have known about it promptly so we could choose how to take of the problem, preferably as soon as possible. Bottom line is it looks like everything from the shed needs to be stored in the house, so I guess she's gonna need a storage space for her plethora of stuff and no, I don’t feel guilty about that…should I?