The Chat and Cut
As the title suggests by overtly telling you, this is obviously a Good Friday post. Despite really liking traditions and religious holidays, I don’t believe I’ve ever adhered to the rules of Good Friday.
It was my boyfriend’s (much) out of character idea to visit the Sydney Fish Markets on a public holiday and indulge in some seafood goodness. Being intolerant to most seafoods I was only able to enjoy the superb salt and pepper squid at Doyle’s. Lucky me! It was delicious and well worth the 2 hour wait. It was the only day of the year where I could enjoy such patience in public.
The point of this post (besides loving Doyle’s) is that my outing today made me realise there are a few things I don’t understand about society.
1. Getting into the Sydney Fish Markets was a nightmare. Having never been before, I think we were a little naive and didn’t know quite to expect so much traffic (and lovely police officers directing said traffic). Public holidays bring out more traffic than regular weekdays. Why don’t more people catch public transport? Sydney under-utilises its transport network, which I believe does not allow for accurate numbers of services to be put on. We really need to get away from being so dependent on our cars (and look to Singapore for how to do public transport in efficient, reliable and inexpensive manners).
2. Relating to said traffic: Hey parents! Don’t teach your children volatile, angry habits when you get a bit of road rage. Beeping the horn for 60 seconds is just a despicable way of proving your point and then going overboard. I understand that the man in the car in front was trying to change lanes when we had all been waiting for 15 sets of lights. I know that we had moved two cars lengths in those sets. He didn’t follow traffic etiquette and held up 100 cars. HOWEVER, you had young children in the car and you were screaming, swearing and holding the horn for much longer than is necessary. I am sorry the police didn’t pull you over for being a public nuisance. I think collectively we could all do better by not being so publicly unforgiving and overly obnoxious. Especially around children, who lap up behaviour and regurgitate it later.
3. Last night we watched Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld creator Larry David’s second coming. It’s television excellence (please watch it now!). This particular episode focussed on the ‘CHAT & CUT’, where you cut a line by starting to chat to someone in the line in a better position than the end. Watched this move numerous times today, to great annoyance. It’s highly ironic I saw it happen today. So, so impolite. Can we cut this from our toolbox of bad moves? It’s not just impolite, it’s flat out rude. It also puts so much pressure on the overworked wait staff. It makes me feel like we need a return to kindergarten for manners training.
4. Please society, stop taking photos of everything. Headless fish at the fish markets are so not sexy enough for Facebook or the family album. Far too many people were not living in the moment and caused a number of injuries (to this klutz) when they stopped abruptly to click a happy snap.. of dead fish. It would be super kind and appreciated if you would just take a little look-see around you before stopping next time. Thank you 🙂
Zoee’s note: I’m watching Twins as I type this post, and just spotted David Caruso as the parking attendant towards the beginning of the film. I am such a film buff and love catching well-known actors (or my favourite character actors) popping up in films you might not expect to see them in.
Zoee’s second note: I know I’m posting this on Monday… but Easter was crazy. Especially when I was still recovering from an awful bout of bronchitis and a sinus infection that lasted 2 weeks. So I will hopefully do some more blogging on Wednesday night. Stay tuned.
Pop.. goes law 