The Friday Five: PSA

I felt the need to write something, but I couldn't decide what. So I'm blatantly stealing a meme from Jen, who's back with a vengeance after her wedding (for which we all heartily congratulate her, I feel sure.

1. What’s your biggest pet peeve?
   
   Wow. I'm starting off in trouble already. It might be when people ask me to come up with superlatives. I'm no good at it. I still haven't come up with a list of things to choose the happiest moment of my life from, and the prospects don't look good. Question involving my favorite or the best don't sit well with me. You could argue that I put it to myself, since I'm the one who, just two paragraphs ago, decided to steal this meme, but ... I don't want to hear it. This question is making me less than comfortable. So let's just move along.
   


2. What fashion faux-pas do you see frequently that makes you want to sign the victims/perpetrators up for “What Not To Wear”?
   
   First of all, let me just say that I'm embarrassed that I know what "What Not To Wear" means. For those of you who don't know, it's a show on TLC wherein two somewhat snarky but fashion-savvy hosts throw poorly dressed people's clothes away and make them shop for shiny new clothes. Or something. It hurts my brain to think about how it works. Those of you who are already primed to tell me that I should begin looking for my pride or possibly my testicles or maybe even both because they're likely in the same place should know that it's not my fault. I'm sure some of you hang out with women sometimes, and I'm just as sure that you are occasionally subjected to TV you would never choose as a result. Such is the case here. Sometimes, I visit the Girl, and, while I think the remote control is a device that is happiest in a man's hand, I think it's rude to commandeer the TV when I'm visiting. So I have seen this show before.
   
   That said, I don't really have much to say here. I expect I see a lot of fashion faux pas on a somewhat regular basis, and I expect that most of the ones I see are in the mirror. My belt typically matches my shoes, but that's about all I know. Still, there is one thing that makes me groan, and, having been an engineer and worked with other engineers for years, I've seen it more times than I would have otherwise thought possible: the short sleeve dress shirt with a tie. Add a blazer or a suit to make it even worse. (As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up. People do it.) I don't know who thinks this look is a good idea, and I'm not confident that it's legal to claim that there is such a thing as a "short sleeve dress shirt." I think "short sleeve" tends to trump "dress." Really, is there someone who thinks this combination looks good? I can't imagine it.
   


3. What hideously inappropriate act or comment have you recently witnessed?
   
   You mean other than half of the things Michael Scott says on The Office? These aren't easy questions here. I'll come back to this. Oh, who am I kidding? No I won't. Move along. There's nothing to see here.
   


4. What’s more important - table manners or driving etiquette? (Not driving safety, just etiquette - like waving when someone lets you merge in front of them or not honking at 5:00 AM when driving through a neighborhood.)
   
   Table manners seems like the obvious choice here. I mean, it can be very gross (as Jen pointed out in her answer to this one) when people don't have table manners, and it drives me crazy when people chew with their mouths open. I just don't get how those people can stand to hear themselves chew like that. Maybe they grew up eating in very loud places. Considering that aversion, table manners seems like the better answer here.
   
   However, not to go all John Stuart Mill on you, I think that driving etiquette would provide more overall happiness (or utility, if you like Mr. Mill) by affecting more people. One doesn't typically eat with a lot of people every day, but he likely shares the road with lots of them. Living in an area with a shitpot (it's a technical term) of traffic, I really think we could use some of that driving etiquette. And it really burns my bacon when I let someone in in front of me and that person doesn't wave. It almost always elicits a, "That's it! Don't even wave, asshole!!" Road rage isn't good, and waving goes a long way toward calming the people who would definitely shoot you if they only had guns. If that's the case, then you should always remember to wave when you cut off an NBA player.
   
   I don't know if this really fits under driving etiquette, but I'm wondering whether exotic sports cars should be legal in areas with heavy traffic. On one hand, it's kind of sad to see one of those cars unable to fulfill it's purpose in the world, crawling along in a bad case of bumper-to-bumper, reminding those driving normal cars how much more money some people have. But there's another hand to that coin. On the days when I commute way out to my customer's site, I have to fight Beltway traffic on the way home. For some reason I can't explain (possibly involving fluid dynamics and fashion faux pas and other things I don't understand), the next-to-leftmost lane typically is the best lane to be in for stretches, and I find myself passing cars that sit in the leftmost lane expecting to go faster than everyone else because it is, after all, the "fast lane." Not long ago I took a picture of a car I passed, which I have posted below for your enjoyment. It gave me no small amount of traffic-time pleasure to take that picture with my phone as I passed. I did resist hanging out the window and yelling, "WHAT GEAR ARE YOU IN?" as I passed. I would have definitely waved afterward, though.
   
   
   
   


5. If you were producing a PSA for a local TV station, what would the topic be and which celebrity would fulfill their community service sentence by starring in it?
   
   There's no question about it that I would have Steven Jackson of the Indiana Pacers singing and dancing, Chicago-style, warning kids of the dangers of jazz, liquor, strippers, and guns. Or at least the last 3.