I didn’t go to the US Open this year. I never go to the US Open. I hate being in Orange County unless I’m at work. I hate crowds of annoying drunk people who have little to no regard for those around them. It’s just not my thing.
Thursday night, I got out of work a few minutes earlier than normal in Irvine. Early enough where I knew traffic on the 405 would be bad, so I decided to take Pacific Coast Highway home.
Big Mistake. I had forgotten that is the week of the US Open. There is NO way for me to get home in a decent amount of time without being stuck in horrible traffic. If I take the 405, I get the fair and the construction traffic. If I take PCH, I have to brave crowds of people who have been partying all day while I’ve been at work. A minor inconvenience I guess, but still super irritating when you’ve already been working 10 hours and haven’t had time for a proper meal or to use the rest room.
So anyway, when I finally crawled up to Beach Boulevard, I decided to take a shortcut, down Atlanta/Orange to Goldenwest in hopes that I would avoid the idiocy. Nope. That wasn’t happening. It was time to play neanderthal frogger.
At one intersection, with a crosswalk, it was finally my turn to go because there were no people coming when I started to move through the crosswalk. I had almost passed completely through when a man in his 40’s speed walked right in front of my car. I Stopped. he stopped. Gave me a dirty look. Yes. It is totally MY fault that you don’t have the patience to wait 5 seconds while I get out of your way – when I just waited 5 minutes for the crowd to disperse enough for me to go through the intersection.
The next intersection, there was a group of teenagers with skateboards sitting on the side of the road. Giving no indication they wanted to cross. As soon as I started to go, after I stopped and looked in every direction, they decided to get up and skate extremely quickly, directly into my moving car. I slammed on my brakes. One of them skated back to the driver side of my car, and slammed his hand on my hood. I lost it. I rolled down my window and screamed. I’m not a nice person when I’m hungry.
Next intersection, drunk 20 something, carrying his more drunk friend. They give me a wave, at least they stopped and looked before they crossed (at an intersection where I did NOT have a stop sign, mind you). I rolled my eyes.
Finally, I got to Goldenwest and was able to continue the rest of my long drive home.
So today there were riots at the US Open. From the videos on instagram, it looks like a bunch of idiotic teenagers. Knocking over port-a-potties (some of them occupied!), kicking news stands, and ripping out stop signs from the ground. People were hash tagging “treyvonmartin” and “fuckthepolice.” Other people were posting videos of themselves laughing and going “yay riots”
I’m sorry. But our society is backpedaling so fast. Were none of you taught courtesy or manners? I don’t know about you, but I was taught to treat others with respect. I don’t run up to cars and slam on their hood, if I accidentally walk in front. I give them a little wave and smile and say “sorry.”
Every time I see videos or photographs of people posting about “protests” or “riots” and bitching about the police, I see a line of police standing calmly and a bunch of idiots causing problems in the background. For those complaining about the rubber bullets and tear gas. I’m not saying you deserved to be shot, because I know it’s possible to be caught in the crossfire. But don’t blame the law enforcement. They are just doing their job. If the police ask you to disperse at the end of a public event, just freaking do it. I’ve never seen a police officer be rude when asking a crowd to move on after an event. It’s always the drunk people causing the problems, or the people that think they are entitled. Let them do their damn job and stop making things so difficult for everyone. You’re ruining things.
What does knocking over a port-a-potty prove but the fact that you are an asshole (pardon my french), with no regard for the rest of the people walking this planet? Ooh you smashed a news stand. You fancy. You really taught us a thing or two about life. Think about the poor people that will get paid minimum wage to have to clean up after the mess you’ve created. I’m sure they really learned a life lesson from you. I’m sure that really taught them a lot about Treyvon Martin, or police brutality, because that totally has so much to do with the US Open.
(For the record, I fully stand for Justice for Treyvon Martin. His death was wrongful. The man who was acquitted is a monster. But it is the FL legal system to blame. Not the law enforcement in Southern California, so stop causing problems where they don’t exist. Dummies.)
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