Best of...: Annoyances.

To continue the "Best Of..." listings, allow me to present the Five Most Annoying People of '05:


5. The Karmic Turner.

You know this one: she navigates her Lincoln Landmass out of Champion's Downe Greene Hills Acres Estates and onto the public thoroughfare, and then immediately cuts her left blinker on, then drives around with it flashing for an hour and a half like some moronic semaphore. She's apparently not planning on turning left any time soon, you see, but she knows a left turn is somewhere in her future that day, and she wants to be ready.


4. Mr. What'llyatakeferthat?

I don't mind Mr. What'llyatakeferthat? when he comes in to haggle over the price of a used gun: Folks expect to haggle over used guns. I don't even mind it when he wants to haggle over a new one, although he's got some pretty skewed views over how much markup I have in those. It's when he wants to buy a $5 cleaning supply item or a $1.50 box of .22's that he really gets catapulted to the forefront of the Annoynted. I have nightmares about getting stuck in line behind this guy at Kroger, while he holds up each individual can of soup and pack of lightbulbs and asks the cashier "What'll ya take fer that?" Speaking of getting stuck in line...


3. The Innumerati.

Hey! Dolt! The sign says "10 Items Or Less", and "chips" & "beer" are not two items when you have 24 bags of chips and 12 cases of beer. All I want is this pack of smokes and a frozen pizza; would it kill you to let me past?


2. Mario Poppins.

Nothing can disrupt a pleasant Sunday morning ride on the Zephyr quite like rounding a bend to find my lane full of an oncoming family bus being (quasi) navigated by an eight-armed Hindu goddess trying to simultaneously change a diaper, get the backseat DVD player to play UNICEF Nukes The Smurfs, feed the tot in the passenger seat, chat with grandma in Sheboygan on the cellie, and play UN Peacekeeping Force for the spitwad war that's broken out way back in the wilds of ThirdRowistan, all while hurtling down the road at sixty and barely keeping it between the ditches. I admire your multitasking skills, ma'am, but I have no desire to start a second career as a hood ornament.


1. Michael Moore.

Would you please shut the hell up?