6 Things I Am 100% Judging You For (and Would Arrest You If I Could)

What, do you think you’re better than me?

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Do you ever see someone do something in public that really grinds your gears? Maybe it’s not illegal, but whatever they’re doing instantly tells you that they are just a shitty individual.

I see stuff like this all the time. Or maybe I’m just easily annoyed and a little crazy. Who knows. But for me, there are illegal things I’d rather see them doing. Thankfully, it’s a proven fact that you need to be a little crazy to do anything in politics these days. So, if crazy ol’ me ever found myself running the universe with unlimited power, these are the actions I’d not only severely judge you on, but immediately throw you in prison for.

1. Not Picking Up After Your Dog

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As a lifelong dog lover and owner, this absolutely sets me off. Watching someone let their dog take a juicy dump and then walk away like it’s beneath them bugs me to no end.

This kind of move makes the rest of us dog owners look bad. I’ve had homeowners point at me and say, “Hey, pick up after your dog,” literally as I’m pulling a poop bag out of my pocket. Yes, I’m initially annoyed with the homeowner because what does it look like I’m doing, but after that thought fades, I know it’s likely due to some other dolt not picking up after their dog (also, I make sure my dogs poop in the side strip of grass and not on the actual property whenever possible).

When I was living in Savannah, Georgia, I was walking my dog at night through one of the city squares. Taking him onto the grass, I immediately felt my shoe smoosh into a large, ripe pile of poo. Annoyed, I tried scraping the shoe in the grass as I walked, only to step in a separate pile with my other shoe. My head exploded. General Sherman might not have torched Savannah, but my internal rage was about to.

Singapore is famous for having some intense laws, such as no chewing gum. Honestly, I think the wrong guy stepped onto a piece and decided enough was enough. Should I ever find myself in power, anyone who doesn’t pick up after their pup will be tossed in the gulag.

2. Not Returning Shopping Carts

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I will never get people who knowingly do something that puts someone else out. Like, you know another human will have to come out and fetch the shopping cart because your lazy ass couldn’t walk it the twenty feet to the cart corral. So why do it?

I don’t want to hear the “I don’t have time” excuse. It takes half a minute, and if you’re running that late, you probably shouldn’t have gone grocery shopping with a cart to begin with. Nor do I want to hear the “well, I have kids” excuse either. If you can’t multitask with children, you probably shouldn’t have children.

From Parks and Rec.

If I were to put together a list of questions to ask during a round of speed dating, “Do you return the shopping cart?” would be at the top. It says more about a person’s personality and how they perceive themselves to the rest of the world than anything else.

And I just want to point out that in the Bible, Jesus shared a table with thieves, prostitutes, and tax collectors. He didn’t eat with shopping cart abandoners. Even the Son of God has limits.

3. Mistreating Service Staff

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While the shopping cart question might be popped during a round of speed dating, if I’m with someone for dinner and they mistreat the service staff, I’m liable to excuse myself and John McClane myself through the HVAC system to freedom.

I’m someone who believes everyone should work at least one service industry job in their life. It gives so much more perspective into what goes on. It’s also a mostly thankless position. Yes, there are some general benefits, and you can make great friends working in a kitchen, but other than bringing a paycheck home, it can be a frustrating gig.

For whatever reason, some people treat any and all restaurant staff members like third-class citizens. They talk down to them, are demanding, and they might not even make eye contact. My ex-wife’s mother-in-law was notorious for this. Maybe with her Duke education, she fancied herself as superior, but the way she treated restaurant employees made everyone else at the table uncomfortable. I can’t remember a single dinner where one of her kids didn’t call her out on it.

About fifteen years ago, I was an online video producer for the New York Times. Mostly, this meant I would show people how to make various recipes. It was long before most social media platforms, and even YouTube was limited at the time, so the NYT hosted a good chunk of videos, including my recipe and cooking content.

However, there were times when the gigs required me to go out and observe restaurants. Not really rate them, but give a detailed overview of them. One particular job sent me to Emeril’s in Miami. Owned by Emeril Lagasse, other celebrity chefs would, on occasion, stop by. Because I visited before the dinner rush, I was able to talk with the kitchen staff through an open viewing window. One guy spilled the tea on Martha Stewart, saying she refused to look at the servers, wanted nothing to do with the kitchen, and basically treated everyone like they were ghosts serving her dinner.

“Not all of those chefs are bad though,” he eventually went on, after a few choice words for Mrs. Stewart. He said Guy Fieri, best known for Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, popped into the kitchen one day. The Food Network star took all the cash out of his wallet and divided it among the staff, apologizing for not having more and saying he understood how hard it was to work in the kitchen. “It was only enough to buy a couple beers,” the kitchen worker said, “but beer tastes just a little colder when you’re appreciated.”

So, I’d toss Martha Stewart back in prison, for a crime far worse than insider trading: mistreatment of a kitchen staff.

Martha Stewart

4. Littering

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This one is kind of a hybrid of picking up after your dog and returning the shopping cart. Because someone else is going to, eventually, have to pick that trash up. That, or like so many misplaced shopping carts, will end up in a river.

It’s also another one I don’t get. It’s not like it’s difficult to find trash cans, and if there isn’t one readily available, is it really a life-or-death situation where you have to get rid of the trash right this instant?

The Simpsons.

The other day, while walking down the street, these two dopes in front of me were carrying boxes of pizza. A large puff of napkins blew out of their hands and onto the ground. They stopped, looked at the napkins, then continued on. Not fifty feet later, they made it to a trash can, but instead of sliding the pizza boxes in, they just tossed them to the side, half-eaten pizzas flopping to the pavement.

The two were obvious tourists, which, in some ways, makes it worse. I don’t know about you, but I’m extra clean whenever traveling. I’m visiting someone else’s home, and I’d never dream of littering. Of course, as I’m writing this story in Malta, I could go off on the quantity v quality of tourism issue plaguing the island nation (heavy on the quantity, minimal on the quality), but that’s a different topic I’ll write about once I’ve moved away.

These are minimal-effort things that, once again, show more about the person than simply being too lazy to find a trash can. Maybe that’s why I like Singapore so much. It’s clean, safe, and respectful. Or, at the very least, people are terrified of massive fines and prison sentences for not throwing away trash.

5. Not Washing Your Hands

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Like, come on, man. That’s nasty. You just got your floppy ball sweat and swamp ass juices all on your hands, and you’re just going to walk on out?

That is purely disgusting.

And, listen, I don’t care if you were someone who has received every single COVID booster shot for the past half decade, or if you never once went in for a jab; the fact that there was a global pandemic should at least prompt people to wash their hands after using the bathroom.

What’s even worse is just how much I see this in the gym. I’d prefer my membership not come with complimentary syphilis.

There was a Seinfeld episode where Jerry witnessed the chef skip out on washing his hands after using the bathroom, then proceeded to submerge his hands into raw pizza dough. Jerry refused to eat the pizza and acted as if he saw a ghost when presented with the food.

Seinfeld

Jerry refused to eat the pizza. I’d throw them in prison. At least there they could be forcibly deloused. And, listen, I hate walking in and seeing a bathroom attendant. I’d rather hold it or run across the street. They make me feel subconscious and sorry that they spend eight hours a day listening to humans defecate. But maybe we should deputize them and give them the power to issue tickets to people who don’t wash their hands.

6. Not Using a Blinker

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If I had a dollar for every time my grandparents said, “I guess they didn’t make turn signals on that model,” I would have retired from work as a child. People just, for whatever reason, refuse to use turn signals.

While in some situations a person turning is obvious and the only actual traffic move available, so I can somewhat understand that. However, it’s the merging without a traffic signal that bugs the hell out of me. Again, it takes no effort and shows courtesy to the surrounding drivers. It also helps keep everyone safe(r).

As my favorite George Costanza quote goes, “We’re living in a society!” It doesn’t take much to live side by side with others while avoiding conflict. Unfortunately, some people struggle with the basics.

These are just some of the issues I would immediately judge and arrest someone for. I’m sure I’m leaving something off of this list, but what about you? If you were commander of the universe, what are some immediate red flags you instantly judge someone for (without wading into politics, because we’re here to have a little fun)?