Back that thang up. . .

. . .at your peril. Since we all seem to be having so much trouble understanding the basic tenets of human decency, maybe we can start by taking a lesson from the machines. Have you ever noticed how trucks, tractors, forklifts, boats, barges and even the occasional dirigible all make a beeping noise when they back up? Why do you think that is? (I’ll pause while you let that sink in). So it turns out that this irritating chirping has a valuable function, alerting whatever detritus has been stashed behind said object to get out of the damn way. Ok so that’s one for the mechanical engineers (licking finger and gesturing to make a vertical line in the air).

In fact, I dare say the beeping feature is so useful that the science club even has a leg up on the almighty on this point. This is because you, clunky and mechanical though you are, do not possess such a talent. When you back up, no one sees it coming. Your generous hind-quarters turn you into a human wrecking ball and woe betide your mother’s porcelain kittens if they should be in your path. You have knocked over drinks, trampled on toes, and even ruined a few priceless antiques all for want of a horn and a sense of direction. Actually, if we’re honest with ourselves, the real problem is that you are completely oblivious to your surroundings. This has become so common a theme that I’ve given up trying to get you to change.

What would please me to no end, however, would be for you to stop randomly backing into stuff. At the lunch counter, the water fountain, even getting tickets for a move, just turn and walk forward. It’s that simple. Indeed even if you are from New Jersey, or are Zoolander, you have no excuse because I am completely indifferent as to whether you turn right or left (insert lame political pun here). What I cannot abide is the idea that you are so egoistic that you think what you cannot see does not exist. You have no idea whether there is someone behind you and therefore, in the wheel inside a ball inside your empty skull, there must not be. So there you go arms a’flailin’, backpack bustin’, treating the world as though there weren’t 6 billion other people in it who might not have gotten the memo that you’re entitled to go lumbering around wherever you please.


As I foreshadowed in the last paragraph, it is worth mentioning the exponential irritation that the addition of a backpack adds to this situation. Given that you do not even have functional control over the appendages that are attached to you, I cannot comprehend how you could expect to manage a contraption that adds such heft and girth to your already unmanageable frame. But I suppose you have proven me right yet again, because you do not expect to manage yourself at all. Instead, you expect to bump and push and maneuver through whatever objects, non-living or otherwise, that happen to be situated between you and the precise spot on the floor you have selected to place your feet. Part of me has to admire that kind of confidence and determination. Another, less forgiving part of me thinks there’s a special place in hell for people like you where the devil uses his Jansport to beat you to a pulp.