The Curmudgeonly Professor

Worst Persons in the Universe on June 22 2009

My nominations for worst persons on Monday June 22:

• The morons who stole the camp trailer from our church parking lot this week with all of the camping gear, tents, sleeping bags, cooking stuff, etc.  The equipment was used by both boys and girls for camps throughout the summer.  And the boy scouts are scheduled for camp in just a few days.  Congratulations to these idiot thieves.
• The teenagers who were busy taking the heavy metal picnic tables from the pavilion in the park and tossing them in the nearby river.  Now the tables are bolted to the concrete floor.  Lots of luck, you idiot morons!  Go look for some other kind of stupid behavior you can enjoy.
• Not quite up to the two items above, but I did spy one back rubber in church yesterday.  Back and forth.  Up and down.  Sideways.  Transfixing.
• The grocery shoppers who handle each piece of fruit before selecting one, pinching, squeezing, holding them up to their nose, etc.  Just what those who follow them want.
• The FedEx guy Saturday who chose the one hour of the day when I was gone to try and deliver my wife's new computer.  Genius.

The Curmudgeonly Professor will continue to monitor the egregious behavior, attitudes, misdeeds, and stupid and selfish examples of the daily parade of such events and report them here.  The Professor explicitly excuses himself from creating any such deeds that would land on this list.  Do not ask his wife to verify.

Don't Even Think of Rubbing Someone's Back in Church

The Curmudgeonly Professor has opined some months ago concerning the egregious practice of back rubbing in church.  Back and forth, up and down, feeling the nape of the neck, then continuing, while the rubbee silently purrs in content and everyone behind them feels like throwing up.  For a brilliant discussion of this issue, check this link.

The Best Persons on the Jordan River Trail, or Maybe in the entire world

After all of my griping about stupid dog owners who let their big dogs run unleashed and think they have no obligation to clean up after their them, I met a person this morning who served as a stark contrast to all of the people I've been griping about. This person was an old lady, probably in her eighties, slightly stooped, with a big sun hat. She carried two large garbage bags over her shoulder and also carried a pole with a sharp point. She was busily spearing all the trash that inconsiderate and ignorant people left by the trail. I asked her about what she was doing and she said, "I just love to walk, and I thought I might as well clean up after people while I am walking." This woman deserves to be elevated to sainthood. Think what life would be like not only if people were not so inconsiderate in the first place, but also if more people exemplified the charitable and considerate acts of this dear little old lady.

While I'm at it I'd like to nominate another kind of person for Best Person on the Jordan River Trail. These are the people who smile and say "Good morning" when you meet them on the trail, and some times even make a pleasant comment. A nice smile and a pleasant greeting can work wonders to improve another person's disposition. In contrast, Worst Persons scowl at you or ignore you when you pass two feet away from them, and act like you are insulting or assaulting them if you say good morning to them. Obviously they needed their Fiber One or their spouse told them what was what before they left the house. The friendly greeters, who even toss in a smile, get my bid for being listed as Best Persons in the World. The rude ones who ignore you remain in limbo on the Worst Persons list until they shape up.

The Worst Persons in Utah on 8-08-08

And while we're at it, we need to honor a few of the Worst Persons in Utah.

2. Just south of the Salt Lake Valley, I-15 goes up an incline and around an area known historically as "The Point of the Mountain", and then the highway goes down another incline and on south to Utah County. The Point of the Mountain is fast becoming the former Point of the Mountain because one of the largest pure sand deposits anywhere exists at the Point, extending under the freeway and on down to the Fort Douglas area. The top of the Point has one of the best hang gliding liftoff places anywhere around and when the winds are just right, dozens of hang gliders are floating around all over the end of the valley.

The sand has been used for endless freeway building and rebuilding projects and for other construction projects for obvious reasons. However, as near as we could tell, no steps have ever been taken to reduce pollution from blowing sand when the winds come up. As a result, visibility often is diminished and sand blows across the south end of Salt Lake Valley.

We rejoiced this morning to see that the company responsible for the sand pollution has been fined a million bucks. What was the matter with you people in the first place? How long did you think you could get by with getting rich selling sand and not caring where the sand blew otherwise? Thus, the sand folks are the second worst person in Utah. But maybe they will improve after coughing up a million bucks, we hope.

1. The definite, worst persons in Utah are the sellers of gasoline. While other states are enjoying lower prices for gas, Utah remains in the top three or four most expensive states, still somewhere around $4.15 or so. Now, joy of joys, one of the biggest Salt Lake refineries announced this morning it is closing for 26 days of maintenance, thus shutting off 15% of Utah's gas supply. The last time a gas shortage existed, if my memory is right, the refinery also found it necessary to close down for weeks for maintenance. Nailing down collusion in gas prices is nearly impossible to accomplish, and most inquiries come up with no evidence that prices should be anything other than what they are. If only we really knew or could find out. But, meanwhile, unless gas sellers can prove otherwise, with oil down to $118 a barrel, and gas prices went up 2 cents as a result, we will take out our ire and name gas sellers as the worst persons in Utah. Or at least, we should give them an opportunity to explain, in simple terms, with documented data, why they continue to charge more than anyone else. Maybe there is a good reason and the rest of us poor folks are just stupid.

The Worst Persons on the Jordan River Trail on 8-08-08

Here are the Worst Persons on the Jordan River Trail on 8-08-08, with apologies to Keith Olberman:

4. The slobs who threw their empty water bottles on the bench a mere 10 feet from the garbage barrel and those additional slobs who threw other trash into the duck ponds.

3. The total idiot who thought he was John Wayne and rode his horse down the Jordan River Trail, ignoring the "no horses" sign. Fortunately, the horse behaved itself when horses, as we all know, have an annoying habit of relieving themselves frequently. But how do you explain the continually clean streets of Dodge City in Gunsmoke and other towns in Western movies where ladies in long dresses that sweep the dirt on the street never have to deal with horse refuse? The horses seem to be exceptionally well behaved. Bet you never, ever noticed, so you learned something new here.

2. Multiple Worst Persons are the usual moron dog owners, including those who allow their dogs to do their business on the trail or just to the side of it, and a special award to the special outstanding moron who, each morning, takes his two big dogs, unleashed, for a run along the trail. I mentioned the word leash to him a couple of times the past month but he just yelled at me. Apparently he lives in a special dream world where the rules do not apply to him.

1. But the special award for absolutely Worst Person goes to the imbecile who, in the dark of night, dumped an old TV, a long 4 x 4 beam, and a bunch of long tree branches in the dumpster by the picnic area that has a No Dumping--$500 fine posted on it. But who is going to be monitoring the dumpster at 2:00 a.m. or whenever this jerk thought it would be safe to dump his junk? Special recognition for meritorious Worseness goes to the Dumpster law-breaker for his cleverness in getting rid of his junk.

There you have them. The Worst Persons on the Jordan River Trail on 8-08-08. Don't send me comments defending them or telling me to quit griping and get a life and realize that some percentage of people are jerks and morons when it comes to personal behavior. It is my duty to gripe and complain. That's what my blog is all about, to coin a cliche.