Damien Galeone

OK, OK, I know this title suggests a grumpy old yogi sitting in a lotus position on a porch and shouting barely acceptable epithets at passersby. I am no yogi, but, sometimes a guy just has to remember why he started his blog in the first place: to talk about people who piss him off.

The highlighted folks in today’s post are just rude. They don’t care that other people exist in the world with them. And as I see it, they have some karmic punishment coming to them. This post briefly touches on these social vermin and suggests appropriate karmic retribution.

Before you ask, my karmic balance has come in the form of the people who walk past my balcony playing Bjork and performing skateboarding tricks. Also, I have a cat who seems to know exactly where my bladder is.

Anyway, here are some people who don’t care that others exist and the universal balls of shit coming their way.

5. Man Who Phones in Car

I don’t hate mobiles, I hate what happens to people when they use them. It’s amazing how a simple gadget can turn otherwise normal people into rude douchebags shouting conversations on public transport. This is usually after the six-minute bag search for the phone as it blasted The Final Countdown. Mobiles make people rude.

I am not the only one this irks; just look around a restaurant at all the people scrolling through their Facebook news feed or deleting messages. And then look at the grimace on the face of their companion.

Nobody is worse, though, than a person who commits vehicular stupidicide. And this is a non-denominational, non-national, unisex problem. As a pedestrian I have had more than a few near misses with jack-cadets texting or looking at Reddit while they blow through an intersection. It’s OK, you’re only maneuvering a 3,000 lb piece of metal, don’t bother paying attention.

Karmic Retribution: This person will be reincarnated as a disabled Javanese sweat shop worker who has to put together mobiles with his teeth at .32 cents a month. Also, he’ll work in an area with no wi-fi reception or phone signal.

4. He Who Smokes on Escalator  

OK, while it’s not my vice, I understand that people need a cigarette. I am not the cigarette Nazi that many others are these days. I try to be reasonable. If I’m in a pub, smoke is a fact of life and I deal with it. If someone’s smoking in front of me while walking on the street, I just avoid them.

But if you light a cigarette at the bottom of an escalator going up out of the metro station – you are a dick. No questions asked. I am actually jealous, as this must take a total lack of self-awareness to pull off. That or a level of stupidity so grand that you failed out of Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates class.

If that’s the case, here’s a hint: the smoke is going behind you. That’s why you don’t see it. And behind you is where other people exist.

Karmic Retribution: Well, it’s going to be pretty tough to haul that oxygen tank onto the escalator.

3. He Who Doesn’t Clean up Dog Shit

If you’ve ever been to Prague, you surely found yourself looking up at the beautiful architecture and the castles besides. Then there are the quaint buildings huddled along cobbled streets. Well, those quaint cobbled streets are lined with little, brown landmines.

Gotcha!

Yes, and at the end of the day, you probably noticed that your shoes were caked in dog shit.

I don’t know what it is about the Czechs, but some of them absolutely refuse to pick up their dog’s shit. And it’s not nearly confined to the forests or grass. One of my friends lay in wait and finally caught a woman who allowed her dog to shit on the step of his apartment building. When he confronted her, she was astounded at his insolence. Once, while walking up the steps out of a metro station, I saw a perfect footprint in the middle of a puddle of diarrhea.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Karmic Retribution: These people will be reincarnated as the shoes of a blind man who lives in Prague. The blind man will be a drunk and will have a mischievous seeing-eye dog. The shoes will have the ability to smell.

2. He Who Sleeps Across Seats

I mean, you’re tired, you need to sleep, right? But wait, you’re on public transport and it’s packed, so you just have to grin and bear it, right?

Wrong.

In what has to be one of the most amazing displays of rudeness since that guy punched that 6 year-old for a baseball at Dodgers Stadium, some man was lying – not sleeping – across three seats on the tram. People asked him to move, he didn’t.

Karmic Retribution: I really don’t know. I mean, the smoker has a vice to deal with, the phone guy is just a dolt, but this guy is a bastard. I can’t imagine what the universe has planned for him, but it’ll be something involving a German actress, a cyanide pill, and a bunker.

1. Children (all of them)

Kids just don’t care. They scream, they wail, they pick their nose and wipe it on seats. They point at the guy sitting across from them and ask, “Mommy, why is the man so hairy?” And then, “Mommy, why is the man so fat?” And then, “Mommy, why is the man so angry?”

It’s OK. I was the same and so were all these people around you. Unfortunately for all of you children out there, the same karmic retribution that got us is awaiting you.

Karmic Retribution: They will become adults.

Over to you!

Oh my flocks of readers (my cat and some lady who owes me a favor. wink. Wink) Who is on your karma list? Who’s really going to get it bad?