When someone's cart is blocking the aisle, and the person has her hands on the handle (it's never a man, have you noticed that?), I say "beep-beep" in a loud, piercing, but faux humorous tone. If the cart is unmanned, I walk up to it and move it out of my way. That probably sounds aggressive, but the stores here have aisles three carts wide, so the only way to block an aisle is to block the middle path, so they deserve any grief they get.
I think people may be more polite in other places, like Canada. It astonished me that in Canada, all you have to do is LOOK like you are going to use a cross-walk, or need the right-of-way, and Canadian drivers give it to you. Here in Fairfax, if you step off the sidewalk onto a zebra cross-walk and wait, nine times out of ten the cars will give you the right of way. So I was surprised in Warrenton, way out in Fauquier County, Thursday, when Ben, Nick and I waited in a cross-walk for the right-of-way to cross Main Street, a two lane street right in the center of a small old-fashioned town, and twenty or thirty cars passed without giving us the right-of-way. Finally, a lady from Fairfax stopped.
Eating food in stores without paying is common in New Orleans, but I've never seen it in Fairfax.
On the other hand, it's very customary to tailgate on the Beltway, and cut in and out of traffic if the people ahead of you insist on going the speed limit and leaving several car lengths stopping distance. The only way to avoid having people cut in front of you is not leave them enough room, and their idea of enough room can be far less than your own.
My point being that manners seem to be regional. |
