Is anyone else having trouble tolerating the rampant everyday stupidity

[Tsiyu]

of their fellow humans?



:wtf:


Oh, of course, I do my share of stupid shit, but I still am finding it really hard to be gracious about other people's stupidity.

I suppose it's because my own stupidity isn't intentional and usually only hurts me. The idiotic things that irk me are those that have a negative impact on other's lives.

Like right now, I am fuming over the apparent new neighbors I'm getting. I can deal with their noise and their "progress" but I cannot deal with their complete lack of comprehension of country life.

They are from Florida (I learned from the tags). We are getting quite a few Floridians moving in. But they are obviously "city people" and I have a deep and abiding mistrust and prejudice of "city people." Okay, I realize many of you are city people, but you are smart enough to stay in the city.

These people obviously think it is acceptable to live in the middle of the woods - full of all sorts of critters - and just leave their trash laying around in bags! I have just picked up the last load spread all over my front yard.

I guess they think since all the neighbors have a lot of junk laying around, we're okay with that. They fail to see that a stack of lumber and some bales of hay are NOT the same thing as garbage. They fail to realize that their trash attracts all the neighborhood dogs, and rats which will also attract the big timber rattlers up here.

Maybe they are waiting for Bush to pick up their trash. But we don't need our asses wiped out here. We haul our own trash to the dump. That's why our taxes are low. And even though we may have doodads and cages and tools and tractor implements and building materials hanging out, if they'll notice NOBODY LEAVES THEIR TRASH OUTSIDE!

So I have to go introduce myself, give them a map to the dump and try to explain that their little kids will have a good chance of meeting up with a coyote or bobcat or rattler if they keep leaving their trash around.

I have to be diplomatic, but I really just want to tell them what dumbfucks they are. I hope I can control my prejudice and still manage to scare some sense into the morans. I swear, I know I'm a bad person, but I'm just over blatant stupidity, especially when it is spread all over my yard.

Okay...

:rant:

[Tsiyu]

1. Yeah, well

So I'm not very nice. But I'm still right.

[hfojvt]

34. no, you are wrong

they are not stupid, just ignorant. Ignorant of the trash procedures, and ignorant of the wildlife that inhabits the countryside and the cities. The realtor or some local official should offer them information like that if they need it. I mean, even somebody who knows they need to take their own trash to the dump needs to know where the local dump is and what its hours and fees are. Ignorance is not the same as stupidity, and not near as insidious as cupidity, progidality, venality or perfidy.

[Tsiyu]

35. cupidity, progidality, venality or perfidy.

Weren't those the names of some of the Seven Dwarves?

But hfojvt, wouldn't the average adult do some research, and wouldn't any THINKING adult realize you don't leave trash in the woods? C'Mon. Adults in this country need to grow the hell up and start taking sme responsibility for understanding their environment. I'm fed up with the childish ignorance.

I AM right, no matter how many excuses the yahoos have to be yahoos.....

[skygazer]

2. I know exactly what you're saying

I'm from Vermont. Vermonters have a reputation for being unfriendly. We're not - we just don't tend to greet people we've seen just the day before by squealing effusively and giving them air kisses. When I go home for a visit (I've lived in California for 6 years) the people I see greet me with a laconic, "how ya doing?". I like that. I don't need more than that.

But I digress.

We too get city folks moving in. They come to visit and fall in love with Vermont's pristine beauty, its little villages, its quiet life. They buy a nice old farmhouse on a dirt road and immediatly things go downhill.

First they petition the town to pave the road because the bumps and dirt are "ruining" their car.

They put up motion detector lights and petition for streetlights because it's "so dark out here."

They cut down the trees to enhance the view, they bitch that the school bus stop is too far for little Junior to walk to (though Vermont kids have been walking to that school bus stop for the last 40 years), they complain about the noon whistle, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

In short, they move to Vermont to escape the city and proceed to turn their new home into the exact same thing they left.

And THAT's why they think we're unfriendly. Because we'd just as soon they stayed in the city and just came to Vermont to visit.

[Tsiyu]

5. Exactly

I don't run my horses and chickens down Peachtree Street in Atlanta.

I only ask for the same consideration.

And then I have to worry about their ability to survive the rough winters here. We are all pretty self-contained up here. We don't mind paying for schools but we aren't paying for fancy shmancy administrative buildings. We like things plain. We take care of ourselves.

Not that my neighbors have not helped us; not that we haven't helped them. We all have something or other that belongs to the other; we help catch each other's wayward horses, we don't barrel ass down the road because we know people are walking along the road and that there are any numbers of critters hanging out. Are these folks going to be able to cut it with their pristine minivan? And the sound of the chainsaws isn't so sweet, but my friend with the Harley was invited over today so all is even.

BTW, Vermont is awesome. Spent some childhood summers in NH, so we had to cross VT to get there from Upstate NY. Your state was my vision of heaven back when I believed in such a place. :hi:

[The2ndWheel]

21. Damn

Bumpy and dirt roads, dark at night, trees, trees, and more trees....

I really need to move to Vermont. No chance I'd change anything about it.

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. I hear ya. City people can be really fucking dumb and annoying

in the country. I say that as one who grew up in the country, though not on a farm but from a farming family, and who lived in NYC for 12 years.

City people can be fucking dumb out of their confines, and need to be helped along.

Just like the country bumpkins who can be really fucking dumb in the city, and need to be helped along.

Personally, to me, how to live in the country just seems the logical, sensible way to be - OF COURSE you don't throw your trash around; OF COURSE you don't tease the bears; OF COURSE you listen for snakes/pumas/wolves/bears/whatever...

How to live in the city is not a natural thing, it is a learned thing.

But how to live in nature - that should just be obvious.

But maybe that's because that's where I grew up. I don't think so, though.

[skygazer]

4. One thing I've noticed

Is that country people who move to the city seem to catch on much faster than the other way around. I don't know why that is but I know a lot more country people who've blended right into the city than vice versa.

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. I think you're very right

Could be because the city folk are used to stuff being done for them all the time, and having the lights on all the time, and noise all the time, and are used to forcing their environment to mold to them.

Country people are used to flowing WITH the environment; so once they hit the city, it's just like learning another country road or forest or what have you. "Oh, I need to adapt this way to handle (whatever)"

City people think that the environment should mold and conform to them, and that everything dangerous has already been removed (poison ivy, badgers, bears, snakes, dead trees, etc....)

[Tsiyu]

8. Same here

and I know a lot who come back.

It's not a moral thing really, because we're all just trying to get along, here. It's just an ignorance factor that sometimes takes a while to show up.

You get hurt in the city pronto if you don't understand traffic flow or shady con artists. In the country the bite may take a while, and even then you may never make the "personal responsibility" connection.

I give the rodents around here about a week to show up and following them, snakes out enjoying the last of the warm weather.

Oughta be interesting if they don't figure it out.

[Tsiyu]

6. You would think some things are just obvious.

But then you realize people are so far removed from nature they really don't know Poison Ivy from a Passionflower.

And I know I'm being mean to city folks. I really do love cities, especially the great ones like New York and London and Amsterdam and Miami, but I try to do as the Romans do. I put a little thought into the difference between the city and my normal environment.

And I have to be a decent neighbor, they seem like benign enough folks. It's just that I hate bits of trash in the yard, when Katrina's offal of chewed up branches still lingers....

[miss_kitty]

9. Do you take the trash back to their place?

I do that with Dog shit. I leave a note-"Your dog left one of these piles at my place. I wanted you to know what it feels like to pick up other peoples dog shit, so that is why I have left extra. Enjoy!"

Another choice-I think a contingent of you old timers carrying torches and pitchforks and a message about trash etiquette may drive the message home!

Good luck. I hate dumb fuckers.

[Tsiyu]

11. I did put it at the edge of their property, but they left crackers and

a roll of paper towels. Like they would be there when they got back?

My dogs can't resist the smell. The pooches stay on my property for the most part, but even dogs have their limits. So I will have to find the kennel parts or tie the dogs up, and that sucks. They are mutt hounds, not inside dogs. Sweet as pie but still dogs.

[Wcross]

10. Lets move to the country and put up a dozen sodium lights!

This is happening in my area. These people buy 20 or thirty acres and as we have hilly topography these people have to build on the very top of the hill "for the veiw". They then procede to install "security" lights so its lit up at night like back home. There goes my star gazing. I have no outside lights at night. I have six dogs to alert me and a handheld spotlight if I need to look.
Oh, they also buy a farm tractor and finish cutter so they can have the entire 30 acres looking like a golf course. There are plenty of dairy and cattle people who would cut the lawn for free twice every summer if these idiots would let the hay grow.
The family that bought property just east of a 6 barn Tyson chicken farmer. They had the nerve to sue the farmer because of the smell! If I was that farmer I would stop raising chickens to appease the new neighbor and switch to a large hog operation.
On top of that, they all seem to drive brand new Form crew cab dual tire pickups- F250's, 350's yet they are not farming.
I live in southern middle Tennessee right now but I am starting to think I should find something to earn a living in a more remote area.
I can't wait for hunting season to start. I always get some idiot that comes walking by the house on his yearly dear hunt. I have to point out that the posted sign and barb wire fence he hopped should have been an indication he was off track. I am thankful I am a diplomatic person, no sense pissing off a stranger holding a firearm, right?
Don't get me started about the litter!

[Tsiyu]

12. The litter kills me

Their cars are clean as a whistle but our roads can look like shit. Like the country is their personal waste dump because we don't provide them a trash can every 12 feet.

And it's dove season up here, so I hope these yahoos don't think it would be great fun to wander around off their acreage. But I'm sure that is one of the many things these folks will learn the hard way.

[SOteric]

13. Or their kids might even meet up with a sweet looking, tiny

little raccoon. Which will, by statistics, be 89 our of 100 chances likely to be carrying either rabies or distemper. Which is a hazard both to their kids and to their pets. And possibly their silly-assed selves.

[Tsiyu]

17. True, any mammal can be rabid

I am going to have to practice a diplomatic conversation to have with these folks. I am not so good at diplomacy because I have zero tolerance for their brand of dumb. But I will try.

We've had a rabid oppossum show up here, so you are SOright, SOteric ;)

[NV Whino]

14. They're probably waiting for the trash truck to pick it up.

But a answer to your headline... Yeah.

[Tsiyu]

18. I'm glad I'm not the only one

Another liberal friend, responding to the fundy stupidity over NO, blurted out the other day, " I have grown absolutely intolerant of intolerance!" I'm just intolerant of yutzes who don't think.

Oh, please hope I can be civil, since I have to live near these folks.

[Zomby Woof]

15. Yes

More than you know. It's everywhere.

[Tsiyu]

19. Is is something in the water, you think?

Or are people just dumbed down so much they refuse to THINK?


:hi: to the Zomb!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

16. A long time ago,

we decided we needed a getaway, so we bought land just outside Santa Fe, and built a wonderful house. For years, we spent every free moment we had in that house, and the town was grand, just a wonderful place filled with really cool people.

Then the outside world (read "city people") discovered Santa Fe.

I could go on about how it deteriorated, but the final straw was when I was walking along a street not far from the Plaza, the primo tourist area, and a woman in front of me threw a styrofoam cup on the ground.

I picked it up, and I tapped her on the shoulder. When she stopped, I said, "Excuse me, ma'am, but you dropped this."

She just looked at me. I stuck the cup in her hand and said, "It's not nice to litter someone else's house."

The fucker threw it back down on the ground and walked away. Just at that moment, a woman across the street screeched, "Marlene!! I just found the cocktail napkins to match them paper plates you bought!" and I knew we had to get out of there.

Sold the house, and found another - so far - undiscovered paradise, where we're building a house.

I hate everyone. Wait until you get older. You'll hate everyone, too.

[Tsiyu]

20. Do I have to hate them?

Can't I just be disgusted by them and make fun of them and curse at them under my breath as I pick up their trash, and talk bad about them behind their backs??

Your story is funny. I moved to this out-of-the-way place because I just knew that the developers and idiots would stay away for a long time. But I was wrong.

I want to write a book for city people, but most of them probably think they are too smart to need one. Funny story happened not long ago : a condo dweller set his barbecue coals right next to a wood post helping hold up his apartment complex. Burned the building.

I was thinking at the time, "Now, these city folks make fun of country people for being unsophisticated, but I've never met the true country dweller who would put burning coals right at the foot of his or her home. How stupid can you get?"

Good to hear from you, OLL, even if you hate me, too. I lurve you! :)

[OldLeftieLawyer]

23. Ahhh, you know what I mean.........

I just say "hate" because it's more efficient.......

The biggest hicks, in my estimation and experience, dwell in the major metropolitan areas. In my life as a novelist, I deal with midtown Manhattan agents and editors/publishers, and you cannot believe how hard it is to make them realize that their view of the world is through the narrow end of the telescope. They honestly have absolutely no understanding or appreciation of what life is like beyond their narrow little frames of reference.

Can that "lurve" crap, or you're going on the list, too, by the way .............

<wink>

[Tsiyu]

24. But I'm going to learn how to throw air kisses and be a real suckup!

Don't leave me now!

Lately my line of work has been dealing with over-privileged college students. Same myopic view. So, yeah, I know what you mean about the convenience of the word "hate" and I have used it too often lately.

I'm at the Old Lady stage of wanting to whack people upside the head, but they say I can't do that anymore. Maybe a hat pin? A really long one! One of my aunts taught me how to defend myself with one. They'd make great public training tools, in my opinion.




Anyhoo, I am such a bad person...

[OldLeftieLawyer]

30. Ohhhh, hatpins

I just had the most beautiful pin made out of a pair of Imperial Jade earrings that someone gave me. Now might be the time to take up pins?

I'm at that same Old Lady stage, and, let me tell you, my silver hair (which I've had since I was in my twenties) serves me very well. Mostly, it just takes a look, and they snap right out of it.

I salute you for dealing with those kids and not being either in an institution for the terminally pissed-off or under indictment for involuntary manslaughter.

We so rule, eh?

[Tsiyu]

31. We are The. Shit.

My son tells people, "I'm not afraid of my mama meeting up with some stranger in a dark alley. I'm more afraid for the stranger in the dark alley if he meets up with my mama."

The overprivileged university students are just now learning:

"You make-a me miserable, I make-a you MORE miserable. You make-a me happy, I make-a you MORE happy."

This philosophy has served me well. But those jade hatpins are compelling. I have a gawdy ruby ring left to me I was going to make into a tiny guitar, but maybe a bunch of ruby-crowned hatpins are in order.

So how many editors does it take to screw in a lightbulb? :shrug:

[Rabrrrrrr]

25. Yes, you will come to hate them as you get older

As you realize that every day of every year, one of those asshole clueless fucks has destroyed a small part of your life with their ignorance and stupidity.

Once the shit piles up high enough, and you realize how much of your life has been affected by the tasteless artless assholes, you will hate them.

And your hate will be good and righteous, and a perfect hate, and it will be okay.

[Tsiyu]

27. Amen, and Ramen

That was a good and righteous and perfect rant.

I hate them already :grr:

[Wcross]

37. "Wait until you get older. You'll hate everyone, too"

I just thought it was me! The older I get the less tolerant I am of the stupid and rude things people do.
I am right behind you as far as finding an "undiscovered" area where I can live in peace.

[Blue Diadem]

22. They don't use common sense,

I understand your frustration..I've picked up countless times from my neighbors who unload their cars of fastfood bags and toss them in their driveway..only to have them blow onto my property. They must believe the garbage fairy comes and gets them.

[Tsiyu]

26. These are Bush's base

Too stupid to figure out the most basic principles. Like global warming. Just like their "imaginary trash disintegration process" they think Jeebus is making bad hurricanes, not poor human choices.

And Jeebus is coming to rapture us, so we'll leave the trash here with the Heathen!

[HEyHEY]

28. Yeah, especially since I'm resonpsible for most of it

[Tsiyu]

32. Yeah, thanks for your stupid shit thread

stupid shit thread......:grr:


;)

[ismnotwasm]

29. City woman here with a "country" brother in law

He's got stories ranging from people who bought this house and a barn, and filled it with animals they didn't know how to take care of, (Pigs, goats, chickens,a couple of cows, I forget all what)to absolutely bloody fucking IDIOT hunters who actually shot UP hill close by where his house is (there is a road about a quarter of a mile down, and he lives next to an elk run) He's got three little boys and he was one pissed off man. He got those idiots nailed by whatever agency nails idiot hunters, plus the country sheriff, thank god.

[Tsiyu]

33. Scary

Nothing beats seeing strangers wandering around your property during hunting season. "We didn't see no fence so we figured it was allright."

Get your fucking ain-t-never-been-in-a-real-mud-bog Dually off my driveway, and head back to whatever subdivision ( namedHunter's Chase or some shit like that) you vegetate in and start waving that rifle around...I'm sure all the little kids and old ladies around there will be thrilled

People should have licenses to come out to the country, honestly.

On a good note, the freaks picked up all the wayward trash ( or the wonderful neighbor did) so I am very happy this evening as Rita rains on my roof.)

[mandyky]

36. Yeah, we had those in the Oneonta NY area

and then there are the city hunters that come up during deer season. What a mess!