Columns Apr 16, 2014 at 4:00 am

Dear Smug Old Hag

Comments

1
Relevant: did you fall on your fucking face b/c you were looking at that square?
2
@1 Relevant: how long have you struggled with reading comprehension?
3
Uh huh. IA just happened to have their phone in hand, in the rain, and was so distracted they could not even manage to stay on their feet. Totally not looking at the phone at all, obviously.
4
Certainly I would have offered help, but my parting remark certainly would have been to be more careful while steering at your smartphone. There are times when you should "un plug". Your name isn’t Ken Starr, is it?
5
Hope this person doesn't drive the same way she walks.
6
@5: Agreed.
7
Sounds like a crappy day. Sorry you fell, sorry your phone is smashed. While I get some of the comments people are making here. In regards to you looking at your phone. I see that you stated you weren't doing that. It's plausible because our sidewalks are crappy and I stub my toe all the time. I have no problem admitting publicly that I am clumsy at times. I would also be jaded if someone was that rude to me. Hopefully the next person you ran into was a lot nicer.
8
I meant dropped not smashed. ><
9
@ 2, 7: It sounds to me very much like she was staring at her screen when she wiped out. She says nothing actively denying it, gives a nod to commuters isolated behind devices, and states that the other woman doesn't know what her relationship with tech was & it wasn't anyone elses business anyway (though that sure makes it sound pretty constant). But she doesn't deny being absorbed in it when she tripped and that certainly was the old hag's opinion. Not sure what you're seeing different.
10
@9 She does say something actively denying it, in the last sentence. I guess you don't have to believe her, but in her defense, I have sprained my ankle while walking down a sidewalk, sober, in daylight, not especially distracted by anything. I just tripped on a crack. I felt like an idiot, but it happens.
11
Falling sucks. Sorry, I, Anon.
12
I think a commuter isolating oneself behind the square shows less humanity than Smug Old Hag's response. When you're walking on a city sidewalk, you're leaving it up to everyone to watch out for you, when you're not doing your own part in the shared space. Square gazers slow down other pedestrians, block people when the light changes to WALK, walk into people, step into traffic with a DONT WALK light, etc. Give the square a rest, and engage with your surroundings.

Only I Anon and Old Hag know for sure whether I Anon was staring at the square or not. But Old Hag certainly perceived that to be the case. Old Hag's advice was sound, and probably well-intended, which does show a degree of humanity.
13
Fess up you were too.
14
I have zero sympathy for you though since you refer to someone as an "old hag." You expect sympathy and turn around with a slur. You get what you give. Sucks to be you.
15
@ 10 - Hey! You're right! I guess I was too annoyed with the writer by the end to catch that. Though I have a hard time understanding why someone would be walking in the rain with their phone in hand if it wasn't being used.
16
IA, hard to make eye contact with strangers when their eyes are staring at their damn screens. Your claim that you were not seems dubious. It was lesson time for you when you scraped your knee, too bad you didn't learn it.
17
@15 - Thousands of reasons - purse/backpack inaccessible, pockets full, etc. There are lots of times that I carry my phone in my hand, rather than stick it in my purse, because I'm only going from my car to my work across the street and I'm just going to plug it in at my desk, anyway. Like Anon said, you don't know what the situation was. And even if she WAS looking at the phone, maybe she had a good reason - mom in the hospital, partner about to give birth, trying to figure out who's going to pick the kids up from daycare in 10 minutes because work ran late. You never know! so let's not judge.
18
I don't walk looking at my phone. But I do sometimes walk with it in my hand, particularly if I am listening to music while I walk.

I do look at it when I am sitting on the train during my commute.

Yes, I isolate myself, and if that is showing no humanity then fuck it. I do it because, to be perfectly honest, most of you suck. When I have just finished a mind crushing day of work, am dead tired, and now have to deal with the crush of "humanity" on public trans just so I can get home and get a moment of peace I really don't want to have to deal with any of your bullshit.

But I don't walk looking at my screen. For several reasons including that most people out there ARE clueless about where they walk, who they bump into, who they cut off, and not only the one's staring at their little squares. Some people are just fucking clueless no matter where they are looking.

The writer says she wasn't looking at the screen. I have no reason to not believe her. She tripped, and one of the darlings of humanity, rather than showing concern for her wellbeing, decided to take the opportunity to show once again how much humanity sucks.
19
Maybe she wasn't looking at her screen but all of the COCAINE and MALT LIQUOR in her other hand made her drop it.
20
What's with the COCAINE and MALT LIQUOR thing, Pixel Boy? Are you on marijuana?

Look, the bitch is pissed because she got called out. Guilty as charged. She could have taken it as a "learning moment" but instead decided to be a typical Seattle Douche Bag. No surprise.
21
"You don't know me! I do what I want!"

Especially when what you want includes not paying attention to where you are going. Your conversations can wait five minutes so that other people don't have to deal with trying to avoid your ass weaving all over the sidewalk.
22
@20-- Well Arthur. If you don't like 'Seattle Douchebags" maybe you'd fair better living with your own douchebags.
23
@20-- Well Arthur. If you don't like 'Seattle Douchebags" maybe you'd fare better living with your own douchebags.
24
Oh sweet lord.
The very last thing IA writes is that she was NOT, at the time she fell, looking at her phone.
Nonetheless, half the posts above must take up the judgmental battle cry of the empathy-impaired bitch she describes, and smugly upbraid her for exactly that.
I have fallen in the rain, no screens in sight. Yard-saled it completely. Books, purse, cellphone, the works, scattered all around. I realize that some people feel compelled to kick others when they're down, as a kind of voodoo defense mechanism to ward off random misfortune. But if that really would be your actual response to seeing someone slip and fall - even if they WERE looking at their screen - then you have much more serious emotional issues than carelessness.
25
I see more and more people these days trip over cracks in the side walk, walk into parking pay stations and fall off curbs in this town and all of them because their heads are so far up their phones that they dont know where they are at, and each time its hilarious! The scary thing is that there are just as many, if not more, folks who actually think they can walk and chew gum at the same time getting behind the wheels a 4000 lb vehicles before deciding to get distracted on their damn phones. Its almost the differece between being suicidal and homicidal.
26
Women's clothing frequently has no dang pockets anywhere so you end up carrying your phone when you are running for lunch or from building to building.

I once tripped on cobblestone in my heels in Italy and everyone around me stopped to help me up. That should have been the response for this person as well.
27
"You have no way of knowing what my relationship to technology is—it's none of your fucking business anyway."

And you had no way of knowing if the "old hag" had lost a loved one to texting and not watching where the hell they were going.
28
I don't get a lot of these comments. Someone trips and falls for any reason you stop, help them up and ask if they are okay. This is what human beings do, or so I thought.
29
24, 26, 28- EXACTLY. And 27, really? A lost loved one? I seriously doubt that. I've been bitched out by dried up old hags plenty of times, whilst living in this beautiful city, with almost no provocation whatsoever... Someone gets pissed because someone else takes it upon themselves to add insult to actual injury and the majority of these commenters agree with the insult instead of the injured because a cell phone may or may not have been in use at the time? Sad.....
30
Both were rude. Situation normal in Seattle.
31
Who cares if she was looking at her phone! The truth is that lately everyone in this world seems to have a profound ideal of entitlement. It is ridiculous that there is such a lack of human compassion. Both for the woman that fell and for the older woman that made a comment.
32
I would have just helped her up, then asked for a date.
33
On the contrary, people in seattle make eye contact and even say hello alot of the time.
34
So many of these I, Anonymouses could simply be called: "When Two Assholes Meet"
35
Olyhouse said:
I would have just helped her up, then asked for a date.
The beginning of an Aristocrat joke...
36
Anon should feel lucky. My elderly mother tripped over a curb while just walking down the street, not "staring at a square" and the only thing bystanders did was laugh at her.
37
@36, I don't believe you. No way in hell an elderly woman falls in the street and people just laugh. Not possible.
38
I feel like this is relevant to the conversation: http://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-…

40
You should download the app.: Smug bitch of a passing stranger. For next time.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.