My job requires me to be in a variety of locations. Over the years in the process of going to these places I’ve encountered a number of people, far more that I would be able to count. It occurs to me, that no matter how well meaning people may be, no matter how helpful they desire to be, occasionally folks do things they shouldn’t or they say things that are totally inappropriate, or do things they’d not have done had they thought things through just a bit.

Here’s a for instance. I was sitting in the emergency room of a metropolitan Atlanta hospital emergency room. The family member back in the treatment cubicle was in a serious condition. At the present it was not fatal, but it could easily become so without proper care. Naturally, the family of the loved one sitting there with me was concerned, very concerned. Now I don’t usually steal. I don’t usually destroy things that are not my own. In this case I made an exception. On all the end tables and centerpiece table in the waiting room were brochures advertising a local business establishment. I picked them all up. I threw them in the trash.

Just call me old fashioned. I have a problem with the appropriateness of flyers in the emergency room advertising the services of a nearby funeral home.

At a meeting the other day a female acquaintance’s demeanor visibly brightened when another lady remarked that she appeared to have lost weight. She immediately exclaimed the virtues of the diet she was on, recommending the program to anyone. The second lady immediately replied as she twirled around in a circle, her pleated skirt lifting with the motion, “I know, I’m on it, too. I have been for almost eight months now.” The acquaintance in a reassuring tone responded, “Oh, I didn’t know you were too. I hope I can do as well as you.” A third woman now entered the conversation. She immediately began to downplay the accomplishments of the other two’s weight loss endeavors. “Oh, you poor dears,” she said. “I have a cousin who went on that diet. She lost weight just like you girls for a while and then she started putting the weight on again. I hate to disappoint you, but both of you have a big disappointment ahead.”

Call me prejudicial. I have a problem with people who have not seen their feet from a standing position in several years giving dieting advice to others.

There are other things that drive me up the wall. There’s the person who sits in the pew on Sunday, a person with extensive musical training and a concert performance voice, who minored in voice in college, and yet never volunteers to sing in the choir while critiquing their anthem each Sunday.

Call me cranky. I have a problem with folks who put their talents under a basket and then criticize those who don’t.

Or take the fellow who was shoveling down the meatloaf at the table next to mine where I’d stopped for lunch. In the course of my lunch I overheard his evaluation of Barack Obama, his congressman, one of his senators and the governor. None of them, in his opinion were doing any good. His table companion asked what precinct he voted in.

I have a problem with people who don’t vote.

There are others I have problems with. But I’m out of space.