How to Button Your Pants and Other Covenants of Urban Living

Today, I will share three observed examples of people doing absolutely the wrong thing in public and how these bad behaviors adversely affect others.

First on the list is knowing how to properly button your pants.  I saw a rather large fellow on the street the other day struggling to zip up his pants so he could button them.  He was doing it all in the wrong order.  First, you have to button the pants, then you pull up the zipper.  If you zip first and button second, you risk breaking the zipper.  Sure, it may be a little harder to suck in the gut first before the buttoning, but zipping and then sucking in only delays the real moment of truth.

Next, if you are walking up the stairs with a crowd of people behind you — say exiting from a PATH train station or somesuch — you CANNOT stop moving when YOU reach the top of the stairs to catch your breath or find your bearings.  You have to KEEP MOVING FORWARD because there are others behind you climbing the stairs in rhythm, and when you stop, you block the flow of the exit and that causes unwanted body mashups behind you.  Move to the side if you can’t breathe, or just take a few more steps forward to free yourself from the flow of human traffic percolating behind you.

Finally, if you drink orange juice, don’t make your private mix on a public utensil and condiment stand in the middle of a busy deli.  That stand is not so you can, as slowly as possible, empty exactly four packets of salt… one-by-one by one-by-one by one-by-one by one-by-one and exactly one packet of pepper by-one… into your orange juice followed by three minutes of moribund-motion stirring with a swizzle stick.  There are lots of other people behind you with hot soup and such and they need spoons and napkins and straws!  Move of the the way!  Take your salt and pepper packets and doctor your OJ elsewhere!

We thank you for your attention, and we now return you to regular programming.