There is a vermin that roams the plains of my new fair city.

I’ve been trying to coin the correct acronym for it.

It’s some sort of Yuppie, to be sure. Young. Urban. Professional.

But to truly do the beast justice, you must pepper the term with adjectives such as “selfish,” “discourteous,” “assholish,” “insensitive,” and my personal favorite, “stuck-up.”

So let’s see…….. Y-U-S-D-A-I-S-U-P-pie.
Long and awkward.

How about YouSuck-pie? (say like YOU-suck-pee. But don’t.)

_______

The YouSuck-pie is a very specific sort.

In my short time around town, most folks have been incredibly friendly and nice and helpful. And yes, I am going to have to go with the racial divide: by far, the nicest and politest people have been African American. They smile and make eye contact, and the older ladies are so sweet and complimentary of the baby that I look forward to go by certain blocks so I will run into those lovely women. The Meow and I have made friends with all sorts of nanny posses and with postmen and with checkout cashiers at the grocery store and with some of the indigent people who make Lincoln Park their home during the summer months. We’ve also made friends with other moms; the sweet ladies of the dry cleaners on the corner; several dogs and the humans who walk them; and we’ve also exchanged smiles with people from all walks of life. After all, that is the great thing about city living: you get to see loads of different people walking by you every day.

How many YouSuck-pies can we count amongst our friends? Zero. They don’t like to say hello and they don’t make eye contact. Too busy.

However, I can assure you we’ve had more than a couple of doors slammed on us by them; we’ve had to reach over for the separator thingy in the supermarket over the YouSuck-pie’s groceries, only to be rewarded with a dirty look for getting too close to their food; we’ve had to defer to them while walking down the sidewalk, as it seems that being hooked to an iPod renders the YouSuck-pie unable to yield to stroller traffic; and we’ve been kept up on a couple of nights by the YouSuck-pies.

In a city that takes itself a little too seriously, these people are pros at the art of being boastful, braggarty, nincompoopish blowhards. Oh, and shoving.

I hate to break it to you, non-specific senator/congressional/government aide: you are nonessential.

You’re lucky you’ve found a niche in the world where someone pays you for the traits that have incited me to write this particular entry, but please- if you’re not going to hold that door open for the stroller, at least don’t glare at me for walking too near your air cloud.

And please remember that partying at 3 am on a Thursday night is not well-received anywhere. Some people actually enjoy sleep, you know.

07 Jul This entry was published on July 7, 2006 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Soapboxing. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.