From 2005 Colorado live birth and death numbers:


68,922 births
29,521 deaths

That is a birth every 7 minutes, 40 seconds. A death every 17 minutes, 48 seconds.

The ratio of births to deaths is 2.2:1 much higher than the national average of 1.85:1.

It could be worse - you could be up here in the feel-good PacNW where we're forbidden to ever make someone feel uncomfortable by asking them to respect boundaries.

Like my new cubemate, for example, who is so traumatized by her move from the lofty heights of office world to our lowly cube farm that we are not to ask her to stop humming along with her iPod All. Damn. Day. In fact, rather than inconvenience her but asking her to behave like a proper cube dweller, we will permit her to build her own little office of sorts with double-high cube walls and a "door" right in front of our shared window, thus blocking all our light and breeze (no AC). Because she wants it, and we can't say no because then she might not be our bestest friend any more!

No, conflict anywhere can not be tolerated, so whatever someone wants you have to give them. Otherwise you're infringing on their rights.

Let's see...

20 Waisted seconds per transaction
With say an average of 6 lines per store
open twelve hours per day
with an average of 5min/check out
at 445,110 grocery stores nationwide

(((12*60)/5)*6*20)*445,110 = ~243 Years / day waisted in this country by people too lazy and inconsiderate of others to simpley pay attention. That's more than the lifetime of Walt Disney, MLK, and Bob Bell combined.

It's funny cuz it's true:)

And that's not very much. More time is probably wasted every day by a moment of indecision as to whether McDonald's or Burger King will be the lunchtime destination.

But yes, when you are the one that has to way 243 years to buy your groceries then I can understand you being upset. When you only have to wait an extra 20 seconds you should simply calm down, relax, at enjoy the world around you. The potato chips won't go stale in the extra 20 seconds it takes you to get them home.

And your 243 years number is horribly inflated by the assumption that every transaction has this unacceptable delay built into it, which is not remotely true, but if it were then it becomes the societal norm and you are being even more unreasonable in getting upset.

It is also inflated because the page you link says there are 163,000 grocery stores in the United States, not 445,110. Add in 81,900 convenience stores, 56,700 superettes, and 80,600 specialty food stores (such as butchers) and you still have only 382,200. Correct for these inflated numbers and it seems there is even less to complain about.

My Pacific Northwest training must have been inadequate then because I would have no problem at all telling her to knock it off.

You Vantuckians have always been a bit different.

I still have a little soupçon of east coast left in me and thus I was able to tell the woman who was singing last week - not humming, but singing, loudly - to knock it off. (and she looked at me like I'd grown a second head, as clearly no one had ever asked her to curtail anything she felt like doing ever.) But there's not much I can do when the office manager arranges for facilities to wall off our window.

Yesterday my east coast granules had the day off so I engaged in properly authorized PacNW passive aggressive techniques. (Specifically, using my headphones that bleed sound and playing Disney themepark music. Guaranteed to drive the non-fan crazy.)

Can I get an "Amen"? But not too loudly, because we wouldn't want to make any non-believers uncomfortable by forcing them to acknowledge that religious beliefs exist.

If you truly wanted to avoid discomfort you'd simply stop having religious beliefs.

Give me your co-workers office number. I'll call her and ask her to kindly stop humming along to her iPod. It will be untracable.