P is for Persistent Pressers

I was on my way home from some errand or other yesterday (Fine, I was on my way home from running out to get something to eat because I have no real food in the house. Are you satisfied?) and watched as this fellow on a bike came down the sidewalk to the intersection.

[We interrupt this none-too-interesting anecdote for this public service editorial: It bugs me when adults ride their bikes on the sidewalk. Sorry if you are counted among that population, but I believe that once you're older than ... oh ... twelve or so, you should ride your bike on the streets like the vehicle you have now become. You're a cyclist now, not a "bike rider". We now return to the whimsical reflection already in progress.]

So this fellow comes up to the intersection and, doing that whole "I'm not going to put my feet down for any reason" thing, leans himself on the streetlamp pole and presses the pedestrian crossing button. And presses it again. And again. And again.

Andagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagain.

He never stopped pressing it the entire time he was stopped at the intersection.

It drove me nuts. It still took forever for the lights to change, because it's one of those busy intersections at which there's a tonne (yes, a metric tonne) of left-hand turn signals and advanced greens. Did he really think the little button would think, "My goodness! There must be hundreds of pedestrians waiting to cross, so I'd better change now!" or what?

Really, people become persistent pressers all the time, don't they? They walk up to an elevator and push the button, wait a moment, and then push it again. Or they walk up, see that someone else is waiting and that it's lit up, and then push it just to make sure it's not a fluke of some sort. Once inside, they press their floor number, then press the wee [><] door close button about eight times until the physical closing begins. When you clear the digital timer on your stove or microwave, how many times do you push it? At least twice? Odd, isn't it? I'm sure not everyone is involved (I have realized I do it with the oven timer, but no with elevators or street lights) but I suspect most of us have at least one persistent pressing compulsion.

And, to wrap things up, a dose of inspiration from the pages of Lemony Snicket's Horseradish: "It is not very polite to interrupt a person, of course, but sometimes if the person is very unpleasant you can hardly stop yourself."

(Yes, a quotation which actually makes some sense on its own. Don't get used to it.)

***** Edited to add *****

I was walking downtown tonight with my friend, Traci, and we came to an intersection. And how many times did she push the button? Three times. Three presses of that button. Hmmm ...