That's MY cab!

Granted, I have only myself to blame for attempting to hail a cab in the middle of the financial district at 430 ona Friday afternoon, lugging a gigantic binder in my spindly arms - all so that I can get to the beach at a reasonable hour on this second-to-last summer weekend, and get in a bit of work-related reading poolside. Everyone knows traffic is horrendous at this hour, and naturally all the cabs are off-duty.

But still: is that any kind of excuse for some woman, who I hereby vow to hiss at should I ever lay eyes on her again, to casually stroll past me, holding a nice little Tiffany bag while I cling to my 10lbs of legal documents, and jump into the only available cab in sight?

There are a few rules of etiquette when one lives in such a small and crowded environment, and near the top of the list is the rule that dictates, when a person is already waiting on a corner for a cab, you're basically obligated to either wait til they are safely in the backseat of a nice yellow car, or walk until you are an appropriate distance away before hailing your own cab. An appropriate distance is not, under any circumstances, half a block away -- especially not when you are in FRONT of the person waiting!

Get your own corner. This is my turf, lady.

Service issues

As someone who frequents restaurants, I am aware that waiting tables is very hard work, and anyone can have an off night. But, as someone who is also in a client-based industry, I feel strongly that when I make the choice to dine out rather than prepare my own meal, part of what I also expect is a little attention as a part of the experience I am paying up for, in addition to the food itself.

Therefore, it is aggravating when a waiter seems like he simply cannot be bothered to take my order, never checks in after the food is delivered to see how things are going, or finally -- and most annoying of all -- lets my table languish after dinner for perhaps a full 20 minutes after we are obviously done with our after-dinner coffee, without once asking whether we would care to pay the bill. We should have left!

Of course out of guilt I tip anyway, which only adds insult to injury. (Less than my usual 20+ percent, but still). All I am asking is for a little bit of effort.

Check please!

Where am I??

I recently started a new job in a new neighborhood, an experience which has re-ignited one of my all-time pet peeves: missing street signs. In the strange and narrow world of downtown New York, how am I supposed to know whether I am on Cedar or Pine without a street sign to fill me in? At least when a street sign is missing in midtown, there is a general grid that can be of some guidance. Can I call 311 about this?

Whoa

Even I am almost speechless on this one: my latest Con Ed bill, for an apartment in which only two people live, is over $500. That could be rent in most parts of the country! And we don't even run the AC during the day and on weekends! What on earth is costing us this much?!

Rain, rain...please go away

Can anything be less fun than a 10-minute walk home from the subway in a torrential downpour? You know the kind I mean, where even with an umbrella your feet get soaked, puddles are unavoidable, and let's not even talk about the frizzy hair. It's especially disgusting in a city setting, where there are puddles that collect with mass quantities of extremely unclean water, often difficult to navigate around, and giant busses that threaten to splash said puddles out of the gutter and into your face. Makes me want to come home and immediately take a shower. Weird, isn't it, that we are so advanced as a society that, say, a doctor can take a laser to  person's eyeball, and yet we remain so affected by water falling out of the sky? But as I learned in high school English, in cases of woman vs nature, nature always (and I mean always) wins.

And the winner is....

Not me, certainly. I have such a love-hate relationship with the Olympics. I want to hate them, actually: it is weird that every four years we are supposed to suddenly get very excited about (1) a bunch of Home Depot employees who have some obscure skill like shooting (at what?) or taekwondo or handball and (2) a group of seemingly genetically engineered athletes whose single life involvement is smashing world records and/or accumulating medals (ahem, Michael Phelps and Shawn Johnson). As to group one, isn't this really more of a hobby we are watching here? And as to group two, I know there are other competitions throughout the years in between, but nobody seems to care about those...why all the hubbub on a once-every-four years basis, then? On top of all that, there is the weirdness of China hosting, a factor best summed up in my opinion by their use of one girl singing during the opening ceremonies, using another girl's voice....both of whom were about seven years old. Bizarro.

It pains me, then, that at the same time, I love the events! I can't stop watching when these people are on tv! Against my will, I found myself gasping aloud when Alicia Sacramone fell off the balance beam! And, this year the events air very late NY time, so I am exhausted the next day! Not to mention that there is nothing else to watch on tv this time of year, so live programming of any sort is automatically appealing.

I am so conflicted, US Olympic Team. Keep up the good work.

SPF=Super Pimply Face?

Can I be the only person who has this problem? I dutifully apply sunscreen to my face every morning, hoping to avoid skin cancer, and of course, limit unsightly wrinkles. Yet, in my efforts to avoid the sagging skin I have begun to fear in my 30s, I somehow end up with the shiny, broken-out skin that plagued me as a teenager. I've tried countless brands of sunscreen, from the drugstore to the department store to even, in one ill-advised instance, the natural products offered at Whole Foods. I just can't win on this one.  

And, we're back!

So, the Venter took a bit of a vacation...hoping to inspire ire and perhaps some guest vents, I didn't make any advance announcements. Alas, all I got were a couple of measly garden-variety complaints. Ah well.

But now, I am back, and the venting resumes. 

How come nobody ever seems to put their dishes directly in the dishwasher? What could possibly be the appeal of stacking up dirty dishes in the sink, only to then have to un-stack and place them in the machine afterwards? This is so universal and so mind-boggling. 

More to come, now that vacation's over. Worthy of a next vent: unpacking.

Does it annoy anyone else...

When someone sets up a blog that boasts a a daily frequency, and then fails to post for over a week?