The idiot brigade marches on

Most days I see or interact with at least one person who is either gloriously below average or just so ignorant of their own limits of mental capacity I'm forced to suffer. Today I had several. A good day for my tirade of internal monologue rants, but a bad day for have an aneurysm based on overload of stupidity. So here we go:

1) On the way to work I saw a lady driving an SUV and smoking. There's nothing special about that, except that she had an Indiana Environmental Protection license plate and wildlife protection bumper sticker. Now this SUV was a Ford Expedition 4x4, getting a whole 10ish mpg. Now, as someone who does care about the environment I think I would have a hard time smoking and driving a vehicle that gets one of the worst gas mileage around. If I needed to haul around 7 or so people I can see why you would need a large vehicle, but it was just her. Mixed messages abound.

2) Kids riding bikes in the road. You see it a lot, no big deal. Several things made this interesting to me. For one there were 8 of them riding in a clump, so they took up over half the road. Also, they were on State Road 16, a very narrow road with more traffic than it should have. Thirdly they were riding on the left side of the road. The LEFT side. So here are a bunch of kids riding on the wrong side of a major road, and taking up most of the road. Brilliant. My last rant was the fact they were all dressed alike, in the cookie cutter nonconformist garb. They all wore black and had dyed mohawks. It's required to be a nonconformist that you all look and act alike. Oh, and this was in Roann, a tiny town mostly comprised of hog farmers and their families.

3) I've decided that there are requirements to live out around where I do. First you must have a long ratty beard. You must always wear a ball cap too, to cover the hair you never wash. It also seems like everyone wears dirty, ripped up black t-shirts. Though not required it also helps to wear aviators and drive a truck consisting mostly of holes and lots of exhaust holes.

Oh what fun, I'm sure there were more, but I blocked them from my memory.