in·ap·pro·pri·ate
Pronunciation: \ˌi-nə-ˈprō-prē-ət\
Function: adjective
: not appropriate for a particular occasion or situation
graceless, improper, inapt, incongruous, incorrect, indecorous, inept, infelicitous, unbecoming, unfit, unhappy, unseemly, unsuitable, wrong
Example #1. Last Friday I did what any red-blooded American woman would do with a free afternoon ... I caught the new James Bond movie downtown. Despite the fact that it was 2:30, there were still about 50 people in the theater, including a large group of rather loud teenagers. About half an hour into the film, one of the girls stood up and started yelling "Fuck you!" at the top of her lungs. Obviously she was unhappy with someone in her crowd and didn't care if we all knew it. She yelled it several times, arms outstretched (and rather drunk I believe, judging from the slurring and total indifference to the rest of us) She then settled down, but after about 20 minutes was at it again. I was just ready to go ask someone to remove her when she not-so-politely removed herself ... and as a parting shot, she left us with her favorite two words. Needless to say, her outbursts were distracting, and consequently, I have no idea what Daniel Craig did with the unconscious woman he saved from the boat accident and missed a too brief shirtless scene. I paid $6.00 to see some high-octane British ass-kicking, not some adolescent drama playing out five rows ahead.
Example #2. On my way home from work earlier this week, a car cut off my bus in traffic. Granted, it was annoying, but not completely unheard of. In response, the bus driver sped up and drove angrily next to the car, then stopped right on its bumper and proceed to flash his headlights off and on for the entire length of the red light we were waiting at. In other words, he pretty much had a complete mental break because we lost a Saturn's-length of time on the road. While I usually appreciate an aggressive driver, I was not only scared but embarrassed for him.
Example #3. The other morning I sat right behind a chubby, middle-aged couple on the bus who periodically gave each other cute little kisses. At least, they were cute at first. But they had to kiss each other every time the bus stopped. The kissed when she pulled the cord. They kissed when they stood up to exit. It was as if they needed constant affirmation that they were in love, or constant convincing that it was real. In the span of 30 minutes, I went from "Awwwww..." to "Get a room!" And that's not just the perpetually single woman in me. It was a gut reaction to unnecessary PDA. I don't care if they were 18 or 80, there should be a three-kiss maximum in public places. One kiss says "Yeah, we're together." Two say "We want everyone to know how much we're together." Three say "We've only been together a month and this is still super awesome!" Any more than that and you're trying too hard. Or you know your ex is watching.
I'm not saying that any of these people are terrible human beings, or even that they should be punished in some way (although that girl from the theater should probably be detoxed.) They weren't hurting anybody (although the bus driver was about a blinker flash away from extreme road rage), and they weren't breaking any laws (except the laws of decency, makeout-couple!) The things they were doing weren't horrible ... just inappropriate.
1 comment:
des•pi•ca•ble |diˈspikəbəl|
adjective
deserving hatred and contempt : a despicable crime.
ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from late Latin despicabilis, from despicari ‘look down on.’
On all three counts. Ugh!
I myself sat through the Swedish vampire flic "Let The Right One In" recently at Lagoon behind a guy who constantly kept pulling out his phone and text messaging so that the bright screen light distracted me as it burned into my retinas thus causing me to lose bits of the film - which was in Swedish - with subtitles - and although I could understand some of it without reading the subtitles, I still had to ultimately rely on them to follow the storyline. I almost reached across the row ahead of me to rap him on his head, but then opted not to. It's getting so you don't even want to go to the theatre anymore as theatre etiquette and common courtesy have apparently gone out the window. I guess if you complained to the theatre manager about the scene, they would most likely have given you a free pass to come back and try it again without the distracting drunken kids. But of course, you'd most likely have another distracting scenario unfold the next time anyway.
People, by MN law, are supposed to give way to public transit for obvious safety reasons, and rightfully so. But I see people cutting off busses, turning 'right' in front of busses at stops, and laying on their horns at busses that have the legal right-of-way all the time. Those people are idiots. But then to have a bus driver respond that way to one of those idiots really goes against the whole safety reason why public transit is given the legal right-of-way in the first place.
First, let me just say I started to chuckle as I read "I sat behind a chubby," because I'm a perv. :) Second, I get annoyed with people that overindulge in their PDA too. When I was in LA waiting to get into a club downtown, a small group of 16-19-year-old kids and a mother in her upper 40s got in the line in front of me as I walked up to it after falling out drunk from a limo that drove them in from Orange Co. The mother was chaperoning her 17-yo daughter and the daughter's friends including two other girls (16 & 19), a gay 17-yo boy, and the daughter's 18-yo boyfriend. To get to the point of it, I stood behind them and watched the gay boy make out with the girl's boyfriend, then the boyfriend and the girlfriend making out and I was like 'Okay! Whatever! Kids!' But then the upper 40s mother of this girl started making out with her daughter's boyfriend too! And right in front of me, inches away, this 18-yo boy had his hand down the front of his girlfriend's mother's jeans and was literally fingering her so she was moaning and making out with him and moaning until the daughter/girlfriend said 'Oh my god! My mom is making out with my boyfriend. Moooom! Stop making out with my boyfriend!' She grabs her boyfriend away from her mother and then starts making out with him. Then mom, steps up to them and starts trying to wedge herself in while saying 'Let me have some of that.' and manages to push her daughter off and starts in tonguing her daughter's 18-yo boyfriend again. The boyfriend is just happy as a clam. I was just annoyed and dumbfounded and ready to call Jerry Springer.
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