Rude people are awesome!

This happened around July 18, 2012, give or take and has never been posted to my FB travel stories.  So it's a new one!

To set the scene, this occurred at the Pacific Palms Resort, a pretty nice, even extravagant hotel, conference center, spa, and 36 hole award winning golf course. You get the drift. My company uses it frequently, so we get great rates there. No slumming it for me!  And an added bonus, it's super close to my jobsite, so zero commute in LA traffic once I'm there is really nice.

The hotel elevator lobby has 3 elevators.  And is not easy to get to.  You can either ride an escalator up a story to the level that the main elevator lobby is on, take the stairs (my usual route) or take a small single elevator up to it.  Then you enter a little elevator lobby that is narrower than most.  The fun thing is that there are also some conference rooms past the lobby, so often times people who are lost may wander this direction from those rooms.

One particular evening after returning from work there was quite a bit of congestion in the elevator lobby.  There were easily enough people in there waiting to completely fill 2 elevator cars.  So I simply hung out in the entrance area to the lobby with the the other recent arrivals, forming what you and I like to refer to as a "Line."  My British friends refer to it as a Queue.  The point is, I think globally, most people understand the concept of waiting your turn.

As the first elevator arrived, those presumably there first started working their way onboard.  In the midst of this, a group of approximately 6 travelers, each with luggage, entered the lobby area, pushing their way through the previously mentioned line and into the elevator, where 2 of them pushed their way onto this first elevator.  The rest of us were basically just shocked by what we'd seen.

About the same time those doors closed, the next elevator door opened.  Any guesses what happened next?  Yup.  The remainder of the new people immediately became FIRST onboard the next elevator.
They were joined by those next in our line.

These travelers were not native English speakers, so I have no idea if they understood the conversation the rest of us began having as the doors were still open.  It was the conversation where we were all saying things such as "Oh, pardon me" and "Sorry for being in your way" and "You must really need that elevator."  In the mean time, another guy presumably belonging to the line crashers arrived and again, pushed his way thru.  He rudely pushed me in the back going by me.  I turned around and said "Oh, I'm sorry.  My backpack must have hit you.  Sorry it is a large back pack and sometimes I accidentally run into people with it while I'm standing still."  He may not have understood the language, but he got the point.  He observed the fact there were still essentially 2 elevator cars of people waiting and he resigned himself to waiting.  He yelled out in a foreign language what I presume to be "Have a cold one waiting for me, I got stuck behind these rude Americans who were already here waiting in line."

Rude people are Awesome!  They make the stress of traveling that much more enjoyable.

Only by the grace of God, no travelers where harmed in the writing of this blog!  Safe Travels!
Pat
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