Andy Chase

To quote a friend's recent weblog entry,

"Humans are animals."

This was not said in, nor am I quoting it in, a breathless, moralistic context... I'm just an observer who's spent more of my life watching people's little social games than participating in them.

The other day, I was in downtown Northampton. At the main intersection they have replaced all of the pedestrian walk signal buttons with these optical doodads that you trip with your thumb instead of pushing a button. (Clever; nothing mechanical to wear out after getting pushed hundreds of times a day.)

It so happens that when you trigger this optical sensor, the device also emits an electronic chirp... presumably to let blind people know they hit it.

A group of three teenage boys reached the intersection, and when that thing chirped it totally blew their minds. They each had to make the thing chirp several times, and one of them decided that it would be really cool if he stood there and pushed that button over and over and over and over and over. Then he discovered that he could do it even faster if he used his elbow. He would have kept going if a woman hadn't stuck her head out of Sweeties and told him to cut it out.

Ten minutes later when I was ready to cross the intersection in the other direction, I watched a group of three teenage girls doing pretty much the same thing.

Then as I drove back to the office I watched a Very Important Monkey as she drove through the stop sign at the three way, no-light intersection near the industrial park without so much as slowing down. I would say people do that about 20% of the time at that intersection. Another 50% slow down without stopping, and I'm among the 30% who think that the big red STOP sign is more of an imperative than a vague suggestion for other people.

Like my friend, I am also quick to admit that I'm sure I exhibit plenty of monkey behavior too; I'm not claiming superiority over anyone. I don't know if I even have a point, other than that people are monkeys.