A personal failing.

Why, I ask you, do soft-spoken, laconic, deliberate people make me want to eat my own eyeballs with a hot fork? Why do they make me want to poke them with the fork with which I just ate my eyeballs and then scream, "That minute you just spent breathing and mumbling, I will never get it back!" Why do I hate them so much that, when I answer the phone and one of them is on the other end, I feel the need to slam the handset on the desk repeatedly and tell them that their time is up and they can't ever use the phone again?

I hate them. I hate people that I have to strain to hear, I hate people who cannot finish a sentence, I hate people who can't decide between 2% milk and non-fat milk and hold the door of the freezer open at Albertson's when all I want is some half and half and I can't get it and they won't move out of the way, despite the fact that I've asked them to and have had to take to nudging them with my cart. For the love of God, can they please drink some coffee, go for a jog, shoot up with heroin, and do whatever it takes to keep up with everyone else?

This is far worse in person. Don't look at me with cow eyes because I'm going too fast for you. Don't open and close your mouth repeatedly before you speak. Don't try to slow things down for me because you think I need to take life at a more leisurely pace. Don't EVER tell me to take a deep breath when I'm speaking to you because I seem flustered. I seem flustered because you cannot be bothered to exert enough mental energy to answer the question that you are paid more than me to answer. And stop blinking so much. No more blinking.

If you are elderly or very young, I exempt you from all of these opinions. If you are incredibly shy or anxious, you're excused, too. You are fine, you do what you need to do. If you are not any of these things and you simply don't see the point of expediency, please, for my eyeballs' sake, take a speed-reading course, learn to love Red Bull, watch any movie starring Rosalind Russell, and stop waiting on me in every store I seem to frequent.