The Gripe Report: PPDs. Escalators, Uncooperative Gas Pumps

Another week, another edition of The Gripe Report!

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for the weekend. I haven’t been sleeping too well this week. I need a good eight hours to function properly, and I think I've probably been in the six to seven range.

Not terrible, but not good.

A big part of this problem is I have a bad habit of lying in bed and looking at my phone for a while before I fall asleep. Ask any doctor, and they will tell you that blasting blue light into your retinas while you’re trying to fall asleep is a one-way ticket to Snoozeland.

Of course, that’s not true.

Got a gripe? We all know you do! Send it in!: mattreigleoutkick@gmail.com

It’s also not what I want to gripe about. You see, I’m often flipping through YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels when I do this, and I’ve decided that I’m officially done with trick-shot videos.

I can not understand what’s supposed to be exciting about them. Some kid throws a basketball over a house, it bounces off a picnic table, then careens into the basket… and?!

People spend hours and hours trying to get these trick shots to work for little to no payoff. Congratulations on spending 9 hours of your Saturday trying to bounce a ping pong ball off a stack of books and into a Solo cup. I hope that fist pump and ten seconds of excitement were worth it.

Sure, the Dude Perfect guys have found a way to make a living doing these stupid trick-shot videos, but they inspired legions of kids to try to do the same, thinking that they too could achieve fame from flipping plastic water bottles.

If they’re having fun, I guess that’s okay, but if I had a kid and saw him spending half the day trying to flip a quarter so it lands on top of a soda bottle lid, I’d be signing him up for Little League and guitar lessons because, clearly, he has too much free time.

Anyway, let’s see what some of you fine folks are griping about this week…

You're allowed to change how much pressure you put on the accelerator. I know you know this, but other clearly need to be reminded. (Getty Images)

Pedal Position Drivers

Alan is going to kick things off this week, with a new term that I wasn't familiar with, but describes a phenomenon I'm all too familiar with:

My one wish is all PPDs would magically vanish to the upside-down. No, it is not Penis Performance Drugs (the missus would hate that). It is Pedal Position Drivers. PPDs are people who think cruise control is the angle your right foot is when going the speed limit on flat ground. I live in rural Texas and everywhere I go is on a two-lane striped highway with a lot of hills. PPDs slow down to 50 mph when going up a hill where another driver cannot pass because you have a solid line (can't see over the hill--smart). Then they speed up to mach .75 going down where one can't pass unless they are going mach one. It is really annoying on two-lane roads, but PPDs are the guys you try to pass on a four-lane divided road that you catch easily, but just can't seem to make it around. PPDs are also the people you seem to pass several times on the same stretch. Of course, if it is the latter, you might be the PPD.

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Have… have they not learned how to set cruise control?

I know we've all experienced this, and I think Alan might have hit on something that I thought was just a case of blatant douchebaggery on the roads.

The highway drivers who will hold everyone up, but then fight you like they're trying to stay on the lead lap at Indianapolis when you try to get around them are enraging. It really could simply be that they took the set-it-and-forget-it approach to using the accelerator.

There should be some kind of warning light that goes along with brake lights and turn signals to let those of us who know how to drive that the idiot in the Camry in front of us hasn't adjusted the amount of pressure they're putting on the pedal for several miles.

I don't know how that would help us get around them, but at least it would function as some kind of automotive dunce cap that would let everyone know that there's an idiot behind the wheel.

Escalators can be great until people start ignoring escalator etiquette. (Getty Imaages)

Escalators

Last week we talked about people who congregate in places where people are trying to walk, and this week Mickey gives us what is quite possibly the worst place for this to happen:

Long time reader, so I just had to say …

Yes! Worse … if they congregate at the foot of an escalator!

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I'm a big escalator guy, and while I used to believe in Mitch Hedberg's famous joke that "an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs." But the truth is they can break, and when they do, it sometimes means that they speed up rather than slow down.

This happened at a Milwaukee Brewers game earlier this year, and while I'm sure it looked hilarious, being on it would have been terrifying.

Now, imagine something like that happens in a shopping mall where a crowd of idiots with Forever 21 bags and sucking down Orange Juliuses (Juli-i?) have decided to set up shop and have a chat.

You'd have a disaster on your hands.

Fortunatley no one goes to malls anymore, so we're all safe.

Not congregating at the bottom of an escalator is a big piece of the escalator etiquette puzzle. I try to abide by escalator etiquette as best I can and stand to the right side so that impatient people can walk up the left side, and I pay attention so that I don't catch a Croc in the teeth at the end of the ride and eat a plate of s--t, thus causing a domino reaction behind me like a pile up on a fogged over freeway.

I mean, yeah, I'm a gentleman, but I don't think it's too much to ask for everyone else to do the same.

It's probably a safe assumption that some part of this gas pump will not be full operational. (Getty Images)

Uncooperative Gas Pumps

Michael sent us a message about something that I think is underrated in how irritating it is, and that's an uncooperative gas pump:

Hi Matt,

I enjoy your column and can definitely relate to some of the gripes. My gripe is pumping gas and then pushing the button for a receipt and there is no paper for a receipt! Going into the store to stand in line for a receipt just burns me up! 

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I have no clue what's going on with gas stations. I don't know that there's anything I use as frequently but has more problems than a gas pump.

They're either out of paper like Michael mentioned, or the card reader isn't working or it has a "DO NOT USE" big over the handle letting you know it's completely out of commission.

I'm not a conspiracy theory guy, but I'm throwing on my tin-foil hat for this one: most of the problems you encounter while at the gas pump require you to step inside. I think that's what 7-Eleven and their ilk want, because if even a fraction of those disgruntled customers make an impulse buy while they're in there — a Slim-Jim, a Slurpee, or a roller dog that's been rotating under a heat lamp for the last couple of weeks — think how much money that is every year.

I'm not saying that's what's happening, but if I'm not back here next week for another fantastic edition of The Gripe Report, then you'll know I may have hit on some kind of conspiracy that runs deep… very deep.

Or the pump, could just simply be out of paper. Who knows?!

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Appreciate you dropping by to go through some gripes. We'll meet back here next week for another batch, and in the meantime, feel free to send in any gripes that have been eating away at you: mattreigleoutkick@gmail.com