‘Snot infested’: Nikki Osborne on the gross act of fellow passenger

Travelling overseas recently put me in contact with my greatest ick as well as trauma from airport security queues and buffets, writes Nikki Osborne.

Tourists in Nice. Picture: Valery HACHE / AFP

There’s nothing quite like travelling overseas to see a large cross-section of people and how they behave. From the queues in airport security to restaurant buffets, it appears no nationality is immune to my greatest ick and that is: a lack-of-awareness chip.

Is an awareness chip an actual thing? Is it a part of the brain? Because I’m pretty convinced that when God was handing awareness chips out, 30 per cent of the population must’ve been in the wrong queue.

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Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an attack on intelligence, because I know plenty of very bright people who are complete space cadets when it comes to what’s happening around them. This is more about people who, when in public situations, the wheel’s still spinning but the hamster’s dead.

Let me give you some examples:

● Passport control: Recently on my return trip from Fiji, we were in a horrendous queue for passport control. So naturally, I have our passports out, at the ready, to expedite the process. The couple in front of us, however, waited until they reached the desk to start rifling through their bags to locate their passports. They’d only had an hour to find them. Where was their head at?!

● Sick people: Okay, now I know I was quite vocal about the over-reaction during the covid lockdowns, however it would seem that people are now over- correcting in the other direction. As predicted, there were a lot of rona-ridden folk on our small cruise. That’s fine. You need a holiday. However, these snot- infested cess machines proceeded to sneeze on the buffet. The one who really got me, though, was a lady who wanted to see the videos I’d got of the reef, so I held my phone out to display it to her, she coughed into her hand, GRABBED MY PHONE, and scrolled her clammy thumb all over my screen. Firstly, gross, and secondly, you never scroll through someone’s phone as there could be nudey rudey photos in there! She committed awareness crimes on two fronts!

Nikki Osborne. Picture: Peter Wallis

●Pavement walking Okay now I’m getting fired up. If you’re on a busy sidewalk and you’re walking four people across, as in; side-by-side, then you’re not just missing an awareness chip, you’re an arsehole. What gives you the privilege to think that you can walk in slow motion like you’re in a Snoop Dogg video clip and think it’s okay to prevent other people from passing. You are the human equivalent of a blocked pipe and what does that make you?! Exactly.

● The same applies to supermarket aisles: If you can’t find the bloody cumin then make sure you and your trolley aren’t side-by-side creating no passage for other shoppers. Daargh!

●Open-mouth walkers: It blows my mind how many people walk with their mouth open like they’re on some bug collecting expedition. I mean, this doesn’t affect me in any way other than being perplexed by those who don’t have an active face.

● Right-hand-lane driving: Now I know I’ve covered this pet peeve before but until people get the message I will keep saying it. It is not your responsibility to try and slow traffic in the overtaking lane. You are not a pace car. If you find yourself driving in the right-hand lane and cars are starting to overtake you on the inside, then you are either completely bloody minded or … you are missing an awareness chip.

Anyway, I feel better getting that off my chest. What other “lack of awareness chip” examples do you have?

Originally published as ‘Snot infested’: Nikki Osborne on the gross act of fellow passenger