Posted On: Saturday - January 17th 2026 4:51PM MST
In Topics: Movies Curmudgeonry Female Stupidity
(File photo - not necessarily JFK, but it might well be.)
Regular Peak Stupidity readers may have gleaned that we were on a long airline trip over the New Year’s period. After a not so pleasant experience with "our" Transportation
There I was, rushing down the moving walkway, bringing some food to the family. It’s not a moving standway, no matter what the letters read. I believe it’s the same people that block the passing lanes (which are ALL but the rightmost) dragging ass at 75 mph on the Interstates that stand there on the left on these walkways. I have a pretty good joke I made up, best for people I know, that a lady also trying to get somewhere didn’t fully appreciate. Woman and humor… I know…
Oh, but she was British. (Actually I just thought: Do they pass on the right when walking too?) Though she kind of agreed, this woman then went into a lecture about being 3 hours early to the airport, so you don’t have to hurry. Well, OK, if you’re headed to that overseas city that I’d never heard of before, sure. Some travelers are going more local for a flight to, say, Rochester upstate* - no, by the time I’d park and then be 3 hours early, I could be half way there on the road.
People don’t want to waste their time, so they may very well be in a hurry, and I didn’t appreciate the lecture, which is what it had become. This is where I got off. It is something about being lectured in that British accent that really grates. I think its because the accent makes them sound so smart, brilliant** even, and we don’t talk so good here. Yet, I may still know better.
This isn’t the first time I’ve run into this. Somewhere in the PS annals of the Kung Flu PanicFest, there’s a story of the British Mom at the school scolding me for throwing my Covid mask into the sticker bushes. (I had to apologize, not to her, but to the Assistant Principal for cussing in front of the kids.). Before that, she’d lectured me about running stop signs on my bike. She neither understood nor appreciated my explanation that when I feel the need for speed, no, I’m not stopping at these 4-way stops in the neighborhood when I can see. What’s with these UK Karens, or UKarens for short?
This must be some thing about scolding British nannies from deep in the recesses of my childhood memories. I didn’t have a British nanny though. I didn’t have any nanny, thankfully, though now I think a fat Guatemalan nanny who knew no Inglesia would still have been better than a scolding UKaren. She wouldn’t have told the IRS on my Mom for improper tax accounting.
Is this about Mary Poppins? I remember that I saw the movie, but I don’t remember the movie. The IMDB makes it sound like she was pretty cool, nothing like the bitchy neighborhood Brit-Broad or the JFK UKaren… or maybe this character, one Wendy Leach, from A Fish Called Wanda. This movie was brilliant!
Well, that was neither here nor there. We didn’t stay long in New York. Thanks for reading, nonetheless. MOAR posting will come, with the use of a real keyboard. This on-screen one sucks.
PS: The joke goes: "Hey, have you seen Mickey Mouse around here?"
[Perplexed stander on walkway] "Errr, no… "
"Right. ‘Cause we’re not in Disney World, and this ain’t a ride." Yeah, it’s only for people I know.
* Most of the passengers on that route would have connected, but that’s not always the case, more so from LaGuardia.
** Ha, the first time I heard "Brilliant!" from an English lady, 25 years ago, I thought "Aww, shucks, no big deal". It’s just like "awesome" used to be here.
Comments:
Moderator
Monday - January 19th 2026 8:07PM MST
PS: Yeah, I’ve missed some flight by (literally) literally seconds. “Hey can you still…” she turns around and goes down the jetbridge… end of story.
Moderator
Monday - January 19th 2026 8:06PM MST
PS: Good point, When it goes international, just as with the language babel, there are no standards anymore for even walking on the sidewalk. No wonder that lead singer of The Verve kept bumping into people in the video…. sorry, I guess not all readers are familiar with “Bitter Sweet Symphony” and the great music video era of the 1980s.
Julie just must have sounded smarter with the brilliant English accent. Funny story.
Julie just must have sounded smarter with the brilliant English accent. Funny story.
The Alarmist
Monday - January 19th 2026 1:30PM MST
PS
BTW, if you don’t miss a few flights in life, you’re spending too much time in airports.
😂
BTW, if you don’t miss a few flights in life, you’re spending too much time in airports.
😂
The Alarmist
Monday - January 19th 2026 1:27PM MST
PS
“Do they pass on the right when walking too?”
Well, yes, in theory. There are signs on tube station escalators telling people to stand left and pass on right. But London has so many foreigners that it has devolved into chaos in the tube, on the sidewalks, and occasionally on the streets (mostly bicycles, but sometimes cars on wrong side).
Other than that, in pretty much all walks of life, the Yookay is a Peak Karen country.
I had a European colleage bring me a letter he had written in English so I could proof his grammar. It was fine. Then he took it to a young English secretary to double check, and she butchered it. When he sent it, including me in CC, I asked why he changed it, and he said, “I figured Julie was English and would have better knowledge of English than an American.” He deserved scorn from the recipient, but, alas, they probably cut him slack because it wasn’t his mother tongue.
🕉
“Do they pass on the right when walking too?”
Well, yes, in theory. There are signs on tube station escalators telling people to stand left and pass on right. But London has so many foreigners that it has devolved into chaos in the tube, on the sidewalks, and occasionally on the streets (mostly bicycles, but sometimes cars on wrong side).
Other than that, in pretty much all walks of life, the Yookay is a Peak Karen country.
I had a European colleage bring me a letter he had written in English so I could proof his grammar. It was fine. Then he took it to a young English secretary to double check, and she butchered it. When he sent it, including me in CC, I asked why he changed it, and he said, “I figured Julie was English and would have better knowledge of English than an American.” He deserved scorn from the recipient, but, alas, they probably cut him slack because it wasn’t his mother tongue.
🕉