What ordinary, everyday things depress you when you see them?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

I don't mean things like war, genocide, famine, natural disasters or other large scale catastrophes. I mean things like ordinary, commonplace things that others may see as innocuous or not give much thought to, but when you see them, you feel a little sad.

I have two that immediately come to mind:

1. Lost Pet signs--somewhere, some kid is looking for his lost doggy or kitty, and the last resort is to post flyers around the neighborhood in the hopes that someone has seen their beloved animal. Breaks my heart, especially when they post a picture of the animal. On the other hand, I quite enjoy Found Pet signs, because I know the backstory behind that is that Mom or Dad is telling their kid, "Well, first we have to put up signs to see if Fluffy belongs to anyone else. If no one else responds, we can keep him."

2. Going Out of Business sales: Someone's hard work and entrepreneurship just didn't pan out, and now they are left with trying to be enthusiastic by having signs saying "Everything Must Go!" But you know they're broken up inside.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. my inability to get married

seriously it depresses me

[MsFlorida]

2. the people holding up signs for businesses on the side of the road

its florida, its hot out. they dont even give them a chair. holding up signs for this used car lot, this going out for business sale. and they arent young people. Just ones that need money that they are willing to do day labor. When you see all the people lined up outside the day labor employment office how it circles around the building and how some of them have slept in line to guarantee that they will get sent out in the morning.

That not only makes me sad, it pisses me off. this is supposed to be a great country. why cant we take care of our own.

[mainegreen]

3. This guy I pass every day on the way to work. He's clearly disabled.

He walks with this horrible stilting gait, and his left leg kick way up with every step he takes. He can't walk in a straight line and has to constantly aim for parked cars to steady himself as he hobbles/goose steps down the road. Clearly some one takes care of him, as his clothes are clean (at least they are in the morning, but if you see them at the end of the day, he's always covered in dirt and grime). He's often got a beer in his hand, and is usually drunk. But he clearly follows a schedule, as every morning I pass by him as I go up this one way street at 7:50am. He's always headed the other way.

:(

[Chan790]

4. Mine.

New Wal-marts. Okay, I'm not going to say that Wal-Mart is inherently evil. That said, there is no reason for them to be in the northeast...our retail market is over-saturated as is. All a Wal-mart does in CT is destroy buildable space, kill the economy of a city, then go out of business once they've destroyed the job market and lowered everybody's wages.

AA bumper stickers on cars in front of the packie (or package store. New Englander for a liquor, wine and beer shop). Someone hit rock-bottom, had their life fall apart because of the bottle and still can't give up drinking. Other people's failures sadden me...that's one person who isn't going to be able to stop until it puts them in the ground.

Small children (like newborns and toddlers) wearing Yankee hats, tees, and jerseys. Geez man, why not just tell your kinder..."Son/Daughter, I want you to grow up to be an ass." (Sorry...had to get the anti-Yanks slam in there.)

New housing developments near my home. I have to explain...I live between a nature preserve and a national forest in NW CT. These lands are what they are because they house some of the last surviving native stock of moose, wolves, coyotes, black bears, wild turkey, and large cats (we have a mountain lion...the state insists it's a myth...but I watched it eat the neighbor's dog.) in the US on the east coast. These lands are not sufficient to house these populations, but there was a large amount of privately-held forest lands for overflow and ecosystem/biome stability until developers started buying it up for the mountain valley-views to clear-cut and develop. I want a new development ban...not a moratorium, a permanent ban.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Actually, the infant sports fan gear isn't nearly as depressing as

1....infant camouflage. What kind of mean-and-dumb types dress an infant like a pint-sized Green Beret? "We're raising you to be a schoolyard bully, and after that, cannon fodder."

2. And the flip side of that: little girls (pre-puberty) dressed in sexy clothing. It's like saying, "Attention all pedophiles, try this one!"

3. The way that the numbers of people using my church's meal programs have grown over the past few years, with the increase coming mostly in people who have obviously seen better days.

4. The way that increasing numbers of people in Minnesota (which used to be one of the most progressive states in the country) can't wrap their heads around the idea that good infrastructure costs money.

5. The way that no mainstream figure is willing to come out and say that the U.S. is committing war crimes in Iraq and that there is no "honorable" way to get out.

[otherlander]

5. Dumb stickers on stopsigns

Every time I see one, I think, "Hey, look! A sticker on a stopsign! I'm going to go and read it, and maybe it'll say something really profound!"
But then it always just turns out to be the logo of some kid's garage band.

[ZombieNixon]

7. Microsoft products

It makes me very depressed to think that aliens discovering our lost civilization will think that Windows Vista was the best we could come up with. :(

[kwassa]

8. Homeless people

It is too bad that they are an everyday thing, that they are a fixture of urban places everywhere.

They are beginning to appear out here in the suburbs, occasionally panhandling. A small encampment of them were found living in a nearby patch of woods.

[ohiosmith]

9. Wasted food.

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. Fireflies. After seeing "Grave of the Fireflies", I am overcome with sadness when I see one.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

11. Bump for more input. n/t

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. also homeless people, bigoted statements, my job

[KamaAina]

13. Repukes

but do they qualify as "large scale catastrophes"? :shrug:

[Initech]

14. The abandoned military base in Tustin (CA)

It is bullshit because it could have been turned into an airport that would've solved all our transportation problems for decades. Instead it's been turned into another fucking shopping mall. Like we need more of those in this area.

[shaniqua6392]

15. We have a Jackson Hewitt tax place by our house.

Every year they dress this guy up in a Statue of Liberty costume and have him holding a sign to get your taxes done. He is in a wheelchair sitting out there in the cold Michigan weather in February, March and half of April. What the hell? Do they think I am going to get my taxes done there?