Hello, Goodbye

Here I descend into a mini rant.

What drives people to wave like madmen, or madwomen, at people from the confines of their vehicles as they drive past them? Do you honestly think a person can register your frantically shaking hand or jovial screams and catch your face in that split second it takes for you to move on past them and out of view?

For that matter, never have I been waved, honked or yelled at from a car and recognized the person doing it (if I caught glimpse of their faces). Yesterday, in fact, a girl, undoubtedly years younger than me, and just as undoubtedly no one I knew, given the fact that I have absolutely no friends younger than me, waved and yelled maniacally at me, hanging out the window. Did this when I was walking to the library with my earbuds in, drowning out whatever she might have said. Based on her facial expression, I like to believe that she went from jovial recognition of a familiar face with a wave to go with to waving the notion off, quite literally.

Oh, and on the subject, when two people stop and talk to each other from their vehicles, someone needs to drive their car up between them and start talking to the people in one car or the other. Maybe that'd give them the idea and they'd stop that idiocy.

Continuing further, while I engage in such pleasantries to fit in, I do not see the reasoning behind waving to someone in a hallway, or saying, "Hello," in passing. What are you doing, waving/saying hello and goodbye? Could a simple head bob, or something less active, not suffice? Why do we feel this need to acknowledge that we're passing by someone we know, whether it be in a car or walking somewhere? Are we just trying to reaffirm that, yes, we have friends, and we see them multiple times a day, even if most of those times only add up to a minute, if that, a day? Because what does it accomplish, other than comforting someone by presenting them with a familiar face and the fact that, yes, people care enough about them to say, "Hello."

Don't even get me started on people telling other people to tell other people that they said, "Hello." And why, may I ask? Do they sulk when they don't hear you told them, "Hello," second handedly? Are you not a proper friend if you don't think about them enough to get it in your head that you should tell the person to tell them hello?

Honestly, keep your empty nothings to yourself. If you're going to tell someone, "Hello," one way or the other in these situations, make sure to add a similarly jovial, "Goodbye," for my sake.

Rant over.