Crowd Control

So yesterday, over 340 people just died in a massive stampede in Cambodia. Apparently they were having some sort of water festival when people began to notice the bridge they were on was swaying. Panic quickly broke out, with many people getting trampled to death while police began firing water cannons to try and get the crowd to move.

This story brings up several questions that we must ponder. What could have been done to prevent this catastrophe? Why did the Cambodian government try to cover up the death count? Where the hell is Cambodia? Where can I buy a water cannon? And the answers are: who knows?, who cares?, probably Brazil and Toys Backward 'R' Us.

But all kidding aside (at least for a sentence; this is after all a humor blog so kidding is sort of required); I could have seen this coming. Reports have the head counts of this festival at somewhere between two to four million people. That is waaaaay too many people. Nothing ever good comes from putting millions of people in the same crowded area. New York for instance.

I can’t think of a worse way to die than getting trampled in a crowd stampede. Just ask Mufasa. Now personally, I sort of have a fear of crowds. Normally I’m a calm guy, but then I get in a crowded area where a lot of people are standing and I tend to tense up and get very irritable and I start to hyperventilate and then I get nervous AND THEN I START YELLING AND FREAKING OUT SO GIVE ME SOME ROOM! OKAY! Sorry, I got a little unnerved just thinking about it. To this day I avoid lecture halls, dance clubs, crowded parties, shopping malls on Black Friday and the entire country of Japan.

Let me share a specific incident. I went to a 3OH3! and Cobra Starship concert over the summer, and while I for the most part liked the bands, I was not a big fan of the venue. There weren’t any seats, just a big empty area where we were supposed to apparently arrange ourselves in an orderly fashion. Of course, since much of the crowd consisted of deranged middle schoolers, who are biologically incapable of doing anything in an orderly fashion, this did not happen. What did happen was the entire crowd just sort of sloshed around, which meant I was bumped into by people on all sides of me.

As if this wasn’t pissing me off enough, some little middle school boy was on my right, but he desperately wanted to stand next to the girls in my group on my left. Now, as I said, middle schoolers are the stupidest and horniest beings ever to awkwardly shuffle across the face of the Earth, so he just sort of kept trying to walk through me and shove me out of the way until I snapped and just started yelling at him and he ran away crying. That and some drunken idiots spilled beer on me. By the end of the concert I was so on edge that one of my friends tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention and I almost swung around and tried to punch her.

I’m not sure why I have this fear. Part of it could be that I grew up on a farm in a small town on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. To say I was used to having my own space is a bit of an understatement. That and because of my tendency to wear slippers I am constantly worried somebody will step on my toe (especially these days).

And it’s not just with crowds. I also can’t stand people who have no sense of personal space. Yeah, you know who I am talking about. I’m talking about that one guy who feels like when he talks to you he needs to be so close to you that if you sneezed you would break his nose with your forehead. Hey buddy, if you’re listening, I want to hear what you are saying, not get to first base. I tend to notice that people on the mainland tend to pop my bubble more than people from Hawaii. Of course, it helps that people from Hawaii are much more comfortable shouting everything, including very intimate hygiene facts in crowded areas.

Speaking of which, I have a genius idea for solving my fear of crowds: dried cuttlefish. It’s actually a popular snack back in Hawaii, but it has a smell that is… well, we’ll call it “interesting.” On the mainland it causes people to make a really nauseated face and run away as if I had just offered them a bag of removed warts. So I have decided that when I come back to Colorado from break I will bring back enough dried cuttlefish to create a fifteen foot radius of emptiness around me. The only problem is I might cause stampedes of people running away from me.