Bonus Rant: Dumb People at Historical Monuments

This is a public service announcement for Dumb People at Historical Monuments, written in anger during a long bus journey:

Dear Dumb People at Historical Monuments,

Just like YOU, WE want photographs of the historical monument. However, the difference between YOUR photos of the historical monument and OUR photos of the historical monument is the WE do not need YOU in OUR photos. Therefore, when YOU are done taking YOUR photos at the Historical Monument, kindly get the f*ck out of the way so that WE can take OUR photos at the Historical Monument without YOU in them.

For context, the famous monument in Petra (the one at the end of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”) is called The Treasury. The crowd was quite light when we got there, which meant that everyone could get their own, un-crowded photo of themselves and/or a loved one in front of it. At least they could, if not for the murderer’s row of Dumb People who somehow managed to feed themselves, tie their own shoes, and get a day pass from the insane asylum so they can show up at Historical Monuments worldwide to ruin everyone else’s photos.

Dumb People at Historical Monuments: Case 1

Here’s me giving the stink-eye to the first example Dumb People, who had set up camp in front of The Treasury:

It seems innocent enough, except that they had been there for ten minutes and had taken approximately 97 selfies plus enough combination of people and poses possible. (“Let’s do another, but this time Curly should do the peace sign while Mo should act like you’re picking your nose.” In fact, notice that in the above photo he's doing that stupid "love heart with your fingers" thing - so original!) If we still used film for cameras, Kodak shares would have risen 15% on news that these three who approaching the photo mat.

Worse, they didn't seem to understand how to use the mobile phone they were using for photos (because, you know, if you’re going to spend a small fortune and travel thousands of miles to see an ancient wonder in a remote part of a distant land, no point in bringing a real camera with a zoom lens and proper optics). Worse still, they somehow managed to FORGET how to use the mobile phone in between every photo, meaning they had to relearn each and every time.

They didn't speak English, and neither angry looks nor calls of “Enough!” and “Good!” even registered in their thimble brains that it might be time to move along. I've often said that dumb people are like dogs, in that they are not evil but just have no awareness of what’s going on around them or ability to understand how their own actions affect others. If this is true, this was a trio of inbred purebred pugs attending a bacon convention after suffering major head trauma.

However, I’ll give Dumb People 1 some credit because at least they were trying to get photographs of The Treasury itself, which leads me to… 

Dumb People at Historical Monuments: Case 2

Dumb Person Example 2, seen her ruining what would otherwise be an idyllic photo of Jessica at The Treasury:

While in the same spot as our first group, Dumb Person 2 has foregone all interest in The Treasury itself (he’s NOT talking a selfie here) and instead is taking photographs of the rock wall opposite. While I suppose it was a nice enough rock wall, I've never heard of anyone saying “I saw the third Indiana Jones movies and I simply MUST go and see that plain rock wall that was behind them during the exciting finale!” Furthermore, I’m sure for every hundred people who enjoy looking at the “Mona Lisa” or “Starry Night”, there must be one or two whose tastes lie more in the direction of staring at the unpainted back of the canvas of said masterpieces.

However, what makes Dumb Person 2 truly special is that he has decided that the only place he could possibly capture the grandeur and majesty of the plain rock wall is FROM DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE TREASURY, thereby ruining the photographs of dozens of people, as well as NOT looking at the reason he presumably was there in the first place. This is the functional equivalent of purchasing front-row tickets to a One Direction concert at Wembley Stadium, then picking up your seat and placing it on the front-centre of the stage staring out of the audience with ear-plugs in; you're missing the show and annoying the rest of the audience.

To be fair to him, from his perspective all the rest of us are standing around ruining his photo of the plain rock wall, so while our photos only have one person ruining them, his are being ruined by dozens of people. Furthermore, he was probably already in a bit of a mood having realized that if it weren't for those selfish ancient Nabataeans and their propensity of turning plain rock walls into marvels of engineering & culture, he would currently be standing in a canyon with two plain rock walls to gape over.

However, even Dumb Person 2 is a novice in the burgeoning field of ruining other peoples’ photos of Historical Monuments, because like a rank amateur he actually bothered to use a camera, which leads us to our grand champion…

Dumb People at Historical Monuments: Case 3

I’ll confess that Dumb Person 3 didn't ruin any of my own photos. We were finishing up at The Treasury, having worked around the inanity of Dump People 1 & 2, and were ready to move on, but then I noticed him setting up camp and had to go back to snap a few shots of this Nobel laureate. (That’s right: I was at Petra, a two-thousand year old wonder and the highlight of our trip, and I got so annoyed at Dumb People I started ignoring the archaeology and instead starting documenting human stupidity. Future generations need to know about this stuff, if only as a warning.)

Here he is:

Seems innocent enough: just a fellow having a rest, taking a load of his feet after a busy day. Nothing wrong with that, right?

But consider: he has chosen to do this at the foot of the The Treasury, and with no interest in it whatsoever, having chosen a seating arrangement that sets his field of view down and away from the wonder. At one point I thought I saw him look up towards the plain rock wall that so enamored Dumb Person 2, but then when its sheer complexity overwhelmed him his face bore the same expression as my dog has when I do that “fake throw the tennis ball” thing and he averted his eyes. It’s a shame, because if he glanced up for just a moment longer, he might have noticed there were several dozen benches arranged across the canyon that might have made for a more suitable spot for him to have a rest, many of which were made of materials softer and more pleasing to the buttocks than two-thousand year of chiseled sandstone. One wonders if he might have puzzled over why these benches were all oriented in the same direction, as if the people who sat themselves in them might have been inclined to all look in the same direction for some reason.

Mine is not the only camera trained on Dumb Person 3; he is staring out at a sea of camera lenses pointing at him, not considering for a moment that the people looking through those lenses might not want him in the field of view. He might even be thinking they are specifically taking photos of him, and wondering if his “potatoes that look similar to other potatoes” collection has suddenly made him into a famous celebrity without him realizing it.

He doesn't even have a camera!

Did he have one but forget it back at the pre-school, along with his finger paints and the blue crayon he once got stuck up his nose and had to go to the hospital to have removed? Or perhaps he found its overly-complicated instructions (I.e. “Point it at something nice and push a button”) to be too much and decided to stick to electrical devices whose complexity was more appropriate for his intellect, like egg timers and garage-door openers? Or perhaps he is so dedicated to his craft of sitting aimlessly in front of Historical Monuments that he knows that all he has to do is sit there a while, then return home and Google “Can you believe this idiot decided to sit in front of [HISTORICAL MONUMENT] and ruin everyone’s photos?” and he’ll find that hundreds of kind, generous people took his photo for him and therefore there’s no reasons to spend his precious money on a camera of his own?

So congratulations Dumb People at Historical Monuments of the world: you've inspired my longest blog post ever; you've collectively become my muse. This trip is not yet done, and I look forward to seeing you at future sites: at St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai, where I’m sure Moses’ view of the burning bush was obscured by one of you standing around eating a sandwich; the Pyramids of Giza, which probably could have been built in three weeks had they had not had to drag every rock around one of you staring at the Sun in the middle of the road; or my cousin’s wedding in London, where I fully expect the wedding photograph to feature you standing between the bride and groom with a furrowed brow, furiously trying to figure out what the substance on your pinky is that you just managed to dig out of your left ear.