The Sport of People Watching

Without a doubt, people watching is my favorite activity. I pretend to be into other activities as a ruse, a cover up for my real goal—to check out the mish mash of freaks, nerds, squares, fatties, thinnies, mullet wearing and inappropriate skin bearing redneck couples, unruly kids and their oblivious parents, foreigners, potential terrorists, and, of course, the mentally retarded (sorry, I know it’s wrong).

I will tag along to ANY event to engage in my sport. Ask me to a NASCAR event, the zoo (the real show is outside the cages), a Las Vegas casino, or better yet a rural Indian casino. I will go gladly. I would go to a cat fashion show in Rancho Cucamonga—please don’t call me out on that one.

The twisted thing about people watching is that we don’t do it out of admiration, or a love of witnessing the human condition. We do it to mock the unfortunate, the ugly, and the fashion-less. Well at least that’s why I do it; perhaps you have a purer heart.

Even if you’re in Newport Beach, watching a steady stream of tanned and toned cougars and MILFs stepping in and out of Range Rovers and Mercedes convertibles, you are thinking to yourself how lost these poor people are. You, the watcher, never got caught up in their materialistic living nightmare, and so on.

It only recently occurred to me that I might be a part of the freak show. That, perhaps as I sat above the fray, on my high chair, heaping scorn on all that passed, I was being ridiculed myself. I mean, I have bad hair days. Soon I will have no hair days.

And so it goes, from the lowliest bum to the highest CEO, we are all pointing at the other guy.

Look at what an idiot he is.

And that’s what makes people watching such a great sport—its one we can all play.

So if I see you on the street, know that I am inwardly mocking you. And if I catch you looking at me...go ahead and say something, tough guy.