Why pray when you can talk?

Since it's time for apples and honey, I made my way to a local Temple yesterday for some crazy, good old fashioned Rosh Hashanah praying. I'll spare you any philosophical talk about the New Year since I respect the separation of Church/Temple/Mosque and blog, and the fact I don't have much to say about it. However, I did notice a few things during the service (since I had no prayerbook and found myself looking around and talking most of the time).

To the two people in front of me, please, don't spray/pour/drown the entire cologne bottle on yourself before leaving the house. The person upstairs won't regard you any more than someone else just because you think he notices people based on who smells the most.

To the same cologne bathers, please don't push your chairs so far back that you're practically in my lap. I'm all for making new friends, but come on, aren't you being a little too forward? (Come on, who didn't see that publication's link coming?)

To the two people 10 rows up, why is the edge of your Yumulke slightly tucked in the back? Why is it also offline to the left? Is this a new gang sign thing like baseball caps that are slightly crooked? Westside (Western) world in the house! Also, I always understood us Reform folk let the Rabbi where the Tallis, not every single male and a few females. It helps to be a taller member of the tribe in order to see things like this.

To the "Usher Captain", you're not a bouncer at some College Park bar. It's not necessary for you to stand infront of the doors with your arms crossed trying to be all tough when you're clearly not and we all know we can't/shouldn't enter when everyone else is standing.

To the three Shofar blowers, you're telling me that for Tekiah-Gedulah, you could only hold the note for 7 seconds? (The dork in me timed it like I do every year.) There were three of you and that's the best you could do? Two of them only went for 4-5 seconds, and they were in their late teens. Come on people. The old benchmark for a decent performance is about 13 seconds, with a 25-second sound one year.

To the guy in the bathroom stall, please google "courtesy flush" for everyone else's well-being. There's nothing wrong with being the bus driver when kids have to be dropped off since we've all had that job, but when you need the emergency backdoor to take care of your business, it's especially courteous to reach back and pull the flush handle between deliveries.

To the driver parked on the side of the road, try backing into that spot instead of front-end parking. You crazily assumed you'd get across a busy street by backing out across my lane to then drive the other direction after services were over. I hope that made sense.

To the guy who needed the red state/blue state joke explained to him and then said, "thanks, I'm really Canadian," that was funny.

To the guy who said nothing all service and suddenly bellows out the last song louder than everyone around him, where were you the whole service? Please take note that everyone else speaks, sings, humms, and chants at a library's volume except for you - so tell me what's wrong?

To me without a prayerbook, how about you actually heed the directions on every service's ticket that asks you to bring your own instead of foolishly thinking there'd be extra copies for you when you arrive 40 minutes into the 2.5 hour service?