Sidewalk Etiquette

Here's my rant for today. Mom and I take a lot of walks with the stroller, so we've covered many miles of sidewalks and encountered many people on our walks. You would think that if two people were walking next to each other and taking up the whole sidewalk, if they came upon someone going in the other direction, one of them would move behind the other to let the other person pass. This does not seem to be the case. It seems that it's more important for two ladies to be able to continue their conversation and not change their pace than it is to avoid having a small child pushed into oncoming traffic. Is it because I'm in a stroller that makes people think I don't belong on the sidewalk? Would they move over if the person passing them was just running or walking on their own? Our stroller isn't even that wide (and today we were walking while the car was getting an oil change and Mom forgot the jogger, so we were in the Sit and Stand which is even slimmer), so it's not like we were taking up more than our share of the sidewalk. Is it just our community where we live that people can't be bothered by other people and only care about themselves or is it everywhere? I'm not expecting them to go off the sidewalk so I can get past them, just for them to move over so we can all stay on the sidewalk. I don't understand what's so difficult about that.

On a lighter note, here's a Gillian story. Mom was cleaning out her backpack and found crusts from her sandwich. Mom told her that during lunch she should just throw away her crusts. Gillian said, "I did throw them away. I guess they magically came back into my backpack." Short pause. "I really hope they don't do that again."

Maybe we should just backpack instead of stroll.