Politeness Is Not a Weakness

Since I've been slacking on the blog due to some extreme fatigue issues, I thought I'd drop in for a rant. (Sorry. I will be back up with some reviews in the next week or so. In the meantime...)

What ever happened to manners????

I was on the phone with my niece earlier. She lives outside of Dallas and she was shopping at a local Costco. As she was cruising through the lot searching for a parking space, someone actually gunned around her to get to the one she had her signal on for. (By the way, my niece always uses a hands-free phone accessory!)


We were still discussing how rude people can be when my niece got into the store. As she was pushing her cart through the aisles, someone in front of her slowed down to look at something so my niece slowed down. She happened to notice that the lady behind her was not slowing down. She sort of lifted her hand to catch the front of that lady's cart. The woman just pushed into her hand and ran over the back of my niece's heel with her cart.

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I heard my niece yelp. She told me that the rude lady only issued a " Sorry" because other people gave her curious looks.

This is not uncommon for someone living in a bigger and more crowded city. I think that my niece has just gotten used to it. Matter of fact, I think that she expects people to be rude.

Here in Alaska, one of the most positive aspects used to be how friendly people were. That all changed. I would say that in the past 10 years, Anchorage has started to resemble many of the places residents came her to escape.

What always makes me shake my head is that people have confused what's important. It's important to most people to be intelligent, high-earning, attractive - whatever they think is impressive. This is what children are being taught. However, not enough people are teaching (or using) good, basic manners.

I was with my little nephew in Walmart one day when he started coughing. I reminded him to cover his mouth. A moment later, he did something that prompted me to remind him to say "Excuse me." I hadn't noticed a woman standing nearby until she approached me to say how glad she was to see someone teaching a child common courtesies. We then had a brief discussion about the subject.

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How crazy is it that something so basic as being a decent person can incite commentary?

It seems that the smarter and more intellectually advanced we become, the less we value basic decency.

Anyway, that's my little rant for the day. Let's go out and be kind to each other.

Peace
--Free