Where Have All the Manners Gone?

Allow me to do a little ranting on a fine Monday morning! Yesterday I went to the grocery store. Ah, the grocery store! I feel as though I spend half my life there. Anyway, so I go at the busiest time; somewhere after church but right before dinner. All the spaces are taken, or so it seemed. There on the side, I spied the second spot from the front door, available. I rush over to it and stop abruptly when I see the car next to it has a woman unloading groceries from her cart into the back of her SUV. Her cart is angled, making it impossible for me to pull in. I aim the front of my car toward the spot and wait. This is the moment she turns to see me. Ah, we’ve made eye contact, surely she’ll edge her cart over just enough for me to pull in. By this time, a car is waiting for me to move so they can get by. Instead, she looks at me, stops unloading and looks toward the busy lot, giving me the impression she’s sending me telepathic messages like, “can’t you go somewhere else and find a space?” I, of course, give her a “I don’t think so look” and continue to sit with only my front bumper edged into the empty spot. At which time she moves her cart. But, not out of the way like any normal, kind-hearted person with half a brain. No, she pulls it further into the empty spot and opens her back door as wide as you please and begins taking her time and unloading things into the back seat. I take a few healing breaths. The ones that are controlling my mind not to unleash my body to go and take a mighty shove to her cart, sending it through a nearby pear tree. I could, you know. Adrenaline does some pretty powerful stuff with a heated mind behind it. Super powers have no stopping ability for my boiling blood at this time. And, the whole time she’s looking at me like she’s whistling the theme song to Jeopardy while she’s lifting each individual water bottle at a time. Ahhhhh!!!!!!!

Finally, she saunters over and pulls her cart as slowly as she can and shuts her car door. I pull in and swing my door open. Smoke billows out of my car. I’m piping worked up. I hear my heart beating inside my ears. I wait. And wait. With my car door fully opened. You see, she can’t get in the passenger door while I’m waiting for my “punch-your-lights-out” moment to pass. I finally gather myself and exit the vehicle. She meets me face to face in the tiny walkway between my car and hers. I look at her with stabbing eyes and a laundry list of things go through my mind that I want to tell her: “Jerk”, “Could you have taken any longer?” (eww, that would’ve gotten to her!) “Later on today when a bee stings your ass, think about this moment and know karma hunted you down and had its way.”

No, I just shook my head like a mother to her insolent child and did that audible, “mmm, mmm, mmm.” I’m sure she felt the pain. But, seriously, she was like in her fifties. Someone with enough age to know about courtesy. I’ll have to put a feather in my cap right now and proudly tell you that I always go out of my way to be courteous to others. I was raised like that. I’ll even go and help put groceries in people’s cars for them if they look like they need a hand. I’ve even held a baby while the mother got things situated in her car. I’m like that, so I’d hope others were. My mistake.

So, onto a post I read from my friend on Facebook. She said her daughter, who is allergic to nuts, and her went to the pool yesterday. Some other mothers and their children were eating some popcorn and peanuts nearby. Their children were taking them near the kiddie pool and making a mess with them. My friend politely went and told the mothers that her child was extremely allergic, like life or death allergic. One of the mother’s shouted to the children to get away from the pool with the food. Huge sacrifice on her part, I know. Of course, the children did not, so my friend had to leave. What?? Come on.

I’ll admit, I didn’t know how serious nuts were until I heard of the little girl at camp who ate a  cookie and it had m&m pieces in it. She spit it out immediately and told her dad. She was dead within minutes. My heart broke. This is freaking serious!!!! When they say no nuts, it means NO nuts. They can’t touch them, have air of nuts blown on them. Nothing! So, why wouldn’t you, as a mother who just got asked and told about another child’s torturous burden in life, just get rid of the freaking nuts? I bet her best friend was the woman who smiled at me evilly in the parking lot and continued to hold me up.

Manners, people! Who has them anymore?