RUDENESS IS UBIQUITOUS THESE DAYS

For whatever reason, too many people seem unaware that they impact (by their behaviors) on other people.  Tonight I was at a live live jazz concert in a restaurant/Inn.  It was to celebrate the 20 years of jazz played here.  I would rant that there is a difference in a public room that serves food and liquor when the music is ambient, everyone is there ready for conversation.  However, when there is a $10 cover charge and most people have come to hear the music because they are fans of the live performers.

As it happened, I was a guest of a couple, friends of mine, who really love jazz and occasionally I am their guest as I was tonight.  The table was set for four but there only the three of us so my hosts  welcomed the evening's singer when she said she had no place to sit.  As the evening progressed she pulled up another chair to the table and invited a friend of hers to sit there, talking through the music by her fellow performers.  That was inconsiderate and rudeness #2, the first being bringing a guest to the table without asking permission from the hosts who had reserved the table.  This finally forced a frustrated host to tell them they could move to another table if they wished to converse because we and all come to hear the music.

On the other side of the room, seated on tall stools at the bar serving drinks, a few people sat.  Clearly three women were friends and their cluster made it clear that they wished to socialize.  They were loud and definitely interfered with those who wished to hear the music.  The bartender also joined in with their loud conversations.

Many drivers seem oblivious to the fact that they are not alone on the road.  People often intrude into one's hearing space as well as physical space, seeming not to realize they are violating boundaries.  Have boundaries disappeared from the list of subjects one tries to teach a child at a reasonably early age?  I seem to be missing something critically different in the current society than I was taught how to behave sensitively of other people's personal and material space..

WHAT A CRAZY DAY!

Today shall go down in my personal history and a very strange day. We have just ended a full moon, the weather is weird (sunny and raining at the same time, it seems), and drivers are insanely unpredictable. An elderly gentleman rammed the rear end of the parked car in front of him, trying to get out of his parking space on the street, hard enough to mangle her left fender and pop the trunk open with more mangle. Horns were heard honking frequently for no apparent reason. People just seemed angry and inconsiderate.

A woman inserted her car front end between the car in which I was a passenger when there was no room for the driver to do anything but move in the direction she seemed bound to occupy. Since we would have been hit by another car if he allowed her in, he honked. She stayed in position moving slightly enough than he didn't get hit, honked his horn and the lady stared straight ahead, not even acknowledging him.

Obama won the Nobel Peace prize. The comments on the Internet ranged from respectful to fully disparaging. I, for one, thought he spoke masterfully with the sensitivity and articulateness he has always displayed, the model for our country and citizens that so many Americans do not let him be for their children...to their own loss since that choice obviously marks them as poor models for their children by the judgment they display.

Even the moon wasn't cooperating today. Billions of dollars spent on equipment that kind of fizzled out in the attempt to make a blaze of color and spectacular showers of whatever was supposed to be in the crater. One commentator commented on it not being conducive to selling the public on additional attempts to convince Americans that there is potential to colonize the moon when we may soon need it.

A friend opened as accompanist to a local singer in a suburban restaurant. Coincidentally, a group of alumni from 1964 chose the restaurant for their reunion. Their rudeness to the performers was monumental. While there was a great deal of space in the back of the restaurant for them to talk and visit, they ignored all other patrons there to hear the music and shouted to one another to be heard, standing as though they were in a hall rather than a restaurant where people wanted to hear the singer and accompanist. Management was clearly more shy than I since they said nothing. At one point when a couple talked loudly between the music and me, I stood up and suggested that, since it was clear they were not listening to the music, perhaps they could move themselves to a more open space in the back of the restaurant for their conversation. Embarrassed and shocked, they quickly moved to tables with apologies. I remained appalled at the rudeness displayed in this very 'high class, rich' town. Should I have been? Why do my expectations for more considerate behavior stay high for people with money? Haven't I learned about entitlement in my many decades of life? I guess not. It is true you can't cure stupid. It is also true you can't cure rude, either.