No Cutsies

It has come to my attention that a large population of individuals think that they are the only people on the planet.  I know because I live with three of them.  Rarely a day passes that I'm not forced to say to one of my children, "Why are you standing right there where people are walking in and out?  You need to move to the side!"

But I guess I always thought that an awareness of others would sink in at some point before my kids made their way out into the world on their own.  By 18, they should know that other people might need to exit an elevator before they barrel their way through or that it's not always necessary to walk against the flow of the general traffic and that they might need to step aside, rather than divide the crowd like Moses parting the sea.

I think my kids are important people and have their own positive imprint to make on this world.  But I'm fairly confident that not one of them is Moses.

Unfortunately, not every understands this by the time they're young adults and by then it seems too late for them to ever grasp it.  You know who they are.  The people who weave in and out of traffic as if there is not another car on the road and seem to own the one model car that didn't come with blinkers.  The people who park their carts in the middle of the aisle at the grocery store (those people who know me know that I have very strict ideas on what is appropriate grocery store etiquette) while you struggle to get to the one thing you need that they're parked in front of.

And then there's the lady I experienced today at Panera who apparently decided that the entire line of people standing and waiting to order could not possibly be as important as she was and therefore bypassed a group of about 7 people so that she could go ahead and place her order for a salad and M&M cookie.

Ooooo...that chapped me.

Were these people born without peripheral vision?  Did their parents tell them growing up that the people around them were just a figment of their imagination?  Do they just think they were born with some God-given right to get in the way of the rest of the world?

What would happen if we just set up a little island for these people somewhere and said, "You want to pretend like you're the only people on the planet?  Have at it."  With no aware citizens to move out of their way, they'd all be bumping into each other on the beach and cutting in front of each other in line at the Island Tiki Hut trying to get to their coconut water.  With all of that cluelessness and cutting, no one would get served.  And then those people would slowly die off, bruised and thirsty.

It's not like I have zero tolerance for someone who has a good reason for their behavior.  I understand that some people just need to drive fast because they're late for something (mainly because I'm always late for something).  And if that woman at Panera had just turned to the rest of us and said, "I have a medical condition that requires me to eat an M&M cookie at the stroke of noon"...I would have been willing to work with that.

But for most of those people, I ask you.  No.  I beg you.  Every once in a while just stop, move to the side, and look around.

That's right.  We're all here.