Two kinds of people

In my opinion, there are two types of people in this world: people who put their shopping cart away in the designated corral and those who don't. Last Friday, while doing my monthly Target supply run, I witnessed a woman, finished with her cart, packages deposited in the back of her mammoth SUV, walk her cart up to the front of the parking lot and hump it up on the curb of the handicapped parking spot at the end of the row. I thought of saying something to her like, "So, killing two birds with one stone there? Taking away a handicapped spot from someone who needs it and feeling too good to take your cart back where the 'little' people return them, eh?" Instead, I shot her a dirty look which she answered with a "what are you going to do about it, huh?" look, and I moved on.

The thing is, she wasn't parked right next to that handicapped spot, which at least would make her cart disposal somewhat understandable (laziness). She was parked practically equidistance between that spot and the accepted point of return, the corral. To me she was saying, "I'm too good to put my cart away where I'm supposed to." And as she roared away in a flowery cloud of old lady expensive perfume and the exhaust fumes from her expensive, gigantic SUV, she reeked of that line of thinking about more than just her shopping cart.

I don't always like to put my shopping cart back. Those little corrals aren't usually strategically placed to make them convenient to every parking space. It's a minor hassle. But it is a decent, thoughtful thing to do. It requires a moment of stepping outside of oneself and thinking, "What if this cart dings a car as it rolls away in the strong Nebraska winds? Or what about the poor little cart collector who will have to chase that cart all over the parking lot in the subzero temperatures?" It's hard to justify the 30 seconds one saves by not taking it back, when you think, golden rule style, of other people for just a couple of moments.

I think, however, that we're dealing with a societal epidemic. Even though I seem to be suggesting it is class related in the example I give above, it isn't. That same line of thinking applies to people who drive as if they are the only person on the road. People who go through a clearly red light when turning just because they don't want to wait through another light cycle, causing the people who have patiently waited their turn going the other direction to wait a little longer as the usurper goes through. These are people who talk loudly in movies, almost as if to challenge someone to tell them to be quiet. These are people who stop in the middle of a narrow aisle in a grocery or department store, blocking people from the merchandise in that area while they gab for minutes with a friend without seeming to notice the nuisance this causes to the people around them. And on and on and on.

What worries me is that kids see their parents doing this, acting this way, running the red light, not putting the shopping cart away, showing no sign of recognition of the feelings or needs of the people around them, and they assume it's okay. They assume that it's normal to act that way, and they perpetuate the behaviors until good manners and common decency are all but bred out of our society. These days you can hardly fault a kid (even though I still find myself becoming annoyed when it happens) for rude behavior (especially when a parent is present) because it seems that they truly don't know any better.

This is a problem that unites racial and socioeconomic groups into one, inconsiderate bunch. It doesn't seem to matter what background a person comes from, rudeness permeates society.

I am not Emily Post. As we've already established, I'm not even that nice of a person. But I do try to live by the golden rule. I put my cart away. I try to drive keeping the safety of others in mind. I may not be volunteering at a soup kitchen, but I will meet the gaze of a person holding the door for me and say thank you. I will seek to find ways to be decent to my other fellow human beings. Small things do matter.

Let's make our bible school teachers happy and start living by the golden rule. We'll all be happier, the bird will be flipped less often, and cart collectors everywhere will thank you.