A Brief Thought About Civility...

So I’m sitting at a study carrel on the 3rd floor of the Newton Library and some fat mustachioed asshole is talking at full volume on his cell about replacement windows. At least pretend to whisper, instead of just blithely chattering away about various sizes and installation dates or anything else, for that matter. It’s just so rude....

Speaking of rude...on the way here, I stopped at Whole Foods to grab a sandwich and a bottle of water. I’m in the “Express” lane, 12 items or less. There are two women in line ahead of me. The woman immediately in front of me, a Newtonian housewife probably in her late 50’s, looks at my sandwich & water and says “please go ahead of me, that’s all you have.” I thanked her for the kindness, appreciating the selflessness of the gesture, however small. But I waited and waited and waited....for the woman at checkout, an artistically entitled type around my age, had two separate orders to be rung, each with considerably more than 12 items. And she did not give a second thought (or a first, for that matter) to how she was tying up the line, demanding in that patronizing, passive-aggressive manner of the truly arrogant, that everything be bagged to her specifications (like the friggin’ oranges need be far away from the mangoes, lest the war of the citrus be fought in her reusable shopping bag). It was infuriating...this woman seemed completely unaware that there was anyone else in line waiting, that anyone else’s time was of equal value to her own.

This is the age we live in, where civility is a dying art, a language not spoken by the self-aggrandizing masses. America has become a loud, noisy place full of nonsensical distractions and a culture focused not on the truly pressing issues of the day but on a cult of meaningless celebrity where fame is a means unto itself and mirroring the behavior of reality show douchebags and idiotic celebutards is somehow accepted, rather than given the instant repudiation it deserves. We have a generation coming up that is constantly screaming for attention, constantly shouting “look at me!” I’m looking...and then I’m looking away in disgust, looking off in the distance in the hope that something meaningful might be just over the horizon...or maybe I’m just getting old...