Posted on 06/23/2005 5:39:01 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
"Why do people act that way?" a young Delta Airlines stewardess recently asked in astonishment as an underground shuttle scooted among terminals at Georgia's Hartsfield Airport.
"It's manners," an older, exasperated colleague replied. "Most people aren't taught any."
Who knows what outrages they endured that day at 35,000 feet. Serving hundreds of regular people daily, it could be anything.
On a recent flight from La Guardia to Atlanta en route to New Orleans, a young father prepared to change his baby son's diaper on the empty window seat beside his own spot on the aisle. After another horrified passenger and I objected, the tot's mother addressed the infant's biological needs in the appropriate place — the lavatory. She looked disturbed that anyone would oppose the sanitary affront her husband attempted.
The ongoing collapse of courtesy is no surprise in a nation with so many people who are as self-absorbed as black holes. Consider this T-shirt I've spotted: "It's all about me deal with it."
As a consumer of opinion journalism, you likely are refined and well-mannered. If not, or you wish to help someone seemingly reared by pigeons, follow these twelve small steps toward a more polite America.
1) We can hear you now. Even if your party cannot understand your cellular call, those around you often cannot escape your every word. What you ate for lunch and where you are standing right now is far less interesting to them than to you, so restrain your voice. Or better yet, stay off your phone when surrounded by others.
2) Excellent venues to disable cell phones include restaurants, theaters, and funerals, the last four of which I attended were interrupted by mobile phones. Also, there is nothing quite like being in a restroom while a stranger screams his life story into a handheld device. For tips on cellular etiquette, see here.
3) Except for Dionne Warwick, we are not psychic. So, use your car's turn signals. This beats startling nearby drivers by suddenly steering several tons of steel into their paths. Likewise, turning a corner without signaling makes people waste time waiting for you to cross an intersection you never intended to. Conveniently enough, motor vehicles typically include blinkers.
4) Push in your seat when leaving tables in restaurants, libraries, and conference rooms. Abandoning your chair or barstool in the middle of a path obstructs those who walk by after you depart.
5) Before exiting a bathroom, close the toilet — lid and all. Leaving the lid or seat up makes the next guest contemplate whether you stood or sat during your visit. Spare him or her that imagery.
6) It remains civilized to hold open the door for someone who is walking a few steps behind you. Letting the door slam in his face is rude. When someone opens a door for you, say "thank you." Muttering "Excuse me" makes a gracious person feel his thoughtfulness is abusive. Walking by and saying nothing, as if that lady or gentleman were your servant or simply invisible, is vulgar.
7) "Please" and "thank you" are not vulgarities. Use them generously, especially around children. They need to learn two of the language's finest words, even if adults say them less than they should.
8) "RSVP" means, "Tell those who have invited you to an event whether you will attend." They will welcome your "yes" or regret but appreciate your "no." Not replying leaves them perplexed, unclear of how many guests to anticipate, and miffed if you eventually arrive unexpectedly.
9) Thank you notes, e-mails, and phone calls are appropriate when someone has given you a present, meal, or significant favor. Not even acknowledging a Christmas gift, in contrast, is particularly boorish.
10) Always leave your phone number with your phone messages. Let people simply jot down your number rather than drop everything to look it up.
11) Control your kids. It's not cute to let children run amuck on airplanes, kick the backs of people's seats, and holler uncontrollably. Teach your children to restrain themselves in public rather than terrorize grown-ups.
12) Trash cans are there for a reason. Use them. Customer work areas at Kinko's copy shops often resemble an explosion at a paper factory. A major airline's east coast shuttle lounge in Washington, D.C.'s Reagan National Airport — gateway for learned attorneys, lobbyists, journalists, and members of Congress — recently almost suffocated beneath whole sections and loose pages of various newspapers. They were strewn across the floor and on many seats. These literate adults apparently did not have their mommies on hand to locate the ubiquitous, neglected garbage bins.
The point of all this is not necessarily to turn every American man and woman, respectively, into Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, though we could do worse. The idea is to encourage each of us — every day, in tiny ways — to subtract from, rather than add to, the worries of an impolite world.
EXACTLY THE POINT OF THE ARTICLE! It's just FReepin' wrong! and RUDE!
Was that you on Delta flight 432 last Thursday?
Changing a diaper on an airplane while sometimes necessary is still pretty disgusting for other passengers. In these summer months when planes on the tarmack turn into sweat boxes and give them the odor of a poorly maintained locker room, adding to this funk with the odor of a particularly messy diaper is not very appealing. Besides where do you dispose of the dirty diaper?
I agree about manners. When my children go to spend the night with a friend, the parents always comment on the please and thank you's my children state often. As I tell my children, good manners are the foundation of respect. If you can't respect someone enough to say please, thank you, yes ma'm and no ma'm then you are doomed to be a self absorbed jerk. IMO anyway.
Of course I've had a few people who tell me I'm ruining my children by making them say ma'm and sir to their elders. Maybe it's just a southern thing, but I always tell them you don't have to like an adult, but you do have to respect them. Unless they are trying to hurt you, then you beat the hell out of them and scream, lol.
And say it slowly enough so that someone can actually write it down.
The author left off rule 13. The world isn't your ashtray. Keep your stink cigarette butts in your car and dispose of them properly.
I've never forgotten the words of my tobacco-chewing auto shop teacher in high school, "If you are man enough to dip, you are man enough to swallow." He'd let us dip in class (as he did) but one better not let him catch them spitting it. Many a green face in his class from the regular Copenhagen dippers.
Welcome to United, you and some child's ecoli will be sitting in seat 12 B.
I fly often. Most every aircraft I've used the factilities on had a fold-down changing table right there above the throne.
Did you at least complain to the crew about the book?
By yourself? ;-)
Thanks for your restraint. I enjoyed "Unlimited Access," haven't read "Rewriting History." Please let me know what you think.
I used to work with a dipper. Occasionally the boss would come in and engage him in a conversation until he was forced to swallow. It was a great spectator sport.
Hehehe...yeah...I've seen this in action. Most (not all people) have their "coming to Jesus moment" re: life, work, responsibility, fending for themself anywhere between 17 and 30; coupled with one or more of the following: 1. actually feeling like you want to be independant and move out of mommys house, 2. you get a fulltime job and realize that you pay something called taxes and that things cost money, 3. you get married, 4. planned or unplanned...you have a bun in the oven, 5. you get kicked out of the house, 6. you get in trouble with the law and do some time.
Thankfully, for me, number 1 came naturally when I completed college, and I was the furthest from being spoiled and coddled. It is so amusing to me seeing the spoiled and coddled finally "getting it" LOL.
Brevity is indeed the soul of wit! Great line, mind if I borrow it?
It's all yours. Enjoy.
Seems like most of the tales of traveler's woe can be summed up like this: You are going to have to deal with things you don't like. Not everyone wants to offend you, and sometimes people make the best of a bad situation trying to cause the least disturbance. So, the difference between whining and a good story is attitude.
For example, I once had to take a bus and was seated next to a large lady who told me she had been on the road for three days. She had lots of smelly food, her clothes told the tale of her endurance and every time the bus rounded a corner her flesh and smell flowed into me, pressing me against the far corner of my seat. But she was nice and friendly and I had no particular complaint to make. She really couldn't help it. So I never forgot that trip, and I have a good story. I still laugh when I remember it. Too bad some want everything sanitized, but it ain't gonna happen. Sometimes its best to go with the flow.
"Of course I've had a few people who tell me I'm ruining my children by making them say ma'm and sir to their elders."
I don't doubt your word, but I am astounded at that.
Talk about rude! Not only telling you how to raise you children, but telling you to raise them rude.
What in the world would lead somebody to think something like that, much less say it?
"I once had to sit next to Grace Kelly on a plane. She grabbed my coffee mug and used it as a spit can for her chewing tobacco....Okay, not really."
Still, that was really, really funny.
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