I am old. I don’t feel old, nor do I look that old. However, my views on certain things are rapidly becoming antiquated.
Call me old fashioned if you like, but I still think people should thank you for holding the door open for them. Christ, just having someone hold a door open is becoming a lost art in itself. The concept of say “Thank you” is alien to many folks no matter which generation they’re from.
I have grown so perturbed that I will inquire of the mannerless prick if I look like a doorman. If they are rude enough to mock me with a yes response I’ll reply “Well now I know what a talking asshole looks like.” Most times they react as if they are the wounded party, oblivious to the notion that manners of any kind exist at all, or are practiced in this culture.
Since my return to college back in 2001 and subsequent return last month, I have come to notice a new trend in poor manners. Due to physical condition, I frequently take the elevator instead of the stairs. Most buildings where my classes are held have multiple floors necessitating an elevator. But this recent development applies to any multi-floor structure that houses an elevator. Maybe you’ve noticed it too.
When exiting an elevator at my desired floor, there is invariably one or more individuals standing directly in front of the parting doors. Maybe these poor lost souls are unaware that other people besides them use these marvels of convenience. That perhaps they are not the lone inhabitants of this planet, and maybe, just maybe someone may want to disembark, preferably before they insist on getting on.
What is it with these jerkoffs; do they really think that because they summoned the elevator that it would stop whatever it was doing, forcibly eject those already on, and race to those who beckoned it.
I understand that a crude form of early elevator was called a dumb waiter. Does that mean due to this relatively recent rudeness phenomenon we are going to change the name from “elevator” to douchebag conveyer?” And if we do, let’s see how quick these inconsiderate dolts rush to use it.
Since I’m talking about elevators, there is a certain decorum that I grew up with that is unfamiliar to women of the next generation. I was brought up to allow women to enter and exit an elevator before the man does.
Look, I know all this equal rights bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t rise whenever a woman enters the room or excuses herself from the table like Hugh Jackman’s 19th century character did in Kate and Leopold. Who by the way did not invent the elevator and name it after his butler Otis as depicted in the movie. Elisha Otis invented the first safe elevator in 1852 and got the patent for it in January of 1861. Poor Mr. Otis died four months later. It would have been a touch of irony to have said he died when the cable broke and the emergency brake failed on the elevator he was riding in, but alas no.
Now where was I…oh yeah the manners thing. When I allow –normally after prodding (no, not a cattle prod. I just say “after you”)- a young lady to enter the elevator before me, she looks at me as if she’s stuck at a four way stop intersection and she has no clue about who has right of way. It’s the same shit when I exit an elevator. I always have to say “after you” to get them to move.
Have all these women been treated with such disdain or are unaware of any form of male chivalry? Unless they are total hard asses, they don’t know what they’re missing. It’s just a small way of letting these women know that they are deserving of a little respect no matter how little they’ve ever been on the receiving end of it. And if you women don’t want chivalry, or you think it’s dead –I always say “Chivalry’s not dead, it’s just in a coma (always get a chortle)- then you’d better be prepared to pay for every dinner bill, open your own fucking doors, pull your own chair out, give me flowers, order the goddamn wine –it better be good-, be told “yes, that dress makes you look fat, and you’d better be fucking happy about it! May your hard-fought independence bring you much joy.
But for now I’ll continue my mastadonic ways. I used to do it to be nice. I used to it because maybe that person needed something nice to happen to them that day. I used to do it because that’s the way I was raised and people once appreciated it. Now I’ll do it because I refuse to let rude people piss in my corn flakes, and ill-mannered dickwads rule the day. I’ll continue to do it because maybe it’ll catch on again. But mostly I’ll do it because it makes me feel good. Ah fuck it, maybe I’ll just take the stairs.
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