Why can’t we just behave? Rudeness is everywhere these days

Why can’t everyone just behave?

Manners. What ever happened to manners?

Remember napkins? Fabric squares that once covered your crotch before soup slurped on it?

Helping someone impaired through a train door before actually tossing them onto the track?

We once had a book about manners. Now no book. Now no manners.

Kids come into kindergarten not with cardboard alphabets — but with knives, guns.

Now, zooming the wrong way, you’re slammed with a motorbike — no “pardon me” as they cycle onto the next — or maybe just learn how to do it to others before they do it to you. It’s really rude.

Polite-less

Recently a 50ish attorney — famous, respected, name in the headlines — awaited an elevator. Also one other 20ish girl in a T-shirt. And shorts. Short shorts. Real short. Like covering what she might’ve found useful the night before. The elegant lawyer took a half-step back allowing her to precede him. She railed at him screaming, “What’re you, stupid? An antique? We’re same as you, good as you. Do same jobs as you.”

He was so stunned he almost forgot the crooked pol he was there to defend.

Once came books on how to. How to slurp soup. How to pat your wide open jaw after consuming a mouthful. How to open a door for a lady. How to throw out Fauci’s photo. That dude running Russia has it down pat. He knows never attack an enemy when a friend is closer.

Experts often stewed: What is their problem? Born aggressive, is it their stress? Burnout? No patience. No jobs. No money. No advancement. No patriotism. No love for family, no future, no background, no relaxation, no clean jeans, no dumb ass AI? What?!

1922 brought Emily Post’s book on etiquette. Now that’s only used to balance a creaky bridge table. Or how to assist a partner who might also be creaky. Or how to dump a mayor who has already creaked.

Used to be we knew how to take care of children, handle the aged, help the poor, find doctors for the needy, bank with the few who won’t steal, repair your phone which tells you only the weather, find a Republican to vote for, get a raise, locate a shoe repair place, see a movie that isn’t just stabbing, killing, murdering, decimating, setting afire or Tom Cruise jumping on a stalled Metro-North.

Class dismissed

Specialists say it all began after the pandemic. I don’t understand. What’s that got to do with not working? With shooting up? With knocking yourself out?

Elon makes cars with no drivers. Soon airplanes with no pilots. We already have churches empty. Synagogues not jammed. Streets lack garbage collectors. Schools closed. Clubs shut. Restaurants on bus lanes. Politicians who are usually “unemployed.” Trains break. Rails crack. Bridges disintegrate. Boats sink. Contractors with buildings tumbling. Lettuce contaminated. All we’re manufacturing are liars and losers.

America the Beautiful. America the great. America land that we love. America — land for which our Fathers died. Are we — greatest nation God ever created — great or what?!

Only in the USA, kids, only in the USA.