Why Don't They Ask Us?

How many times in the course of a week do you shake your head at the seeming stupidity of your fellow man (and woman)? Or at the lack of manners rampant today? Or maybe you cry a few tears at the sheer insensitivity of someone you know and love?

In the course of a week my husband and I see a lot of people, some we know and many more we don't. Now you have to realize we are both 'people' people, meaning we like those who share the earth with us, but increasingly when that green car pulls out from the sideroad right smack in front of us and we hit the brakes, we shout "Moron!"

Or on that famous 401 highway slicing Ontario from Windsor to the Quebec border one of the 5 million trucks thundering down it (the one you're passing!) puts on a signal and immediately cuts you off causing another brake pedal stomp. You sit there in the passing lane for five to ten miles while the truck gets up enough speed to actually pass whatever is its obstacle and you're doing the slow burn. "It's all about you!" we shout.

Maybe you're a singer, love to sing in fact, have sung since childhood, at almost every wedding in your huge family, and you do a concert at your local church. It's taken you years to get up the nerve to do this even though solos have been a lifelong joy, and here you are after the event, floating on adrenalin clouds, basking in the standing ovation, the hugs and squeezes, the flood of teary compliments, especially the one from your wet-eyed best friend, and someone in your family brings you down to earth, saying she liked your daughter's voice best. (She does have a great voice!) And you can't get that one negative (to you) thing out of your mind. All the great stuff recedes.

Of course we all have stuff like this and need to deal with it and many worse things through our lives. I do think, however, if we took a course in sensitivity or connectivity in this world we might think before we say or do careless things.

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, we have reached the age when we recognize some of the mistakes around us, probably because we've been there, done that. Why don't they ask us? We say it often enough that now it's a joke. So I ask my readers. Can you relate to my ranting today? Want to write a how-to book for the rest of the world?

Now, I'll just go quietly back to beading, photo-taking and eating strawberries with whipping cream.