Some people would say that we are dealing with generations of humans who, to put it politely, may have been released from the education system prematurely. From the content of some of the daily head-scratching news snippets and so-called entertainment we’ve seen lately, those opinions may be right.
Case in point. As I was on my way to prepare this very post. I was a few cars back in a left turn lane and waiting for the light to change. A pedestrian stepped off the curb, wove between the vehicles stopped in traffic and continued to their destination of a bodega on the opposing corner. The white-lined crosswalk, where drivers expect to see pedestrians in motion, was steps away.
Did this person call in sick from kindergarten for a full year and miss out on this basic life-saving rule? When one steps into the designated crosswalk, the drivers waiting to proceed are ready to acknowledge their presence, and the walker lessens the risk of an unexpected injury by a considerable margin.
Many a time I have groaned in parking lots when people returning to their vehicles meander through the zones between the herringbones of parked conveyances, even ignoring those who must stop or slow to a crawl behind them. The drivers aren’t capable of parking between two lines or spacing themselves just shy of the barrier in front, leaving their expensive rides with butts or front bumpers protruding for a foot or more or at an impossible angle for others to navigate.
One only needs to troll social media to find hilarious and, sometimes, headache-inducing examples of people who either never got the memo or decided it was wise to rebel against convention. For every news article I see about which my first question is, “What were they thinking,” I want to sit them down and actually find out. I want to get a handwritten story about them and why they did what they did, so I could better understand why things in this world have degenerated from respectful liberty to thoughtless anarchy. If you can write about it, the act of reading the thoughts of somebody who seems to be thoughtless may offer clues as to the true state of mind in some of these dim bulbs we are finding in life’s chandelier.
Perhaps, in a twist of fate, this explains why handwriting and penmanship have been discontinued in education. Nothing good can come from graduating students who can’t even spell ransom notes out of cut-out letters from printed media, let alone submit a scrawled note.
I saw a photo of a clothing article for sale which read, “never been weared,” which lead me to go off on a social media post this past week about folks who say “could of” instead of “could have.” For those of you who have read my past grumblings about grammar, you know I’m on a starvation diet on that hill. And no, I wasn’t interested in the item which had never been worn.
We enjoy watching videos of people who have no clue at all, such as a popular restaurant humor feed on social media (okay, maybe two) in which people can’t comprehend the menu. One example is the different terms used for identifying the sizes of tomatoes. A customer didn’t want cherry tomatoes on her salad because she was allergic to cherries, blissfully unaware that the term describes the small, round appearance of what is one hundred percent just a tomato. Or the person who mistook Chilean sea bass for fish oddly served with a common meal of sauce and beans (what we call chili).
The worst restaurant patrons must be visitors to a restaurant specializing in one culture’s food and expecting another’s to be on the menu. I knew somebody who always ordered one food no matter where we were eating, because they figured it was on every menu. The first problem was that they had a reading disability which was never diagnosed or treated. The other issue was one which seems to be a stubborn trait some people refuse to break free from, when the only foods that matter in their world are those to which they have been exposed, so everything else is something they would not like, even if it’s similar to a dish they know. An example includes the person who could not drink anything in the establishment because it wasn’t their accepted cola from between the two main competitors in our country. You know them both. Damn cola wars. They didn’t want something else to drink, either, in an eatery with several beverages and a full bar.
Attitude and stubbornness contribute greatly to our ignorance, because the fight itself prevents even the inkling of a new idea from appearing for consideration. And so an entire populace deprives themselves of the joys of a whole wide world they could explore within reason.
Sure our world has advice and precautions. That doesn’t mean your ability to think is restricted, but you may live longer to think harder if you just follow along.
When I was young, you crossed the street at the crosswalk. The cars knew you were there, you knew everybody was stopped, you had the light, and everything was right with the world. The person who tries to pull an Al Pacino (think Midnight Cowboy) and dodge oncoming traffic often feels that they should be in the right no matter what they are doing, when it isn’t common sense in the first place. If you’re “walking here” instead of “there,” where you’re supposed to, it’s at your own risk, my friend.
Some things are meant to be in your best interest, even if they feel like impositions, such as crosswalks and learning to create words with your hands, and understanding the basics of dining in a restaurant. The more we need to explain these things which should be common knowledge, the worse off we are as a universe of sentient beings.
I’m sure more of these indiscretions will appear in the future. For now, I just hope nobody in all dark clothing decides not to cross at the crosswalk.
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