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Oct
20
Why I Hate Us, v. 1
2008 at 1pm Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
The woman in line behind me at Target lost her dangly hoop earrings in someone’s bed.
“Whose bed did she lose them in?” you ask. I don’t know. Could be her boyfriend or her booty call or some random guy she met at the bar last night.
Why do I know all about this? Because she called him on her cell phone (or her mobile, for those of you across the pond) and had an extensive conversation with him while she waited in the checkout line. She doesn’t know when she lost them, but she thinks they could be caught in a blanket or under a pillow or maybe even under the bed. (I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to know how they could have gotten there.)
It turned around a few times and threw her my best “this is totally not OK” looks, but she was oblivious to the fact that she wasn’t alone and impervious to my “shame on you” judgment. I mean really, couldn’t this mystery have been solved via text message, if it really were so urgent as to require communication from the Target checkout line?
Attention shoppers: social inappropriateness in aisle 5.
And this is why I hate us. Dick Meyer is right—Americans have become unbearably rude, and I’ve had just about enough of it. Click here to read my review of his fantastic book Why We Hate Us and here for another example of why I hate us.
It’s Monday, and we all deserve a little space to vent. So, tell me, why do you hate us? What socially awful atrocities have you witnessed lately?
Related posts:
I hate even more: talking on the cell phone while in a stall going to the bathroom in a public restroom. Great conversations too: “I’m tinkling at O’Hare now…”
During the week I interact chiefly with the people at my local coffeeshop, who are generally not insane, so I don’t have a story for today. But on Saturday I went out to brunch with my boyfriend to a place with a wait, and while I was walking from the door to the hostess’s podium (about five feet, mind), a woman with a toddler in each arm ran through the door, knocked into me, apologized for bumping into me, and then proceeded to rush to the hostess to get her name in before mine.
Fortunately my boyfriend realized the kind of scene I was about to make, because I do not stop at glares in a situation like this, and managed to grab me and pull me right out of the restaurant before I could even say anything.
I hate US because too many of us are still narrow-minded and unfortunately racists…my daughter went on a camping trip with her GScout troop this weekend…and I was appalled at what some of these kids were saying about Obama…where did they learn it from…PARENTS or ADULTS…it really made me sick to my stomach…so much so that I’m going to call the leaders to see if they were privy to these conversations and if they were why did they allow them to occur without intervening and providing ACCURATE information but then again they might be as narrowminded as many other Americans in our midst…sigh.
Rude behavior stories make my blood pressure skyrocket! I’m trying to calm myself down just thinking about all of the terrible cell phone conversations I’ve been privvy to. Unfortunately, my list of annoyances is so long, anyone who had to sit through them would think I’m the biggest jerk in the world — or “Behavior Nazi”!
I guess one of my biggest “I hate us” statements would be hating us for the deplorable behavior I constantly witness in movie theatres — so much so that I really, really don’t like going to them at all anymore. Between the constant chatter, need to get up in the middle of the film for loud snacks, answering cell phones and constant texting, I just can’t take it anymore. Can’t we be disconnected for two hours? Must we be in CONSTANT communication with everyone we’ve ever met in our lives? Can’t we just sit and enjoy a film?!
Off to drink some hot tea and decompress at my desk now… haha
What a terrific question. I think those of us that take public transportation can quickly flash on to reasons similar to yours, where the people talk about their STDs on cell phones in the middle of a crowded bus or train. Or start bawling for no reason. Or get into wicked fights. Seen it all and then some.
Another reason I hate us? Have you seen the vitriol on display at McCain/Palin rallies? Yep. The worst of us, by those proud of their racism and anger.
The US movie rating system and how it’s policed in cinemas has always baffled me, particularly where the R rating is concerned.
For the benefit of non-US readers, the R rating indicates that anyone under 17 has to be accompanied by an adult. In other words, it’s perfectly fine for a 2 year-old kid to sit down and watch, erm, Saw IV in an American cinema, just as long as they’re accompanied by someone aged 18 or above.
By comparison, the movie was rated 18 in the UK, which means there won’t be one single person in the audience younger than that age (fake ID aside). (And no one under 18 can legally buy or rent the movie either.)
Which is the more sensible option? Yeah, I’m going with the second one. There will always be people who’d complain that the UK system is some sort of violation of their civil rights (“It should be up to me if I want my two year-old child to watch Saw IV, not the government!”), but I think some people occasionally need common sense forced upon them for their own good. When Saw IV comes out on DVD, they can have Crazy Jr. watch it as many times as they like.
The reason I mention this is due to the time my wife and I went to see Matrix Revolutions (yeah, a big pile of crap, but we’d invested 4 hours of our lives in the previous two installments and needed SOME closure!).
In the US, the movie was rated R. So what happens, about 10 minutes into the movie? Yeah, a family of about 8 people decided to stagger into the movie theater, juggling hot dogs, barrels of soda and two babies.
Yes, two babies. And we knew this because they cried and cried and cried for about 20 minutes.
To make matters worse, they were all trying to situate themselves on the front row, so they pretty much did this whole song and dance routine as they spent forever trying to get settled. Every five minutes one of the mothers would get up, screaming infant in hand, and take them outside to try and quieten them down. Not that it did much good, because the one left behind would just scream and cry anyway.
And you know what? I couldn’t blame them. Anyone subjected to a thirty foot tall image of Keanu Reeves’ sweaty ass, as he pumps Carrie Moss in time to some wall-shaking third class techno soundtrack, is going to come away from the experience with a tear in their eye and a bucketful of nightmares. I know I did.
So, again I wonder what the point of allowing screaming infants into an R-rated movie actually is. In the UK, the movie was sensibly rated a 15, thus allowing its target audience to enjoy it without being distracted by sobbing infants. I dare say a few 13 year-olds were unhappy with the deal, but though shit. Wait for it to appear on DVD and let your parents decide if you should watch it.
So, to summarise: parents who drag their infants along to R-rated movies and spoil the whole experience for everyone. Plus the cinema chains who don’t give a crap because it puts more dollars in their till.
o my god…have you ever lived in d.c….??? this happens everywhere…the cell phone is attached to their ear via wireless and they have loud conversations walking down the street, in the bathroom, in the elevator, in doctors’ office waiting rooms, the check out line, everywhere. I used to work in a camera shop that develop photos…i did the photo development and I refused to wait on customers who talked on the phone because there are questions and answers that must be asked and given. One time a woman asked me why I skipped over her and I told her point blank that I wait on customers who are ready to be waited upon. The woman behind her was very grateful. If I had waited for the cell phone talker, she would have had to wait at least 30 minutes for me to get the questions I need answered…like do you want single prints or doubles, do you want a cd, etc. My God!
Rhapsody: That drives me nuts, too, and I hear A LOT of it at work. “Oh yeah, I’m just at the bookstore.” So I always make sure to flush a couple times, in hopes that it will embarass the person.
Nicole: In that situation, I would go beyond glaring also. Good thing your boyfriend was there to rein you in….my hubby has a pretty good sense of when I’m about to fly off the handle, but if it’s justified, he usually lets me, which is fun.
Yasmin: That’s maddening. Ignorance is just so difficult to stomach.
Meg: I hear ya—we sat next to a teenage couple during the last Harry Potter film, and in between providing running commentary on the film (totally obnoxious), the boy kept pulling out his phone and texting. Until I politely asked him to stop. Then he was afraid of scary lady.
Wordporn (what a great name): When I lived in Chicago, I loved the hideous displays on public transportation. It’s awful, but you can’t look away.
Mark: here here.
I could go on and on about rudeness. My biggest peeves right now are talking on the cell phone while peeing. I work at a university and it happens ALL the time. The next one on the list is not saying thank you when someone holds the door for you. Common courtesy seems to go out the window a lot these days.
I just took my two older kids to swim practice. I had merge into a line of traffic heading into town (rush hour in Mayberry RFD). The cars heading into town were c..r..a..w..l..i..n..g along, yet six cars c..r..a..w..l..e..d before the seventh stopped and waved me in!
My kids asked, why didn’t anyone else let you in?
My reply, I guess they needed to be ahead of me. It made them happier to move ahead of me than it made me upset to not be let in (then I had to explain my poor syntax; but they got it — don’t sweat the small stuff!)
Cell phones give you cancer, I’m just sure of it! People are so rude that it’s almost comical. Now I ignore almost everyone, which makes me kind of rude too. Oh well!
What bothers me?
People that can’t/won’t dance but still go out on the dancefloor (in a crowded club or bar, where people are moving/dancing/living) and just stand there, drunk, belligerent, and blow the good music vibes by being so gloomily stationary.
Let’s get right with the rhythm people.
Is that too much to ask?
One of my favorite stories admittedly is one of those a friend of a friend of a friend over heard this, but still the value of the story stands:
A man is talking loudly on his cell phone in Union Station while waiting for his train to New York. He is endlessly bragging to whoever is on the phone about the wonderful hotel he has reserved and the strings he had to pull to get into the restaurants and shows he’s going to see. During the conversation, he even refers to himself in the 3rd person. He does all of this loudly enough that he is not only bragging to his friend on the phone, but to everyone waiting to get on the train.
Hearing all of this, one man, also waiting, gets fed up and makes his own phone calls. He calls the hotel, restaurants and theaters and cancels all of the man’s reservations.
That makes me love us. Don’t get mad, get even.
Belle: I love that! It sounds too good to be true, but I hope it is. How fantastic. That does restore my faith in humanity a bit.
Respect for others. That’s what I see missing. I wish I could think of a way we could get better at this.
[...] here to read my previous rant, here for my review of Dick Meyer’s Why We Hate Us, and here for a [...]
I found the book more sad at the spiritual void our society has come to as we try to fill our lives with things in place of social connections, meaningful relationships and a purpose / direction in life. I think the point is not really people act throughtless, but rather sad they cannot seem to find meaning out side of the self. We search for our sense of self though images of idealized, marketed lifestyle packages instead of the unconvient trial and error and serving a purpose greater than ourselves. I don’t even notice such rudeness anymore because anger is only going to hurt me not them. I find it better to just be sad when people are so despertaley trying to get attention to whomever will listen that they have never developed an inner self, one that is authendic, independant of the all the stuff, all the posturing, all the bullshit