Friedrich and I had a chat this weekend about this, and I'd love to hear what the rest of you think on this.

As children, it was drilled into us to behave in certain ways in public. Use your manners, don't push and shove, don't eat and talk at the same time, don't throw a fit if you can't get what you want, etc. What happened? I constantly see people, from the very young, to the very old, act in ways that are just plain rude and nasty.

Case in point - this weekend at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Adult humans behaving like small mammals with attitude. Pushing past each other, standing in the middle of everything, taking pictures of other people standing in the middle of everything. Giving you dirty looks if you walked between the two. Giving you dirty looks if you stood there looking at them, waiting for them to finish. One pair nearly ran over Dolly on the way to the aquarium. When I told Dolly to walk in front of me so as to be less likely to be run over, one of the women turned and said, "I wouldn't have run over your little girl." Hmmm, I think that odd, considering that you went around me moving like a freight train, and had I not said something, you probably wouldn't have seen her. Perhaps I am overly aware of personal space (one of the things my mom was a HUGE stickler about), but I still don't enjoy having someone blow by me like a semi on the highway. I also consider it my personal responsibility to make my child aware of those around her, so she isn't unintentionally rude. By training my child to think of others, as well as herself, I'm giving her the tools to have a smoother path through life, by not annoying her fellow man.

People letting their children act horribly, too. The child who nearly broke limbs on Dolly and I, when he decided he needed to hit the revolving door at top speed while we were in it. He then proceeded to be extremely rude as he crammed us through the contraption so he could shoot out the other side. He was then followed by his mother and two sisters, who ran into me while looking at the wildlife. We dodged this crew not once, not twice, but three times, while trying to enjoy the exhibit. We made every effort to be somewhere they were not, they were that unaware and obnoxious. Later, someone's young child wandered up to me, without a parent in sight, and started trying to force Dolly and I do what he wanted with an exhibit.

Here's where my questions are: Am I TOO polite? Are we handicapping our child by making her use her good manners? Do we need to let our child run amok, so she can "be like the other kids?" Do I need to shut off the voices in my head that tell me that knocking someone down to get to what I want is wrong, and just go for it, like so many other people? Because, quite frankly, being a polite human seems to be an oddity these days. I see a lot more people being totally unaware of those around them and thundering over others in the herd than I see people being kind enough to hold a door, an elevator, etc.

Maybe I'm just too aware of my surroundings, and the people in them. Maybe I need to tune out a little more, and be happier for it...

Finally, an odd moment, and my view:
Coming back to our room in the hotel, we saw a women, in a bathrobe, sitting in the floor of the hallway. We couldn't tell what she was doing there, as she was sort of hunched over, almost as if she was in tears or something. When we got a little closer, she sort of looked up at me and said, "Hello." I asked if she was ok. She didn't answer - because she was sitting there talking on her CELL PHONE. OK, does anyone else find it odd that you'd think it better to sit in the floor of the hall and talk on your phone, in a bathrobe, than to stay in your room and maybe hang out in the bathroom, if you're worried about disturbing someone else in your room? No way on earth you'd catch me sitting in the hall in a bathrobe, let alone to talk on the cell. Eep. Either I'm super old fashioned, or people are just weird...