“When you get to my age, your
tolerance for bullshit is going to get real short.”
B. tells me.
“The reason why is that as you get
older, everything you experience becomes ceaseless...a repetition of
'Been there, Done that.' How long will your patience last after
you've 'done that' 11,304 times?”
I had a tiny experience with this last
night. Perhaps the younger generation doesn't understand etiquette
or the rules for it have changed and I'm the one
who's clueless. I ain't so sure now.
When I see an empty chair at a bar,
restaurant or wherever in public, and there's a coat draped on it, a
beer sitting on the table in front of it with keys, or a plate of
food, I tend to think that chair is “owned.” Obviously someone
was sitting there and will come back in a few.
**
I came back from the bathroom and saw
this sort of pretty young women, about 22, in my chair. I then get
real close to her, reach right by her face with my arm to retrieve my
beer. Basically I'm violating the hell out of her personal bubble
space on purpose. She then shoots this annoyed look at me and I say:
“Wow, I was gone for two minutes and
you jumped right into my spot!”
She then giggles some, reaches out to
flirtatiously brush my arm and flips her hair and says: “Oh, well
I saw it was open.” I get one of those great toothy smiles and
dead-on eye contact. Once she's done, she turns around and goes back
to texting, completely blowing me off.
“Holy shit” I think to myself, “She
ain't moving!” I also am taken aback a bit by this breach of
etiquette. What balls!
I remain there for twenty long seconds
and then bark:
“GET OUT!”
To that I have my hitch-hiking thumb
extended that accompanies my demand and points, “Get on down the
road, bum!”
She jumps from the change in my
attitude and gets out of the chair as well. As she leaves, she
shoots me this bratty, almost pig-faced “I didn't get to keep my
candy” look back at me. She moves back down to where her other
friends are, all the while acting like she just smelled burning cat
fur.
Two guys about her age were watching
this show. They were right behind me the whole time and seemed
startled by what I just did.
One says to me, “Wow, that was mean
and rude.”
“Hopping into my chair when it was
obvious someone was sitting there wasn't?” I say
in defense. “Why does she get a pass for her bad manners?”
I then see what they are both thinking
and I go on.
“How many times have women done this
to you? Girls your age? Flirting with you to get their way?” I ask.
“Alot” they both nearly say at the
same time.
“Uh-huh...and how many times did you
get laid by acquiescing to it?”
“None” they both nearly say again.
“Now you're
learning, boyo!” I say in a mock Irish accent.
“Get to my age and you won't fall for
those little tricks anymore. You're hopes of 'getting it' shouldn't
be based on manipulative teasing that was never meant to attract you.
Don't worry, after it happens to you 630 times, you'll get sick of
it.”
**
What the kicker of this was, it
happened again thirty minutes later. Another twenty-something jumps
into my chair when I got up for about five minutes.
I come back and see this guy who had
pushed my belongings over to put his in place. His beer, his keys,
his iPhone, his burger and fries.
This time I grab my coat that was
draped on the chair and start roughly yanking on it. This got his
attention as he was also sort of sitting on it.
“OH...Sorry...You were sitting here?”
he says.
“Yes, I was.”
He then grabs his stuff and moves on.
I sit down, look towards heaven and
roll my eyes.
Have the rules changed and I'm just not
“with it” anymore or are some of these kids just oafs?
No comments:
Post a Comment