Sarah+B’s+OpEd+Article



=**"Are Manners Extinct?**"= =By Sarah B.=

You’re sitting at your desk trying to comprehend the seemingly random string of words that are spewing from your teacher’s mouth, when the kid to your left turns his head and coughs directly in your ear. What goes through your mind as you feel the pressure of their carelessly expelled cloud of hot, germy breath penetrate your ear and splatter on your cheek? Hopefully you are disgusted. Why did they turn their head to cough directly on you instead of keeping their head facing forward, coughing on their desk? What kept their arm weighted down at their side, unable to protect you from this unsanitary discharge? Obviously this kid hates you and has now infected himself with a disease just so he can give it to you, thereby getting rid of you at last. Otherwise, why would he do it?

Perhaps the more reasonable answer is that, for whatever reason, we have forgotten how to behave like respectable humans. As children, we learn to say “please” and “thank you” and to refrain from coughing on our peers. As we grow older, though, we seem to forget it all. Take a walk around any high school campus and you’ll quickly notice the halls congested with stationary children, blocking traffic in all directions. You’ll see kids two steps away from a trash can dropping their garbage on the ground. You can watch them partake in animalistic behavior, such as wrestling and fighting. Now, I don’t mind when they play like animals, but they pay no mind to who’s around them. When they push one another or something silly like that, they don’t care when they mistakenly hit an innocent bystander, or somehow step on their legs and get mud all over their jeans, which has happened to me. Don’t you notice when you step on someone? Shouldn’t it be even more obvious when you do it TWICE in the span of two minutes? This is all terribly rude and inconsiderate. One thing I cannot stand is people who are blatantly rude.

This horrific epidemic is even seen in the adult population, which makes me lose the small amount of faith I have left in humanity. The other day some friends and I ate lunch at Snapper Jack’s. Being around noon, it was getting pretty crowded and all the tables were taken. My friends and I were finishing our food as we noticed two grown women stalking us like prey. I quickly gathered that they wanted our table, since they wouldn’t stop staring at us and creeping closer and closer (which is rude by itself). So, naturally, we gathered our things to leave. Just as we stood from our seats, an elderly man sat at our table, claiming it for his elderly wife and himself. The two women were not pleased and seemed offended with his behavior. I’m positive the man didn’t see the two stalker-women, but we should treat our elderly with respect regardless, should we not? We should give up our bus seats to the elderly, right? Why not our table? The polite thing would have been to give the elderly couple the table, even if that meant that the two women could not sit.

Why do we find it so difficult to be respectful? What’s so hard about muttering a “thank you” or covering your mouth when you sneeze or cough? What’s so hard about keeping track of your body in relation to the rest of the world, so you don’t step on anyone? What’s so hard about not thinking about yourself for just one moment?

What should we do about this epidemic? Should we have classes to teach manners in high school? Or should we just let it die and revert back into animals, running around in loin cloths and living in caves (the entrances of which will be blocked with congregations of cavemen and monkeys), while being free to cough in everyone’s ears as we please?

A part of me thinks that we should round up all those who have no manners and force some into them, but I know that wouldn’t work. Perhaps there should be some sort of punishment in the real world (outside of school) like community service for those who lack manners?