People seem to react to what's around them impulsively instead of thinking about their actions.
I was at the grocery store yesterday armed with a coupon for free stick butter. When I arrived in the dairy aisle, a customer was blocking the butter with her cart. There was enough room for me to walk between the shelf and her cart, so I politely said excuse me and reached for the butter. She was checking off a list, not actually buying butter. I turned and walked down to the milk. As I was parking my cart and reached for the milk, the same woman walked up and pushed me in to my cart. She then said excuse me and walked off smirking.
A similar experience happened at Walmart. I was walking down an aisle on the right side and a woman started walking toward me in the middle of the aisle. As I was just about to walk by, she reached in front of me and grabbed a large item halfway off the shelf blocking me from moving further. I politely said excuse me, can I please get by....and she told me I should turn around and walk out the other way instead of expecting her to let me by.
When I went to the register, an elderly gentleman in front of me said he was in line the other day waiting his turn with five customers behind him. He heard someone say excuse me so he scooted his cart over to allow room for the other person to walk by. Instead, the person walked in front of him and cut him in line.
Driving is another area where I see people do the strangest things that I didn't see happening a decade ago. There is a store in town that has been there since the 1950s. At the edge of the parking lot is a large long curb. To exit, you pull up next to this curb and turn either left or right. Yet twice in the past month, as I'm waiting to turn right, an oncoming car has come up in front of me and jumped the curb with their vehicle. I have never seen this behavior by a driver ever before and I have lived here my entire life. The proper way would be to turn in to the parking lot to the left of the car at the curb.
Patience, common sense, values, ethics have been replaced by anger, bitterness, and resentment. People rush around like life is a contest to see who can get nowhere the fastest.
When I was growing up, I knew almost every one in my neighborhood by first name. The ones left don't speak to me now and the new ones don't want to be a part of a community.
