10 rare things that are seldom seen because they are... well, rare!

As I go about my daily life, I have encountered several things that I find interesting. That being said, it is the lack of certain things that I find the most interesting of all. Walk with me through a journey of the rarest things that I have encountered within this last year. Perhaps you have spotted these things that I have missed, or perhaps you are all too aware of these rarities yourself...

I’m not sure what the original intention was behind the forum platform on hubpages, but my guess is that it was to help people brainstorm and trouble shoot about writing hubs. Maybe it is just a great tool to get yourself and your work known. It seems to me that it is mostly a battleground between those that believe, those that don’t and those that like to stir the #%&@. It certainly achieves its goals if that is the intended purpose. I actually find it a little redundant to put my personal experience in, only to have it challenged, when it is only my PERSONAL experience. It’s not yours and that’s fine.

According to the National Institutes of Health, approximately 5% of 40-year-old men and between 15% and 25% of 65-year-old men experience ED on a long-term basis. As an example, according to TVbythenumbers, 73% of American men watch NFL regularly, a high percentage being between 40 and 65. So that means that the Viagara commercials only relate to 3.65% of the male population. I consider that to be too small a percentage for me to have to explain what the heck Viagara is to my young sons and why the guy on the TV has a smug grin on his face!

It would appear that basic good manners have gone to pot! All too often I see teenagers walk through doors and leave them to slam in the face of a frail senior following behind. It’s not just teens though, because I’ve seen middle aged men AND women do the same thing. I’m sorry, but that purchase in the mall is not so urgent that you can’t stop for a few seconds and hold the door open. Shame on you!

Sadly, the teens aren’t all to blame here. On one hand the seniors whine about having no respect and what a terrible generation the teenagers of today are, but on the other hand they don’t applaud and recognize those that are doing it right. Sure the seniors deserve respect, but that wisdom they have must see that encouraging good behavior ensures its continuation. Shame on you too!

A car is a lethal weapon. I have been to car accidents where people have died so I know it’s true. Aside from mechanical error, all accidents are caused by inattention at the wheel. You’ve all seen it – the cell phone use, the texting, the make up application, the picking something up off the floor, the falling asleep, the chatting to passengers, and the eating and drinking. Lack of concentration behind the wheel can cause a lack of participation in life.

This is rarer than a Dodo dressed in bright pink spandex, holding hands with Gandhi and singing along to the Hallelujah Chorus. I understand that a text message doesn’t HAVE to be correct, or a Facebook post HAVE to be spelt correctly. After all, we can understand what the person is saying can’t we? And yet, this generation of inarticulate buffoons is the one we expect to create the literature that generations to come will be reading. That is scary! Spell check is available people. Let writers of the world unite and rise up against this issue! Speak out loud… or is that really SOL!

I don’t know about you but it happens to me all the time. The big red sign above the clothes rack says $9.99 and I think to myself, “Self, that is a good deal for those jeans.” I go in and hunt through the rack, find my size, try them on and head to the clerk pleased as punch with my $10 purchase. “That’ll be $33.88,” the friendly shop assistant says. “Huh?” I say, “The rack says $9.99?” Then the assistant will point out the “FROM” part of the sign and I will search through unsuccessfully to find a single item at $9.99, concluding that they must all be sold, because I’m sure the store isn’t allowed to falsely advertise the price. What a scam! They bank on the fact that you will by something you like on the rack knowingly or else you will be too embarrassed to say anything when you get to the checkout. There’s also the “Save UP TO 60%” sign. Scam, I tell you!

Summer scares me. Every year females head out in public wearing less and less. The issue is that a high percentage of these females are wearing clothing that is inappropriate for their body type or size. Just because a crop top is fashionable, it doesn’t make it right for you to wear it. If I wanted to look at Jabba the Hut’s belly, I would have rented the Star Wars movies. I believe that it is a privilege and not a right to wear some things. Dress appropriately and buy yourself a mirror so you can see what you look like before you go out. I’m not saying that larger people can’t dress fashionably – they can. But cramming all you got into one size too small leggings and a way too short top has to be against several municipal by laws.

The verb “photoshopped” has been adopted into our vocabulary as representing any picture that has been digitally altered. All you have to do is see the pictures they post when stars are caught in a candid moment to see how they really look and oftentimes if we did not know whom they were, we’d walk right past them. Instead, the magazines want us to see the beautiful, perfectly sized celebrities and hope that we spend copious amounts of cash trying to be like them (or like the image that is potrayed). Could it really all be about money? No, never.

What is the big deal with the whole duck face thing? With the advent of camera phones there are oodles of pictures of teens being taken and posted online. I see time and time again these attractive young ladies, thrusting their puckered lips forward towards the camera and jutting their chin out just prior to the picture being snapped. I have to assume it’s so they can remain anonymous on the web. Nobody will recognize me when I am disguised as a duck billed platypus! So, I went to my local duck pond and observed the creatures for a while. I saw visitors come throw bread to the ducks and then take pictures of them, but at no point did I see any duck pull a teenage girl face when the picture was taken. Interesting.

Rare is defined as "an event, condition or situation that is not occurring very often". These 10 things, I consider "rare". You may agree, disagree or have other such phenomenas. Feel free to chime in...