Vacation

You plan a vacation.  You obsess over the plans.  You count the months, weeks, days, hours and finally the minutes.  And then ....woo hoo!  It's here, the waiting is over the time has arrived you are on your vacation!

The destination is just what you wanted and you're there at the end point of all that planning.

So, why am I so exhausted and totally at a loss over the vacation - I mean I'm here I should be thrilled.......so ..... more thoughts after a good night sleep perhaps that's all I need.  The destination is perfect, the company is excellent and in the immortal words of Scarlett O'Hara tomorrow is another day!

A dying breed...perhaps dying isn't the right word . .

Dead, extinct, perished, or departed, perhaps those might be better words for a world of humans that have no plain common decency. 

Here's the scene:

A gorgeous, sunny, Phoenix day.  The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the temperature is perfect...I mean PERFECT, truly for those who live here year round this is why we live here year round.

Ok, moving on, so I being - the fool that I am - trundle out to enjoy a bit of the beautiful day and to grab a bite to eat for lunch.  I made the very unwise decision to drive out to a little place that is very popular and serves good fresh Chinese for lunch.  Now - I know it's busy so I place a to go order an hour ahead of when I'm going to go pick up my meal, knowing full well it's going to be BUSY.

Now, I get to said restaurant.  The parking here is never good, it's a small cramped lot and for the popularity of the food establishment and the coffee bar next too it - there is just not enough parking even on a slow day.  Any how, the good people who thought up this little slice of a parking lot had some relatively good forethought and put in about six 10min only parking spots.  On a busy day when people are looking to park and eat, I know those six spots can be terribly frustrating and tempting, but I being who I am always avoid parking there IF I'm eating in.  Today, I am not eating in, I am picking up so I am over joyed that I know perhaps I will be able to get in and get out when I pull in through the use of these handy 10 min pick up spots.

I pull in the lot, OH the joy, there is one 10 min spot left, as I head toward it I notice that there is another car that was in the lot before me turning toward the same spot - I LET HIM PULL IN to the 10 min spot, because to me courtesy would dictate that he's been waiting already so its only right that he get it.  HOWEVER when he pulls in I notice that he and a passenger get out.  Today, of all days for some STUPID reason, I feel the need to clarify things - so here's the dialog:

Me: rolls down window of car - "Hi, are you guys picking up?"

Guy: "No"

Me: smiling in an unseething kind of way cause I already know where this is going but can't just let it go - "Oh, well, hmm, isn't that a 10 min pick up spot"

Guy: "Yup"

Me: "oh, well....okay"

And so guy and passenger walk in to go have lunch, taking up the valuable pick up spot and leave me circling for another spot to open....AS I CIRCLE......I notice that NONE of the 10 min spots open up.  Luckily someone comes out from the TAKE OUT with their TAKE OUT and drives out of a regular spot that I promptly pull into.   I go in, get my food and find myself wondering WHAT THE H E double hockey sticks!!!!!  None of the "10 min" spots have changed over since I got there circled and got my food which took a good 25 mins.  So I think to myself why have the spots if you aren't going to enforce them?  And then I think, but really, how are they going to enforce them I mean honestly lets be realistic here, it's all about doing the right thing but..........

Here's the problem people - common decency is DEAD!  And I'm and IDIOT for still living by "the rules." 

I don't park in handicapped spaces because I don't have a tag or a license plate because thankfully I don't need one and it would be wrong. 

I don't park in loading/unloading zones because IT WOULD BE WRONG.

I hold the door open for people if I'm going in or coming out because to not hold it WOULD BE WRONG.

If my children are crying or screaming in a restaurant I remove them to the outside because IT WOULD BE WRONG to make others suffer their tantrum.   

I give the right of way when I should to pedestrians and traffic because IT WOULD BE WRONG not too and could cause an accident in the process.

When I knock on a closed door, I wait for the person inside to say come in or go away, I don't knock and just throw open the door because.....come on say it with me people IT WOULD BE WRONG!!!!!!

Why, oh why, are the common decent things that we should do for ourselves and others just faded memories of a world where it wasn't just all about me, all the time, where we didn't necessarily care for others but we did the DECENT things anyway as a show of simple respect to the world and those around us. 

I have now let my lunch go cold, as I needed to spew forth this rant before I could swallow a morsel of what should have been a delicious lunch on a gorgeous day and is now a cold reminder that the world is just not as decent a place as it could, should or would have been.

As always, thanks for reading - see, it's the right thing to do so I do it-not because I have too, but because honestly people, so little means so much sometimes.

Thanks :-)