ME FIRST!

The other day I was talking to a co-worker when a student came up and interrupted us.

"Mr. Nemo I need your signature on XYZ." My co-worker and I simply stood there looking at the student as if there were a foot coming out of her forehead. She signed the document and we continued our conversation. The other day after church I was standing around talking to an usher. In the midst of our chat a boy who couldn't have been more than 12 came up and interrupted "You want to buy so me cookies." I looked at him oddly and politely said no. "It's for a good cause" the kid interrupted. I again said no thank you. "Please." the young person pleaded again. I stood there and said:

"Young man HERE are the mistakes you made. #1 you didn't say excuse me. This gentleman and I were talking and you just interrupted us as if what we were discussing was of no importance. #2 You didn't introduce yourself. My name is Joe Blow or something would have gotten our attention. #3. You didn't tell us what you were selling this stuff FOR! #4. You're not telling me what kind of cookies. It's like you don't know what you're selling. You're rude and you act like we should buy from you simply because you're telling us to." The young man's expression didn't change as he looked me straight in the eye as if I hadn't uttered a word and he asked me:

"So you want to buy some cookies or not?" When did common courtesy and civility become the exception and not the RULE in these United States? My generation was occasionally smacked upside the head by our parents. Was it right? Of course not, but unfortunately it made my generation the WORST parents the world has ever seen. When I played pop Warner football you either won or lost. If you won you got a trophy if you lost you got a lecture on it not being about winning but rather about sportsmanship which you later discarded because you wanted to win.
Now unfortunately everyone on every team gets a HUGE trophy simply for playing. Children who swear at parents and teachers are no longer paddled, they get "time outs" where they get to think about what they've done OR they sit and talk about their feelings. When I was coming up if you cursed out a teacher you were expelled. If you cursed out one of your parents you said "time out" as they attacked you with a worn leather belt or some kind of hickory switch.
My generation has given their children every computer, video game, phone and electronic device that the mass media tells them they should have and the end result is a group of fat, lazy complacent young people with no imagination whatsoever who only go outside on their way to pick up fast food or more games.

As we don't require them to work for anything, we ask schools to relax standards so that their grades are artificially bolstered. Reading anything other than garbled text messages is considered "nerdy" or a waste of time. When they receive a bad grade we blame their teachers as our children can't possibly be at fault. The end result of this coddling is an entire generation which can't write in cursive, thinks that cell phones have always existed, feels that there wasn't a time when we were never on the moon or flying shuttle missions and can't name either the allies or axis powers of the second world war.

We can't blindly blame "society" because as many of our parents have passed on or retired WE have become the society which we rebelled against in the midst of the late 80s and 90s. Our lack of foresight will soon come to disturbing fruition when the children who can barely read, become adults who can't hold jobs because they insist on treating bosses and co workers as if they owe them something. The collapse of social security is inevitable and the generation of slackers and idiots whom we're counting on to pay for it all will be too busy trying to figure out how to get bigger televisions to care or to even fathom that their kids and grand kids will be far dumber than they are.