The Demise of Polite Society

I have a thing for romantic comedies of the early 1960's. It was a gentler time. Oh sure, there was the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of a president, but men wore shiny suits with skinny ties and gallantly removed their fedora hats upon entering an elevator. Women wore skirt sets, pillbox hats and white gloves.


In a romantic comedy a subway scene would have men giving up seats for women and the elderly, smiling while doing so. Picture it: a woman gets on the F train with a tiny “fresh out of the oven” infant strapped to her chest.

"Excuse me, Ma'am, please, take my seat." She thanks him, and gracefully takes her seat while the surrounding people coo over the sleeping infant. The warmth of the human spirit is alive during a non-holiday week!

The reality in 2011 is that the woman gets onto the crowded train with that tiny infant strapped to her and has to hold on to a pole for dear life as the train rattles on. She stands in front of a fat guy in his 20’s who vacantly looks up at her from time to time with the same amount of non-interest as I have when I read the ads in Spanish. Next to him are four men and a woman of all races, ages and sizes. No one offers her a seat.

I want to scream but stand there quietly willing someone to have an ounce of compassion. It makes me wonder -- when did the downfall of polite society began and when will it totally collapse? When did we cross the line from "thank you," "excuse me" and "after you, sir" to "screw you, I was here first."

Hey, I’m not saying I’m innocent. I’ve been known to lose my temper. Like the time some jerk cut in front of me going down the subway stairs and then stopped short to start texting.

"What the hell is wrong with you? You stupid, self-absorbed sonofabitch!

WALK! WALK!”

But I give up my seat to the elderly, pregnant women, people with casts on their legs, and women with infants strapped to their bodies!

So I posed the question to some people:

When was the downfall of polite society?

Everyone has a different opinion, and some responses depend on a person's age, but they're all valid.

My father, 78:

“When men stopped wearing suits and ties to baseball games."

“And would you just look at that guy – goddamn jerk with his baseball cap on backwards. Oh, and isn't that nice, his pants falling down around his ass, showing his underwear. Like he’s too simple in the head to know his pants are falling down.”
My friend Barbara says society as we knew it ended with the invention of ATM's:

"Think about it. It's 1982 and it's 2:00 in the morning, you're at a bar, getting drunk. You run out of money. What do you do? You go home! Now you just go to the ATM, take out another $100 get shitfaced and do stupid things you regret in the morning."

… and elastic waistbands.

"Think about it. It's 1983 and you're going out to dinner a lot, pigging out a lot. You gain a few pounds and your waistband starts digging in. What do you do? You start eating salads. Now you just keep eating because the waistband stretches along with your waistline."

My Uncle Bill was 83 years old when he gave me this answer:

"I'll tell ya, it was when they started making a big deal out of mid-day cocktails and smoking. Took the edge off. People were nicer. Can't be too uptight with a scotch in one hand and a Chesterfield in the other.”

Change the scotch to a Marguerita and the Chesterfield to a Virginia Slim Light, and I’m in total agreement.

Oh how I miss smoking.... so classy and elegant!

My mother says the demise started when men started to spit in the street. She's got a point. I can remember a time when it was only the little boys who would spit. Then one day I saw a blue-collar type, regular-Joe guy spit in the street. Polite society declined when the guy with the pinstriped suit and polished wingtips spit on the subway tracks. Last time I saw a spitter, it was a well-dressed woman on her way to work.

The total collapse came, for me, last week. I am walking down the sidewalk. A man is walking towards me, and as we get closer, our eyes meet. It’s just me and him, eye to eye, coming closer and closer. He suddenly looks down, takes one finger and covers his left nostril, takes a deep breath and shoots snot out his right nostril. He then repeats the process, shooting snot out his left nostril. Right there on the sidewalk. Not an ounce of embarrassment or a word of excuse as he passed me by.

In a romantic comedy, Rock Hudson would have tipped his hat, smile and say "excuse me, Ma'am, sorry for the snot rockets.”

I searched YouTube for a video for those of you who can't visualize it and are asking yourself "what exactly IS a snot rocket?"  There are dozens of snot rocket videos, but I'll leave it up to you to watch, if you're so inclined.  I will not add to the demise of polite society.

Instead I'll end this post with a little class ....