Where did all the assholes come from?

There are far too many assholes in the world these days.  And to quote the gentleman across the hall, some people are flat out TFAs.  If you are wondering what this stands for, like I was this morning, TFA means total fucking assholes.  The sad thing is I don’t know that I can disagree with this sentiment.  Does it make me sad?  Of course.  I’m probably one of the happiest people ever.  To the point that I went as the emotion Sad from Inside Out to a costume/belated Halloween party recently and felt like the worst Sad ever because I was cheesing in all the pictures! Maybe that should have been my true costume.  I don’t know.

I bring this up because this is the time of year we are of course supposed to be thankful for one another.  Nicer to one another.  And yet somehow over the years I’ve realized that isn’t always the case.  In fact, last Saturday afternoon I was headed to my friend’s grandmother’s eightieth birthday party.  I thought to myself I will get a quick iced coffee from McDonald’s to get me through the rest of my day as we were going to my friend’s belated Halloween party that evening, and I was honked at.  I mean I was honked at to the point that a guy in the car in front of me turned his head wondering who was honking so incessantly.

Quite frankly, I can’t say I was not right there with him.  I kept thinking DO YOU NEED MCDONALD’S THAT BAD?!  Like are you serious right now?  And the sad thing is I realized part of the reason this person was honking at me is because I let this person in front of me.  Here’s why.  There are two drive-thrus so they had completed their order before me, but couldn’t pull up entirely of course I let them go before me. Without doing so the whole order would have been messed up from that point forward.  Did the person behind me care?  Not even a little bit.  Instead they just kept honking as if I could push everyone else out of the way so they could get an inch closer to order whatever they had a hankering for.

And let me tell you, I’m a stubborn asshole when I want to be.  I mean in this instance I wanted to sit there forever.  FOREVER.  I wanted to be there as long as I could just so they couldn’t order with their honking selves.  And why?  Because it was an asshole move to honk in the first place.  I cannot fathom what the big deal was if I’m being honest.  I still don’t.  And maybe that is why I’m writing about it now.

The sad part is this isn’t the first time recently something like this has occurred to me.  My friend and I went to Walmart to gather food and snacks to take to Walker Stalker Con this year so we didn’t have to buy food at every corner.  We went through self checkout because that was the shortest line.  We wanted to get in and out. We basically admitted our impatience to ourselves in this regard.  She checked out first at the checkout we decided to share.  But while she was checking out this guy comes up to the front of the line and basically goes on and on about how he needs to go and needs to check out.

Fine, I get it.  Obviously he is in a hurry.  I don’t know why and I try not to judge him at this point.  We have all been there.  At the same time, I have not been there to the point I felt entitled to walk up to the front of the line anywhere and demand things.  After my friend finishes, she helps me check out and then leaves as I pay to go wait by the door.  By this point the person in the front of the line just tells him to go ahead of her because she’s tired of hearing him complain.  I don’t know how this made the other people in line feel, but it annoyed me because of the statement I heard him make to her.  He said, Well, if these girls would hurry up I’d be able to get in and out of here in a timely manner.

I’m sorry, when did your time become more important than mine?  When did people get to a point where they were just pure assholes?  When did we stop caring for other people?  What made us all think that we need everything now?  When did this impatience become so deep seeded within us?

And the sad thing the answer to all these questions is I don’t think this is something magical that has occurred recently.  I honestly think it has probably always been this way, but I’m noticing more now that I’m older.  This is what another friend of mine and I deducted the other night.  I think when we’re younger we are so naive that we cannot help but think that people aren’t that bad.  We give the benefit of the doubt more, but the older we get we realize that some people just suck.  There’s no taking up for those people.  They are just rude because they can be.

The internet has breed a whole new group of assholes who want to troll and try and make people’s lives a living hell.  I don’t get that either.  You like me or you don’t, but you are taking far too much time to tell me you don’t.  You know why?  There’s no point.  Just stop.  Stop and think.  If you have the thought I’m an asshole, don’t complete the action, don’t say the words, abort the mission, and do not pass go.  Don’t be an asshole.  It’s that simple.  And if you are, don’t be shocked when someone calls you out.