Mamacita says:  When the parking lot is nearly empty and there are spaces galore, why does someone always have to park right smack next to my car?  There’s no reason for that, except plain ol’ bad manners.  Skip a space, you inconsiderate moron.

When the restaurant is nearly deserted and there are empty tables everywhere, why would a big party of loud people be seated right smack next to someone else?  It makes no sense; it just tells me that this restaurant is poorly managed.  In fact, why would a good restaurant seat ANYBODY right next to someone else?  People need their personal space, especially when they’re dining out.  If the place is packed, that’s one thing; if the place has plenty of available space, it demonstrates a complete and total lack of consideration to put people in each other’s laps.  Strangers at your elbows spoil the evening. This is also an easy way to instantly tell a good restaurant from a bad restaurant.  Yes,  each server has his/her “area,” but the purpose of a restaurant is to serve the public, not placate the waitstaff.  There’s a big steakhouse in Bloomington that I will never return to, because of the way they seated us the one night we went there.  I’ve been a server; I know.

When the theater is nearly empty and people come in and plop themselves down directly in front of someone else, or beside them, or even behind them, that’s rude, too.  And if you’re extra large, sit in the back.  It’s just good manners.  Oh, and don’t talk; that used to be a given, but these days, people seem to think they’ve got a right to converse wherever they are.  In a theater, nice people are dead stone silent, and if someone simply MUST have dinner at the movies, he/she should have the brains and the consideration to unwrap anything in crinkly paper out in the lobby, so others are not disturbed by someone’s insatiable need to eat everywhere they go.  If someone in your party is too young/too old/too selfish/too whatever to understand these things, they’ve got no business in a theater where other people paid to see AND hear a movie.  A theater is not like Nascar, or a baseball game, or an outdoor concert.  In a theater, nice people behave themselves and don’t disturb others.  If you can’t understand that, go home.  Please, go home.  And take your cell phone with you.

Most of the problems in society today could be solved if people just remembered their manners, and refused to allow rude people’s “rights” to overrule common sense and the rights of everyone else.  I miss the days when all theaters employed ushers to kick out anyone who disturbed the peace.  There was something so satisfying, so RIGHT, to see these jokers and boors escorted out the door.

As long as we tolerate these inconsiderate people, in ANY aspect of life, we’re going to keep having them: in our schools, in our neighborhoods, and everywhere we go.  We’ve become so “tolerant” of rude people that we just expect to encounter them, and no effort is made by anyone to put a stop to it!  This just makes the problem worse, as these people grow up firmly believing they’ve got a right to behave any way they want and do what they please, no matter where they are.

Bring back the ushers.  Hire smart people.  Use some common sense.  Throw out all the rude people.  Why is that so hard?  Some of these boors don’t even know they’re boors!  They’ve just behaved that way all their lives and so has everyone they know.

Throw ’em out.  They bring our world down.  They make our lives sloppy, and loud, and rude, and selfish, and, for those who feel they must eat no matter where they are, FAT.  Throw ’em out.  If they won’t behave, throw ’em out.

Period.

P.S.  Ditto for our schools.