MikeyOpp.com

This week, I saw more ‘scandal headlines’ in the local papers than I’m accustomed to. The newly elected Oregon State Liquor Control Board President got hammered, and was arrested after crashing her car and then blowing a 1.6 into a Breathalyzer (that’s twice the legal limit). Meanwhile, the local Portland Police Chief has stepped down due to sexual misconduct with a police desk clerk, and our National President and his cabinet are working overtime at the moron department to challenge yet another country in a pissing contest with our safety as the stake. But somehow, the local and national news agencies have managed to miss out on the death of a dearly departed friend of our culture. That’s why this week I am composing the obituary for “The Death of Common Courtesy.”

The first time I noticed that Common Courtesy was on her deathbed was when a stranger yelled at me for opening the door for her. “I can open the door myself,” this modern woman snarled as she pushed past me into a building. Here I was, trying my best to be a ‘gentleman,’ but I had apparently missed the post-modern feminist memo: the codes and ethos of chivalry have suddenly been changed, and it’s apparently belittling to have someone do something nice for you that you can do for yourself. This change in the bylaws of chivalry probably occurred in a secret meeting between Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart who apparently think that it’s sexist to do kind things for strangers.

But the death of common courtesy is most noticeable when I get into my car. No one lets anyone into traffic anymore, and when I do stop to let someone in during rush hour, I am often honked at by the cars behind me, who can’t stand the idea of being ‘cut in line.’ When we’re in our cars, we’re all on our way to some place, and that place isn’t the ‘race for the last slice of good pizza in the cafeteria line,’ so we can all relax, and stop acting like hungry fourth graders on pizza day, and treat other drivers like human beings– oh yeah, and it might make you feel good to do something nice for someone else.

And what about people who know that they’re going to be making a left at the next intersection, but refuse or forget to turn on their blinker until the last possible second, so that people don’t pass them on the right? Passing on the right helps to alleviate the traffic congestion that builds up behind a car making an unprotected left at an intersection; it is not rude, or impatient to pass another car that is stopped. I think it’s a common courtesy to let cars behind you know what you are doing, so that we can all help to combat traffic, which deserves to be beaten mercilessly and then tied up and killed for its sins (like making me late, frustrating me, and stressing me out beyond any healthy level).

How often do you expose your own lack of common courtesy when you run into someone you know? I have had the following conversation about a million times: I begin by saying, “Hey, how are you doing?” and the person, without missing a beat, says, “I’m good, how are you doing?” to which I reply, robotically, “Oh, I’m doing great, how are you?” Then I realize that I just asked the same question twice, and didn’t pay any attention to the answer, which makes me want to bang my head against a nearby wall, because I’m not really inquiring as to a person’s well being, which is rude, and pointless.

More often than not, I also find the reverse true; I get into trouble for candidly answering a fake question. Someone asks me how I’m doing, and I let them actually know: “Well, you know, I sleep alone every night, which makes me feel kind of lonely, and I only work a few shifts a week at my job, but I still can’t seem to find the money and free time to visit a lot of my close friends. I also don’t really have a good grasp on the meaning of life, and so I often feel like I’m living in a cloud of chaos, day to day, which causes me to question just what it is that I’m trying so damn hard to achieve.” Then the immigrant behind the 7-11 counter blinks twice at me, and points to the vibrant green digital reading that explains that she didn’t want to know how I was actually doing, she doesn’t even speak English; she just wants the eighty-five cents that I owe her for the snickers bar.

But if you don’t like talking or candid conversation about feelings, then here’s a small task for you, one that used to be a common courtesy, and it requires no direct interaction with anyone else: Clean up after yourself when you use a public bathroom. It’s disgusting to walk into a public bathroom and find that it looks like three retarded chimpanzees with a blotter of acid and a keg of beer partied like rock stars until just before I got in there. I think it should be a common courtesy to clean up after yourself when you use any bathroom, be it your own, or the one at a local coffee shop. It’s not that hard to do, and if you make a mess, you’re responsible for it. The current system, wherein you clean up after the person who used the toilet before you, isn’t very fair, since you usually don’t know that person, or what sort of weird avian bird flu they might have. And people with young children – if the kid that you’re out with can’t use a toilet alone, then it is your duty to assist them when necessary, and at the very least, to do a follow-through-clean-up after they’re done using the bathroom—it’s common courtesy!

I think that there’s still a chance to resuscitate common courtesy, and the process begins by leading by example. You can’t expect everyone else to start something, and then join in at the last second – revolutions may begin spontaneously, but they only succeed with proper follow through and full participation. If we want to end the chaos that is a world without common courtesy, then we need to treat each other nicely; like try clapping for people when they try to do something, not just when they succeed at it. It’s hard to try.

I don’t get offended easily, but I understand that other people do, so when different presses re-printed that Danish Cartoon that caused riots and hurt so many people’s feelings, I was pretty pissed off. I think it’s common courtesy (and common sense) to apologize for something when you realize that it is offensive, and to re-print or retell an offensive joke is to re-offend, which is antagonistic, and antagonizing is discourteous. Of course, I think the whole problem of sensitivity and outrage could be prevented if everyone in the world took a giant ‘sense of humor’ pill, and laughed more often. That pill could be more popular and lucrative than Viagra. Someone invent it, soon!

I have a close friend who has quite a ‘sense of humor’ when it comes to tipping. For most of his life, he argued relentlessly that it was unfair of the service industry to put the burden of paying a server’s wage on the customer, and so he would either refuse to tip, or he would squeeze a bloody 10% of the check total from his turnip of a wallet and then complain about it the entire way home. Last summer, he was hired as a bus boy in a restaurant, and after a very short period of time, he learned why service industry employees of all ranks and class deserve to be tipped for their strenuous and difficult work, and he now tips at least 20%. Don’t belittle something until you’ve tried it. That’s why I try to only belittle the obvious and local themes of my life in this column.

But knowing when to tip, and how much, can be difficult. A week ago, I was at a party, and as I attempted to reverse my car up a jagged, lawn driveway with one edge on a giant cliff, I came less than a foot away from plunging my car, myself, and my favorite guitar about thirty feet down in a gorge. I wasn’t scared, no, just pissed off that I had to pay close to a hundred dollars to have my car winched off the cliff, because I don’t budget for paying for towing expenses. As I waited for the tow truck to show up, I asked everyone at the party how much they typically tip a tow truck driver, and no one at the party had ever tipped one. I was shocked, because I have been tipping tow truck driver’s about once a year to get my car out of some dumb situation like running out of gas, locking my keys in the car, or spinning into a snow bank; the list goes on—and I thought that everyone else did the same thing. I learned two things from this experience: One, I still think it’s appropriate to tip someone who helps you out of a binding situation, and two, I should start budgeting for towing fees, because I’m a moron with bad luck.

Here in Oregon, we are legally forbidden from pumping our own gas, because, uh, we could hurt ourselves if we tried to pump our own gas. (Oregon also just passed a law that says we must now use cardboard forks, we can only eat pureed vegetables, and all drinks must be served in sippy cups with protective plastic lids.) I still can’t decide if it should be a common courtesy to tip a gas station attendant for doing something that I do not find to be a personal luxury, so I now tip them when they are polite, or even just for smiling.

And speaking of dangers, one common courtesy that I would like to expose for it’s idiocy is the irrational request that you call someone to let them know that your plane landed safely. In this modern day and age of instant news and over-coverage, do you really think it’s possible that you won’t hear about a giant plane crash in which an American died? Believe me, our media jumps at the chance to report any abnormal death of any American. Besides, Statistics show that you are twice as likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash, so if you’re really worried about the people you love, it would make more sense to demand that people call you every time they survive a car trip.

The only way to bring back common courtesy is to make it common to give others courtesy. Yes, it’s really that stupid and simple, but it takes focus, and effort. Start by using words like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when you ask someone to do something for you, even when you are paying for their service. No one likes to have fingers snapped at them, to be told to ‘listen’, or to be referred to as ‘hey you’. Similarly, think about what you say and how you phrase it when you speak. This doesn’t mean that you should censor yourself, your opinions, or your speech, but you shouldn’t hurt other people’s feelings unnecessarily. Concession statements make for great foreplay in dialogue and discussion, and people tend to listen better when they are not offended. I feel warranted to make the preceding suggestions, because I’m a nice guy. Or just consider this my version of performing a common courtesy: helping to bring back kindness to the world.