Clue, Get One?

I see a lot of strange behavior while shopping at Walmart, and by that I mean strange to me only (I think). I was heading down an aisle on the right side, and a man with his cart was stopped, headed in my direction, on the right picking out an item. His son, about 10 or 12 years old, pulled up beside him and stopped. This kid saw me coming, and I stopped, waited, and waited, while this kid just looked around, at me, and his brain didn’t even register that he just blocked the aisle completely. Maybe he thought I was just a store display that walked, I don’t know. So I just waited to see what would happen, and finally the Father noticed and told his son to back up and stay behind him. It almost seems that children often are not taught common sense, and don’t have a clue of what’s going on around them. This unfortunate behavior has worked its way up into adults. My wife was at a somewhat fancy restaurant the other day, and there was a child, jumping on the bench, and the mother did nothing, I mean lady; get a clue. This isn’t McDonalds, and even if it were, is this OK? My mother would have grabbed my hand and yanked me down, and said “sit down, and keep your feet off the seat; people sit on this you know”. Several months ago, my wife and I were at a Chinese Buffet, and a mother and 7 year old daughter were there. The mother was on the phone the entire time, talking loudly I might add. Several people including my wife said something to her about it, and were answered back with “you’re only saying this because I’m Puerto Rican”! Which was not the case; she was not only loud, but saying words that should not be said in public, let alone in front of this little girl. This little girl at one point said “I want to talk to YOU Mommy”, but she was ignored. How sad. Ellen DeGeneres was on an HBO special (from 2003); she was talking about her phones “call waiting” feature. This is how you find out who your friends really are. If you are on a call, your friend says, “I’ve got another call, I’ll be right back”, and when your friend comes back and says “I’ve got to go”, that’s when you know they just told the other caller “Let me get rid of the other person”. At least I can say I have turned off this feature, if someone else calls, they get a busy signal, and can call back later. “Call Waiting” should be called “Call Rude”. “Oh, hang on ‘friend’, someone more important may be trying to call me”. I had a telemarketer calling me for two weeks, several times a day; every time I answered the phone, no one was on the other end. I finally called back, and firmly told the person to put me on the do not call list, and do not call here again. He replied “I’ll do it if you ask me, and not tell me”. Now I am beyond irritated, now I’m just plain mad. It is my phone, not theirs. Plus the fact I’ve been on the ‘do not call list’ for years, so they are using an illegal list. After several more requests, and 3 complaints to the ‘do not call list’ registry, they finally stopped calling. I try to be civil about these things. If they just were on the phone when I picked up, I would have just said do not call here again, and be done with it. But after 30 calls and being hung up on; was I justified in being irritated? Was I the only person they called and had this problem with? I think not. What happened to respect, patience, and kindness toward others? Writing this blog; I hope to find the answer and a cure one day. My main fear is the cure may be for me only, and that’s to just stop caring about it all. Maybe we need to force people to watch re-runs of “Leave it to Beaver”, and “Davey & Goliath”. These shows may be a little corny by today’s standards, but the message within them is valuable.