What's Wrong With This Part-of-a-Generation?

What's wrong with young people today?

By young people, I mean people younger than me, which is a considerable slice of the population pie. A slice ample enough to please Farmer H as pies go. As much as I malign Farmer H, even HE does not have the wrongness about him that the young people of today seem to have.

To make it a manageable number, let's pin the pool of young people to those between the late teens and late 20s. They do not act in a manner expected by Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. Consider, if you will, her predicament Saturday at the portal of the gas station chicken store.

The door is clear, you see. I mean...you can see THROUGH it. You can see if somebody else is coming or going.

There I was, with one hand full of soda, and the other gripping my keys. I started out, but saw a dude approaching from the other side. I know that door opens out toward the parking lot. I was prepared to push the bar on it with my forearm and step out, then hold it open for Dude to step inside.

BUT NO!

Dude saw me. I know he did! Do you think Dude pulled that door handle and held it open for Mrs. Hillbilly Mom to step out and clear his way inside?

NO HE DID NOT!

Dude pulled the door open and barged right in. Necessitating that I take two steps back to make way for him. Because as a 20-year-old male, his business was much more important than an old lady with one hand full of 44 oz of Diet Coke, half a step away from proceeding out the door.

Seriously, Dude?

If I had been on the outside, not only would I have backed up to let someone out, I would have grasped that door handle and held it open. No matter if it was a child, teen, woman, or crotchety old man. It's only right. I'm on the outside. It's not my place to force my way past a person already standing there ready to leave. Not to make them scramble out of my way, lest I shoulder them off balance in my haste.

Sweet Gummi Mary! Even The Pony, who cares not one whit for helping other people, would have held that door open for a person coming out. And even for a person beside or behind him heading in. So what if he didn't help that lady up off the floor of The Devil's Playground deli that time she slipped. THIS he would have done. Without anybody watching, without my prompting. I've observed him do it before.

Of course the #1 Son would have held the door open for somebody. He's a people person. He always remembers names, and calls people by them to reaffirm his people-personness. Like when he was in the ER for the second time in two days with that killer headache that turned out to be a virus masquerading as bacterial meningitis. When the male nurse came in to take his vitals and ask if there was anything he could do to make him more comfortable, #1 roused himself from his fog of pain and said, "Thank you, James. Not right now. The doctor is taking me for some tests in a few minutes." While I was sitting across the cubicle thinking, "Who is JAMES?" There's a bit of the politician in #1, I fear.

Anyhoo...we have trouble right here in Hillmomba City, folks. And it's the young people who are so self-absorbed that they don't have a drop of the milk of human kindness coursing through their veins.

I simply MUST get to work on my proposed handbasket factory.