‘WAITTT . . . not even a thank you?” That is what the man asked. And I looked back, ’cause I thought that he was talking to me.
Now here is what happened. As I was about to enter the auto-mart the other evening, a fella who was also on his way in held the door for me, and made a li’l joke saying, “celebrities first”. I laughed, entered and politely said thank you, and while he has still holding the door two young girls entered behind me and that is when I heard him ask, “Waittt . . . not even a thank you?”
So I looked back, and that is when he said, “Not you Lew, I mean them two . . . no manners at all”.
Anyhow, so he entered and went in one direction in the auto-mart and close by I heard one girl ask the other, “Wuh is that he just say?” and the other girl replied, “He say something ’bout we ain’t got no manners.”
The first girl let go two bad words and a long cheupse and with all the vexation in her voice said, “He getting on like we beg he to hold a door for we; he getting on like the door is his. So because he hold a door we is to bow down and worship he?”
And the other girl add on a li’l piece. She holla, “He could only want cursing. Them so does know who ain’t got manners but them does don’t know ’bout de men them women got. This time he can’t even hold the door home at he.”
And tempted though I was to reprimand them, I keep my mouth shut, ’cause none of them wasn’t any of my children, so nobody wasn’t gine curse me over a door and a thank you.
But I realise that nowadays people got problems saying thank you. For instance, sometimes you driving and decide to let out somebody from a minor road. Now, some people will politely toot their horn to acknowledge the kind gesture. But them got a growing set of people who don’t pay you any mind; they don’t even look at you – it is as though them does be saying it is your duty to let them out.
And it happening on the buses. You get up and give your seat to a pregnant woman and she sits down with a look on her face like she asking, “What took you so long?” Not a thank you.
Seriously, I don’t know where this behaviour come from all of a sudden. I was at Agrofest last weekend. A woman bought a snack for a li’l boy that was with her. Before she could give it to him the li’l boy snatched it. A man who was nearby shouted at the li’l boy, “Hey you, say thank you!” the li’l boy shouted back, “No!” and the woman laughed.
When I was a child, from the time my mother put those corn curls in my hands, I knew I had to say thank you before I eat one. And if in my licorish haste to open the bag I forgot to say thanks, my mother would take them away and ask me, “What are you supposed to say?” and then I would remember that I didn’t say thank you.
I tell wunna things change up. I remember one time and you help a old lady she wouldn’t only say thank you but she would say, “Sonny boy thank yuh. May de Lord bless yuh yuh hear.”
Nowadays you can’t even get a “thank you” much less a “may de Lord bless you”.
See ya.
Email: madderic@hotmail.com, twitter@madderic