Americans may just be the most volatile people on Earth. The littlest things set us off. After a few weeks of driving in severe traffic I have learned to deal with it. Sadly, there are a lot of Houstonians who feel that their commute to work should be instantaneous and without incident.
This morning driving to work there was an accident on the outbound side of U.S. 59 that had that entire side of the freeway shutdown and traffic slowed on the inbound side. The wreck was one of the worst I have seen in a long time and two LifeFlight helicopters were on the scene. Yet people were honking at each other, trying to change lanes, and get going as fast as they could. They would then get angry, throwing up middle fingers, when the lane they moved to did not go as fast as they wanted it to.
I really wish people would just slow down and realize how small something like traffic is compared to other problems that life presents, like being in a possibly fatal accident. Everything is a race. The world does not move fast enough for people and it is obvious when you are in store and people get mad at a checkout girl because the price will not scan correctly. Someone speaks up and says something rude and sarcastic and the girls shrugs it off.
Maybe it is an issue of respect or lack thereof. My mom was in Starbuck’s and a woman brought a dog in. This was not a seeing eye dog, it was a little mutt that this woman just couldn’t leave outside for 2 minutes while she got her coffee. My mother made a comment to a Starbuck’s employee stating that she was allergic to dogs (she’s not but it was better than saying “The dog needs to leave”) and another woman spoke up stating that she was allergic as well. The employee asked the woman with the dog to take the dog outside, saying that customers were allergic. This woman looked over to my mom and had the nerve to respond with (and I quote) “Well, she’s just a b*tch!”. Excuse me? I told my mom that had I been there things probably would have gone down a little differently as I have no problem getting up and telling that woman to her face that she has no right to speak that way to my mother or any other customer. It is a respect issue. Take your dog outside, how hard is that? It is a health code issue, end of story. We just have a lack of respect for the people around us and it effects our everyday lives.
Just try and show some love or respect and see what kind of difference it makes. Let someone into your lane on the freeway, let someone cross infront of your car in a parking lot, or just say “good morning” to someone.