Thump Thump Thump Thump

"Sit up straight!"
"Wipe your feet!"
"Don't talk with food in your mouth!"

These were common things I, and probably many of my generation, heard from adults while growing up. Likely they were just passing on the information they were force-fed when they were growing up. I'm talking some of the propaganda/short films that were prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s and shown in high school classrooms - stressing proper hygiene, the "proper" way to court a male/female, etc. I don't recall seeing many of those types of films in school, if it all. Granted it was <@@@@@!!!!!KEYBOARD ERROR!!!!!#####> years ago.

No matter how silly some of these demands from adults were, most of them stuck, and I'm much better for them. I just wish more people had been paying attention.

Every day I see people blindly ignoring these "simple" rules I was taught when I was young.

Rules like picking up my feet when I walk, part of the "proper posture" school of thought. When you pick up your feet, it is better for your overall posture, plus, you don't make any unnecessary noise. There must be a lot of people with poor posture out there, because as people walk by my desk at work, many times I can hear them coming from the distinctive THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP. These people make little if any effort to pick up their feet while walking, so you can hear them from several feet away as they drag their feet along the floor.

We've probably all met someone who fell asleep during the "proper hygiene" film. These people are identifiable from unpleasant body odor to dirt or food particles left on everything they touch. Sadly some people cannot even wash their hands after using the bathroom, even after going #2 - this in a place where other people use the same equipment you use! Frankly I'm thankful that at my office all the toilets are self-flush. The ones at the old office weren't, and it was sadly common to go into a stall to find someone else's unfinished business.

If there were a test on proper etiquette people would flunk it. People rarely treat their elders with respect anymore. Heck, they hardly treat people their own age with any respect. I still call people "sir" and "ma'am." I still say good morning, goodnight. A gentleman on my own team and work doesn't even have it in him to talk to anyone when he arrives, or at any part of the day for that matter. Other "rules of etiquette" I learned such as holding the door open for people and throwing trash away in the nearest trash receptacle - have apparently been lost. Many like to just toss trash aside. It disgusts me when I go up to the top floor of the parking garage at work and look down at the ground to see fields of cigarette butts and various garbage.

Do we need to bring those propaganda films back? Do we need to enforce the ideas of proper hygiene and etiquette on the latest generation of kids, so they might pass their "knowledge" to future generations? Is that fair to the kids to subject them to films and ideas like that? Well, seeing how things have been the last few years, I say teaching the kids some good manners might just be a good idea.