You can always blame it on mom
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Did your mother do a good job?
You know anything that goes wrong in your life it is always blamed on mom. The kids blame their mother. Psychiatrists blame the mother. Often the father blames the mother. The in-laws surely blame the mother.
Mothers carry much of the fault of all the ills of the world. She didn’t love you enough; loved you too much; was too lenient or too strict. She babied you or bullied you. She spoiled and coddled you or she was cold and unfeeling. It’s a curse for any woman who ever gave birth to a child.
Some of the things mothers are supposed to teach us are manners, to be polite, respectful, kind, considerate and generous. During all those early years we were supposed to learn to be gracious. I know we all had those lessons at some point or another as we grew up.
Remember how she would tell you to share your toys and to play nice. We had to learn how to take turns. Many of us learned this lesson by a swat on the backside and having our stuff taken away and given to a sister, brother or friend to play with. These lessons are meant to stand us in good stead right into our adult life.
It seems many, who live in a town we all know and love, don’t remember how to take turns, didn’t have a mother who did her job or are just way more important than the rest of us so don’t have to wait their turn. This is evidenced every time I come to a four-way stop.
My understanding of this traffic stop is the first vehicle to make a full stop can proceed on their way first and then everyone else who comes to the intersection has to continue the process in turn based on the full stop.
I may not be completely clear about this but I think if two vehicles get there at exactly the same time with one travelling north/south and the other east/west we are supposed to bow to the vehicle on the right. That is highly unlikely to happen because one or both are willing to prove they got there first by simply hitting the gas first.
A four-way stop sign is not an indicator of a contest to see who can get out in the middle first. It’s all about taking turns and a lot of people don’t seem to know how to do that.
Recently, I went through a coffee shop drive through. Don’t do it very often and didn’t realize a secondary lane had been provided, I assume, to prevent the lineup from winding back onto the highway. There are two order stations but only one pick-up window. This means the line of cars splits, forming two lines to order their brew, then come back together into one line to access the pay and pick-up windows.
In my mind it should work wonderfully smooth – first you then me, then another from your line, then one from mine. But that is not how some people’s minds work. It suddenly becomes a game of chicken when someone decides not to wait their turn but instead muscle their way in front of the rightful spot holder.
Don’t get me started on speeders or those vacating parking spots on the main street who just back out with the hopes everyone will stop for them.
Come on folks, slow down! No one is that important or in that much of a hurry or they shouldn’t be in a coffee line. Life is not a race to see who gets to the end first but if you want to live it like that, then by all means you go first. I will let you win.