Angels and Assholes #5…2016

I understand there’s a “Little Acts of Kindness Week” coming up. Sappy? Well, as long as we’re not being guilted into buying cards and presents, why not?

Up here in my neck of the woods, the “Arrowhead,” I rarely walk up to a business doorway and someone doesn’t hold the door for me. I get a special kick out of it when it’s a kid. Just raised ”right?” To be polite and respectful of others? I was raised that way and always instinctively look behind me when I’m exiting or entering. If someone’s coming out at me, I’d feel like a total a-hole to let the door shut in their face. Thanks Mom and Dad.

In town, the T.C.’s, I frequently have a different experience. Frequently people, often kids, will slide through the door open just enough to squeeze through. Not raised right? But don’t kids usually model their behavior after their parents? Are these poor people just caught up in the mad rush of the city? Maybe a relative is lying on the floor, inside, dying? Can’t judge, cuz you never know? Or are they just distracted…too many big issues to deal with than courtesy? In their own world, self-absorbed? Or just a-holes who don’t give a shit? I feel sorry for them. I doubt they’re happy.

Something that has never happened to me up here in the Northland, but really throws me in town is when I hold the door and someone walks through as if I’m the doorman. I always say “You’re welcome” and the looks I get scare me.

Anyway, maybe this is a little corny, but the brief interaction when you have been kind, the meeting of warm eyes and a friendly smile, a thank you that isn’t rote, is cool. Why don’t people realize they’d be much happier being kind than just blustering through life trying to please themselves?