They Want, They Vaunt, I Vent.

"Hi, may I please have .............., thank you" Now, that wasn't so hard- was it? Did our emerging affluent society lose it's manners in the drive through?
It was only a matter of time before it got to me. I should of known better, I should of known better than to keep listening in but, like when someone tells you you have a spot on your shirt, suddenly thats all you can see. It's been a re-occruing itch over the past few months and today whilst taking another step toward gluttony it happened again, the words "please" or "thank you" were not used in the line ahead of me.
I was always getting told how impatient I was growing up, naturally I dismissed this life lesson as a cover for how long the person was taking at the time. I think your manners must be kept somewhere between the back of your head and your ear, as that seems to be where they are beaten into you as a child. Maybe to be a keeper of manners comes the responsibility of advocating them. "Patience is a virtue", right? Maybe it's a virtue too old fashioned for this day and age, maybe the new virtues for instant 'street cred' include: wearing your sun glasses inside, chewing with your mouth open and not saying 'please' and 'thank you'? Nope, Nup and No- Patience and good manner's are still an important part of your responsibility as a person, like showering, cleaning up your dog's poop in the park and making fun of Nickelback.
Today I visited a burger chain (my own fault I know but it's Sunday and I've been good all week). With each customer before me I never heard those easy to pronounce words once, not once! Now I don't think these words are that hard to say. When given a service or even a stranger favour like when someone keeps a door open for you, a polite verbal gesture of appreciation should be as physically engrained as putting a seat belt on- It's amazing how much of a difference it can make to one's day. So where did society's manners go? Have they slipped in to an alternate universe with the 'The Timekeeper's' socks? (Reference to book by Emily Rodda (Book: a written or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together with covers))
Modern society has come to expect things fast, not even fast anymore, just 'now'. Making phone calls, internet in your hand and food service at a drive through have sped up our expectation of what's reasonable. Through a financial boom and consequent self analysis of class (a blog for another time) have our manners been lost to expectation of privileges? I believe now more than ever 'privileges' are being perceived as 'rights'. Greater society is starting to forget that service and kind gestures are not a right but a privilege for all of us to enjoy and appreciate.
With that said there's only one man who can sum it up and give us a swift back-hand to the manner's area of our heads. This man share's the same religion as Charles Manson and starred in cinema classic's 'Cocktail', 'Mission Impossible 2' and 'Vanilla Sky', please let the Maverick Tom Cruise remind us all to "Put your manner's back in!"

Today I saw an over weight man dressed like a Japanese school girl.

Today I saw an over weight man dressed like a Japanese school girl, I wish I had taken a photo but I don't believe in Instagram and I didn't have my camera handy. This picture would have told more than a thousand words but, we don't have one so I'm going to describe it in under a thousand for you.
It's one of those moment's that just paralyses your body and you are totally locked into the experience before you, with all of it happening within the blink of an eye. These are the moments that you keep repeating in your head for days to try and capture the feeling you had at the time. They're the moments that you keep pressing play, pause and rewind on just to see if you can spot anything else. The super 'slow mo' visual with all other senses attached that is often looked back on as a game changer. So how is a tubby guy in short shorts a game changer? Let me set the scene....
It was hot, I had every window down in the min-van I could, with stop-start traffic it was getting harder to get air through the car. I was attempting the 'one hand steer while leaning over to the back seat to reach a half empty water bottle' when a pair of blue and pink lined hot shorts caught the corner of my left eye and subsequently all of my attention. The water bottle could wait, I had some staring to take of.
With the traffic temporally halted from a slow tram I managed to get a look of this glorious creature struggling to walk along the broken foot path outside a shop window in high heeled flip flops. It was only a glimpse before I had to pay attention to the road again but long enough to notice the white collared shirt tied off above the beer belly. The pony tail positioned to the side of long hair that looked as though it had either been bleached by the sun and salt water or had numerous tubs of 'Garnier Fructis Surf Hair' permed through it. Under the harsh midday sun that bounced off the pale concrete and sun glasses you still had to squint, which made you ask: "was this really happening?"
But the couture isn't enough to make it a game changer, it's all the little things, the first 999 words about a picture don't mean a thing until you get to 1000. The one thing, the one simple little thing that made this moment repeat in my head another 2 or 3 blocks and made me smile was this. An act we all do, every day. Some more than others. Some too much.
He was looking at himself in the reflection of the shop window and was 100% happy with what he saw. How do I know he was looking at himself? The shop didn't have anything in the window, it was a vacant shop.
To popular culture this guy is alternative. I'm confident this guy had plenty more staring at him that day through condescending eyes. For the next 2-3 blocks I was at first jealous, jealous he could be totally comfortable with what he saw. We are after all, our own worst critics and I consider myself lucky enough to be witness to this moment of inspiration. As quirky this character may have been he reinforced in me that before you can really be happy with yourself you have to accept what ever it is your struggling with first.
Then find your closest Sears and try on a pair of blue short shorts.

No time for the toilet in this digital age.

The first blog is the deepest, so why not start with some toilet humour.

When are we free in this digital age? Sitting at the traffic light, we check our smart phone's for emails. Before we wake up in the morning and open our eye lids we are reaching to open the laptop lid for facebook. A 'lul' in conversation and we look to check the latest sporting scores on TV. It was a personal choice with each new device and application we let into our lives and it's up to the individual to determine their legitimacy in one's life moving forward. It's reached a point recently where I knew some things need to get back to the way they were, needing to get back to basics- I'm talking about finding that time in your life again where nothing can distract you.

Some years ago when the grass was a healthy shade of 'naive green' I had an epiphany. The discussion of "when are you truly free?"was well underway and a few beers in I needed to go to the washroom for a no. 1, at this point heckling from the discussion table continued and I thought to myself: "you can never get a moments peace, except when......" 

Except when you are doing a no. 2! No. 2's is your time! It's a basic human function that needs to be fulfilled and no one, no one can interrupt. As a, let's called it a 'performer' of a no. 2, as a performer you can not physically stop what you are doing. Find me someone who can stop and I'll high 5 them!... after they've washed their hands. Every one has their own ritual, each performance has it's own credentials, each performer has their favourite parts to the ritual and each performer know's that if any one knocks on that door there is no way they are getting in. As a, let's call it a 'door knocker', as a door knocker you know once you hear a movement, a peep, a squeak or a mumble from behind that door you are off limits and there is nothing you can do about it. What ever the pressing matter may be that has to be discussed right away, you know it just got parked until the performance has finished. 

Now the door knocker comes in varying forms and a the repeat offender is the phone in the pocket. It may ring, you can ignore it. It might 'beep' for a text, viber, whatsapp, skype or voxer message (app list could go on), you can still ignore it. When these alerts go off the performer is in a position of power, they know they can't be taken away from their business at hand. Which brings us to the point where we are truly free, when we are engaging in a performance that if not completed could be life threatening! The bodily act of number 2 gives you a freedom throne where you are king for as long as it takes, as many times a day or week or month that is needed. 

So as human nature (not the boy band) has separated the performers from the door knockers and allowed us to be free we have a new enemy of freedom. Ourselves. With the world in our pockets, the smart phone holds so many applications to distract the performer to engage with the world beyond that door. With this in mind, have you ever facebooked, made a call, or received a call while taking care of business and thus given up your freedom?