Manners people!

It's disconcerting to me the general lack of manners people have these days. I was riding the subway home the other night when I boarded the northbound Yonge train at Bloor. I took a seat with a few other people when the train arrived. It was late in the evening so it wasn't that busy. As it sometimes happens the train didn't depart right away perhaps waiting for a few more riders to come.

Across from me sat a woman of around 40. She had pulled out a thin catalogue she was leafing through after she settled into her seat. A few moments later a young man entered the car and asked her in a quiet voice if this train was going north. Engrossed in her catalogue she didn't respond. When he said, "Ma'am" to gain her attention she replied in a cold tone, "yes" to confirm his earlier enquiry (which I guess she did hear, but chose to ignore). She did all this without even giving him the basic courtesy of looking up from what she was reading. How rude is that? She couldn't even take a moment to lift her eyes from her catalogue to show the bare minimum of politeness when responding to his question. It's disappointing to me to see behavior like this going on. When you ask for something you say, please. When you receive it you say, thank-you. When somebody sneezes you say, bless you. It's not that hard.

While we're at it... Another thing I that perturbs me about people on public transit, particularly the subway, is that many people don't let all the passengers off the train before they board. What's wrong with you people? Can you not wait five seconds longer to let everyone off before you barge onto the train? Even worse, some people don't wait at all. They try to board as soon as the doors open without letting anyone off. They need manner police to stand by the doors and whack people over the head with rolled up newspapers when they do things like that. If you don't know your manners by now, perhaps beating it into your thick skulls is the only way you'll learn.

Sorry... I just had to get that off my chest.