More Incidents in the Death of Civility

Following up on the Death of Civility Project Runway blog, here are some recent examples of bad behavior I have recently encountered:

1. At a screening of The Amazing Spider-Man, the couple behind us were constantly talking in a loud conversational tone about the movie. Occasional whispers are tolerable, but it was as if these two were at home in their living room watching TV with no awareness of anyone else around them. About 30 minutes into the movie, I finally turned around and said "Please don't talk through the entire movie."

To which the woman replied "You're talking!" Can you believe this? She obviously realized she was disturbing other people but didn't want to admit it.

Me: "Yeah, to tell you to stop talking."

Her husband or boyfriend, sensing his female was being insulted, threatened, "Do you want to take this outside?" What a cliche, fighting for his right to be obnoxious! The woman told him to calm down and they evidently got the message and shut up for most of the rest of the picture.

2. While my partner was driving on Broadway near Union Square today with me in the passenger seat, some older woman with two even older women crossed in back of our car and hit our back window with her umbrella. I thought, "What the hell is her problem?" She and her two charges were crossing very slowly across the middle of the street and we were approaching a red light. So I lowered my window and yelled, "Hey, what's the problem?" I genuinely wanted to know what the grievance was. The woman glared at me and just said "Wake up!" I had no idea what she was talking about. "What are you talking about?" I replied. "Wake up," she repeated. This was very frustrating so I told her to go fuck herself. The only explanation I could think of is she started to cross the street (Not at a light but in the middle of the block) and Jerry my partner did not slow down or stop for her. There was no crosswalk, so she would have clearly been in the wrong. She and the other two lovely ladies then must have crossed in back of us and then in her frustration at our not deferring to her, she hit us with an umbrella.

3. This one is not so bad. We were at dinner at a very nice restaurant and the woman at the next table was talking too loudly. She had this very loud, piercing voice and we heard all about this week's episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. What can you do in a situation like that? You really can't turn to the offending party and tell them to pipe down like at the movies when you would be right to so.