Teach your children well...

Well, I’m back to being grumpy. Being sick and tired doesn’t help. When I don’t feel good, I usually just want to be left alone. Today is the opposite. I wanted to be taken care of today and pampered, but I was left alone. Sometimes it works out like that. So as I worked from home today, I sat and stewed.

Anyway, as I told you yesterday, my son graduated from high school. I tried to enjoy it, and I really did. But there were some things that happened that really pissed me off, and I wondered: does anyone display proper manners anymore? What happened to common courtesy?

We got there early and found a good seat. We knew exactly where he would be sitting so we found a place in the bleachers where we could see him. The first thing I noticed was a woman placing her purse, jacket, and other items along the first row of bleachers to save them. OK, fine, people do that. But it was apparent that she was saving a lot of seats. (Keep in mind that each student was given four tickets.) As seats were filling up, she was still saving all those seats. At a couple minutes after noon, when the students were already starting their processional, about 10 people all walked in and sat down there.

That brings up another item. A lot of people were walking in at the last minute, and acted surprised when there were no seats right up front. Well, duh. Hello, this can’t be the first time you’ve attended a school function here (or maybe it is). You should know by now that all the good seats are gone at least an hour before the start. So don’t get this pissy look on your face when the lady in the front row says that she’s saving those 10 seats for someone else.

Those ten other people were all dressed in jeans and T-shirts too. Come on, your kid graduates high school once. Don’t you think you could put on a decent shirt and pants just once? I looked around me and I saw even more. Jeans, and not even nice ones. Dirty ones with holes in them, and shorts too. Baseball caps? Come on. At least make it a Cubs hat.

Now I understand why I saw some of the kids wearing shorts, T-shirts, sneakers, and flip-flops under their gowns. Everyone got written instructions on the proper attire for the ceremony, and those of us who signed up for the newsletter got them emailed to us as well. I don’t remember anyone ever having to tell me that you wear nice clothes to a formal ceremony. And nobody had to tell my son, either.

I’ve been to these ceremonies and awards before for both of my kids, and I know from experience that no matter how many times you remind the audience beforehand, some of them will act like idiots. The principal made a speech at the beginning, telling everyone that the tradition here is to have a solemn ceremony. He asked that any shouts or chants or any other celebratory displays should be kept private within the family setting afterward. That didn’t last long.

We didn’t even get through the letter C before it happened. At the reading of one of the students named Chavez, someone in the audience blasted an air horn and about a dozen people started cheering. An air horn! If ever there was a good reason to say, “WTF?” this was it. It’s one thing when you are all caught up in the moment and proudly shout when your child’s name is called, but to actually bring an air horn with you to graduation? That’s premeditated idiocy.

There were many more acts of total disrespect, but none was worse than the air horn. What was really sad was that we didn’t hear the next child’s name at all. And that happened again and again, every time someone’s family decided to do a long cheer. Yeah, I am very proud of my son, but I was proud of the child next in line too.

And since when did I become a combination seatback and footrest? The guy behind me (wearing denim shorts and a T-shirt, of course) had his knee in my back for two hours. The old lady in front of me (who came in at the last minute because her seat was saved for her) leaned back on my legs for two hours. By the time we got to the letter S, I was on the front edge of my seat with my legs turned to the side, and that wasn’t enough room for them.

Oh, there’s more. Two people who came late didn’t seem to want to climb up alllllll those stairs to find a seat, so they decided that they should sit at the bottom of the bleachers on the stairs. Two other people wanted to take pictures so they came down and sat on the stairs too. Now, I purposely sat next to the stairs about three rows up, so we could make a good exit and be high enough up to take pictures. Again, come early and get a good seat.

The last straw was when we left. They announced that we should all wait until all the graduates had left before exiting the gymnasium. Obviously there were several hundred deaf people in the audience, because as each row of graduates left, audience members left their seats and moved up to the next row closer to the door. Sheesh, people, do you have a hot date or something? Were you jonesing because we asked you to turn off your cell phone for two hours?

I’ll ask again: what happened to common courtesy and manners? I would say that it’s because we live around a lot of rich people with a sense of entitlement, but I’ve seen it when we lived in a poor town too. All I can say is that somebody needs to start teaching their children manners, but it’s not going to be easy to teach them something you never learned yourself.