i see rude people...

I hate rudeness.

I am thinking of two specific incidences that have incensed me and stuck with me after the actual event.

First, our next door neighbor has a very bad habit of being inordinately loud. Our walls are thick enough that it doesn't matter when she's in her own apartment, but unfortunately, she's a smoker and so she spends a lot of time out on her patio, which is RIGHT next to our bedroom window.

Now, it's already a little annoying that she goes out on her patio to smoke, because this is Southern California, and we LIVE with our windows open. This means that we get to enjoy her second hand smoke unless we get up and close the windows and doors in time. But it's her patio, her apartment, her life. Right?

Wrong. At least, wrong when she comes home at 11:30 or 12 o'clock at night and is drunk and SHRIEKING at the top of her lungs with her friends. It used to be a rare occurrence. The first year we lived here, she was going through some sort of bad break up and would have screaming profanity-peppered phone calls with her boyfriend at 2am. Now she just comes home drunk with friends and sits out on the patio and talks REALLY loud. So loud, in fact, that even if we get up and close our window, we can still hear her.

This happened on Thursday night, and I lay there FUMING about it for nearly an hour after she woke us up. I was plotting how I would write a nasty anonymous note and leave it pinned to her door, or how I would wake up REALLY early on the weekend and bang pots and pans outside her bedroom window, or how I would get up and go shout at her for waking us up.

None of which I did, of course.

Her patio is RIGHT next to our window. She cannot help but notice this. She also cannot help but notice that it is NIGHT, generally a WEEKNIGHT and that the rest of the apartment complex is quiet. Maybe it's just because she's drunk, but how can she think that's OK? There are certain rules of etiquette that people should obey when living in such close quarters with other people. And being quiet and courteous at night should definitely be one of them.

The second thing that happened took place this morning.

Brandon and I were walking in the mall near our house after going to the French cafe for breakfast, when I heard my name called. A friend I hadn't seen in a while came over. We exchanged pleasantries, when suddenly she turned to my husband, reached for his stomach, and said, "Well I can see she's feeding you! You're not thin!"

In exactly those words.

I was horrified! How could anyone say that? That is the most ridiculously rude thing I can think of. Didn't her parents teach her that it is impolite to make personal comments? On what planet is that sort of thing acceptable?

It's not even as though she was just ribbing a friend; she has only met my husband on a few social occasions. They aren't buddies, and they certainly don't have the sort of relationship where she might conceivably think it was OK to tease him about his weight.

I realize that I may be more sensitive to weight issues than most people, but that is just plain rude.

When did that become OK? How do people get along in this world without some basic understanding of politeness and decency? Doesn't anyone care about anyone but themselves any more?

Is this yet another symptom of living in the Land of Fruits and Nuts (TM), or is it this bad all over?

I swear: if I have children, they are going to grow up understanding the importance of being polite to the people around them. I refuse to contribute to this growing apathy towards the social niceties.