Where have all the manners gone?

So, there I was, on a day off, and out and about. Feeling peckish, I nipped into the McDonalds in Church Street in Croydon, and got queue jumped by some muppit that didn't even look old enough to shave.

So, I pulled him up on it with a "'scuse mate, there's a queue here!" What did I get in reply? A glance over the shoulder in utter contempt, and "Yeah, and I'm in it." he then turned back around. Responding that he was only there because he'd pushed past me, he blathered something almost incomprehensible about going to the toilet.

Well excuse me! I was always brought up and educated to understand that if you left a queue, for whatever reason, you then forfeited your place in that queue, and had to rejoin it at the back.

Of course, trying to get this testosterone-poisoned little punk to accept that was a loosing proposition, at best. What did I get in reply? I got some verbal abuse, the mildest of which was to be told that I was a "fool", and he then turned towards me in an aggressive, slightly crouched pose, as if squaring up for a fight.

Did this adolescent git worry me? Yes, a little. He could have been carrying a knife - you see such reports in the news all the time these days, unfortunately. And a sensible man is always concerned where there's the potential for a sharp object in the hands of an unpredictable twat.

Could I have demolished him? Probably. Age and experience, plus training and technique, beat youth and agility every time, after all.

However, he's a kid (in his mid teens), so if I touched him - whatever the reason, be it self defence or whatever - I was automatically going to be in the wrong in the eyes of the legal system, and the bastard knew it, too. They ALL seem to know just how far they can push, before the system pushes back and bites them somewhere painful. That's GOT to be wrong. They should be in fear of the system, not in contempt of it.

So anyhow, angry, frustrated, and totally disgusted at a society that ALLOWS this chickencrap bastard the ability to show such utter disrespect to adults from mere children, I turned around and walked away. Let's not also forget that he wasn't worth the jail time, or the grief to my family if I had actually followed up his implied challenge demolished the cretinous twit.

But that's not the point though, is it?

Where, I want to know, did we breed this contempt for ones elders - and each other, come to that - in these ignorant bloody-minded idiot thugs we sickeningly call children?

It really sickens me that common DECENCY has apparently been flushed down the toilet.

Anyway, political solutions - and that's what it'll take, I think - aside, the immediate bottom line here is that McDonalds, who entice such candidates for the youth mortuary, have finally lost my business. These amateur thugs frequent places like McDonalds, so from now on, I'll be using Subway outlets instead.

Seems to me that there's a better class of human both working in AND patronising Subway outlets, after all.

Sad, but true.