The Contagion of Rudeness

I observed an interesting phenomena yesterday, while at Disneyland with TJ, the kids, my sister, her boyfriend, and my little niece. Since it was their first day of their Halloween season, the park was packed, lines were long, nerves were probably frayed. After waiting an incredibly long time for the train, we were finally able to move past the turnstiles and into the waiting queue by the railroad track. Since my sister and I travel with two kids small enough for strollers we had to fold the strollers up quickly, lead our small children by the hand, and navigate a corner. As I was rounding the corner, I noticed a couple who had been standing behind our group trying to cut through via a narrow opening near a trash can.

Let me just say this now, I don't like cutters, and I find it incredibly rude.

So I barked at them, "Wait your turn," and gave them the look. They both had a "hand caught in the cookie jar look," and I figured that was that. This wasn't the first time I've dealt with cutters, and it probably won't be the last.

As we walked towards our spot where we would wait in line, the girl said, "Guess someone is on her period."

Really? We're going to do this? In front of my kids?

Since my kids were there, I only countered with, "I don't like cutters."

I figured since we're all adults, and they had tried to cut in front of a family with two strollers, that they'd drop it.

They didn't. And after hearing for five minutes about "The cutters bitch," I finally said, "Really? You're still going on about this?" and rolled my eyes. Then I witnessed something odd, the contagion of rudeness. A couple who had taken no part in the initial exchange, began to get involved. Well I should say only the guy was involved, his poor girlfriend looked like she wished he'd disappear, or she'd disappear, or something.

This guy began to go on about how he was going to sit behind us and say rude stuff. Really dude? And as the train finally arrived, and we began to board, he dragged his girlfriend over to our bench and told her to take the bench behind us. She hesitated. He told her to sit. She protested. He demanded she sit.

Poor girl.

So I heard some remarks about cutting a few times, which I ignored. It wasn't really hard to do, I was on one end of the bench with my sister behind me, and he was on the other end sitting behind TJ, who thought the guy wanted to run his mouth to make himself feel important. So all I heard was, "Mumble mumble, cut....mumble mumble."

Obviously the guy's plan failed, and he and his embarrassed girlfriend got off at the next stop.

Now what I thought was interesting is that this guy did not know us, and he didn't even know the couple that had tried to cut, and yet he was trying to interject himself into a dramatic situation. Also interestingly enough, he wanted to create drama with a mom that was only trying to keep two rude people from cutting in front of her family.

Interesting quandary isn't it?