When Push Comes to Shove

Rudeness seems to pervade our culture, often taking on iconic status among some people. Most of us may get a little irritated, but we take it in stride. But people have been killed over perceived slights.

In her new book, Talk to the Hand: #?*! The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door (Gotham Books; New York. 2005), Lynn Truss offers insight into this variation of responses, that rings very true.

She writes (p. 7), " . . . what is so interesting about our . . . society is that perceived rudeness probably irritates rough, insolent people even more than it peeves polite, deferential ones. As the American writer Mark Caldwell points out in A Short History of Rudeness (1999), if you want to observe status-obsessed people who are exquisitely sensitive to slights, don't read an Edith Wharton novel, visit San Quentin."

Be careful (polite and considerate) in public places (that includes driving on the roads). It's a rough world out there, and you never know who you're dealing with.