I Must Be Doing Something Right.

The other day, we were driving along one of those roads where you have cars parked on both sides and only enough room for one car to actually pass down the road at a time. Now, these roads are not particularly common around here, since most roads are wide enough for my Mum to drive a bus down. This may explain why some people do not understand the need for some courtesy and decent manners while driving such a road. So, Mr. DBM is driving. He sees another car coming the other way and he very politely moves over into a space by the side of the road and lets the other driver through. The other driver passes by while Mr. DBM waits patiently. The other driver does not say thank you. No nod of the head, no little wave, no smile, not even a lift of one small finger. Nothing, nada, bupkiss, zilch in the way of a thank you. That really bugs me. Here are some of the responses that I have used in such a situation:

• Small conversation with myself, that goes along the lines of:
  Me: "Thank you!"
  Me: "You're welcome!"


• The lifting and waving of one middle finger. Not a lot of effort, but much satisfaction. Unfortunately, this response is usually wasted on the ill-mannered driver, since they generally haven't got a clue about good manners or that they might have offended in any way whatsoever.


• Shouting: "Would it kill you to say thank you?"


• Mr. DBM's favourite - much head shaking and muttering under the breath of "I hate people, I really hate people."

Now, this lack of manners seems to be spreading like a bad case of Ebola out here. People not saying thank you if you hold a door open for them or letting a door close right in your face. Then you have the family of four filling the whole width of the pavement, none of whom will move over to allow you to pass them without beating a path through the undergrowth. How about moving over to one side of an escalator so that other people can walk down the other side? Or letting people off a bus before getting on, rather than trying to push through the people getting off so that they can get on first and beat the elderly lady with walking frame to the last seat? My personal favourite is the driver that sits in the fast lane doing exactly the speed limit - move over dammit! See, now even I am losing my patience and my good manners. Apparently, common courtesy, much like common sense, is becoming very rare indeed. And that is a real shame, since it takes so little effort to do someone a favour and even less to say thank you in return.

So, what has all this got to do with the title of my post? Well, recently my talent and flair for blogging finally got noticed and I received a couple of blogging awards. The first one came from Jay, over at The Depp Effect. She most generously bestowed upon my unworthy head the Arte y Pico Award. Then, the very funny and talented Drowsey Monkey passed the kick ass award along to me. I was very touched by both of these awards, since neither one of them was given to me by my Mum or any other relative or close friend. You see, these are people that I have never physically met before. My only interactions with them have been via blogs. And that is one of the reasons that I am still writing my blog and reading other people's blogs. There are all sorts of people out there living in this hectic, crazy, ever-changing world of ours. Some of them will never like, some of them we will tolerate. Others, we will love with all of our hearts and some we will just click with, be friends with and share a little laughter with. That is what writing this blog is all about. Sure, sometimes I may slip in a little, just a little, bit of edumacational stuff, usually biological in nature, but most of the time I just write about what has struck me as being odd or different about a day, what has touched me, what has annoyed me or what has put a smile on my face. That is also why I read other people's blog, since we all see the world through different eyes.

So, although I have said thank you to Jay and Drowsey privately, I wanted to make sure that my manners were up to scratch and that everyone hears my very big and heartfelt THANK YOU to the two of you for my awards - I must be doing something right after all.

P.S. I know that I am supposed to pass these awards along to someone else now, but I haven't quite got around to that yet..............sorry!