Adults Behaving Badly

Dear Adults (or those pretending to be ones), If you’re reading this post while you’re having dinner at a restaurant, attending a funeral, watching your kid’s talent show or, worse, driving, please stop. This behavior isn’t very becoming of you. It’s rude and, in cases when operating heavy machinery, dangerous. You, too, Mom. There’s been all this hubbub about how kids and teenagers “check out” when they use technology or how toddlers and babies seem to be the ones disturbing the peace during the most annoying times (give them some Rockabye Baby lullabies to listen to already!), but, c’mon, they don’t know any better. But you know who should know better? Grown-ups. But they don’t. I forgot that.

  After spending most of my nights and weekends with a two-year-old wreaking entertaining havoc (I like her wild, actually), I look forward to those rare occasions outside of work when I can just spend some time with “adults.” You know, those people who are eligible to vote, supposedly can tell right from wrong, and whose conversations (hopefully) don’t involve any potty talk? Yeah.

The view of Marina Del Rey from the grown-up event!

  Recently my husband and I attended an event honoring the former governor of California, Gray Davis. It was one of those complimentary valet, classy hors d’oeuvres, silent auction, hosted bar and awards ceremony kind of affairs that grown-ups go to. (While that list of activities doesn’t sound so thrilling, then maybe you too would be driven to some bad behavior.) Well, since they were honoring a former governor we wrongly assumed that people would be respectful and classy. Not a chance.

That’s a dude blocking our view while Gov. Gray Davis received his award.

It was adults-behaving-badly night; we just didn’t get the memo. Because, while the average age in the room of 100 or so people was probably 55, the majority of them acted worse than my toddler does at public events. Here are my gripes: 1. Line cutting is not cool. With a spread that included pulled pork and sirloin sliders, seasoned fries, mini chimichangas and a mac & cheese bar, among other things, the lines were pretty long once the food stations opened. And where there are long lines, there are cutters. You know who you are; sliding in front of people engrossed in conversation, or engaging someone in line in conversation so you could get closer to the front. (Toddlers can’t stand lines; they’ll just cry and people will send them and their parents to the front. At least they’re just expressing themselves as opposed to being sneaky.)

That’s Gov. Gray Davis talking while someone’s frying mac & cheese with bacon

2. Please don’t talk once the event starts. Not even your inside voice. Whisper - didn’t your parents teach you that? People were speaking loudly during most of the ceremony. Three or four speakers kicked off the evening and attendees were just gabbing away over them. No shushing or charismatic presenters could get these folks to quiet down. It wasn’t until the governor came out that the talking somewhat calmed down, though he had to contend with the sound of frying pans just across the room. (Party planner, probably best not to have chefs cooking during the presentation. You, adult, planned poorly.)

3. Selfies, too, were happening during the ceremony. And, mind you, it wasn’t like this was a huge crowd. Whoever was on the stage had full view of what everyone was doing. (My daughter despises selfies.)

4. And where there are selfies, there are Web surfers. At least two or three people in the first row of tables were clearly viewing websites, game scores, who knows what, while people were speaking. (See, my daughter would never do that. She’d instead start singing or something, which is much more pleasant.)

This lady blocked half of the room’s view for several minutes.

5. Don’t block my view, please. Take your photo and move on . . . Isn’t that the courteous thing to do? (My daughter isn’t tall enough to really block anything.)

 

What do you consider bad behavior?