True Beauty & Common Courtesy

Lately I have been watching this show on TV called "True Beauty." For those of you who haven't seen it I will fill you in. They picked 10 beautiful people to move into a house together and every week they put them through a beauty challenge (photo shoot, commercial filming, wardrobe contest, etc.) to see who is the most beautiful. These are 10 of the shallowest people I have ever seen. They are all superficially lovely to look at but that is where their beauty ends. What the contestants don't know is that they are also being judged on their inner beauty. The are being watched by hidden cameras and their every move and word is being recorded and critiqued. Every week one of our beauties must leave so they pick the two in the bottom and send them to the Hall of Beauty. There is, however, one final challenge to test their inner beauty.

The final challenges have so far been:

1. Help the delivery man with the full arms open the door.
2. Pick up the bottle that the man tossed on the ground in front of you on the sidewalk
3. Help the crying child to find her mother.
4. The gardener accidentally sprays you with the hose, how do you react.
5. Bike messenger falls of his bike, do you help him and make sure he is alright.

Each week they let one of the final two go back to the contest and they reveal the "real" competition to the one going home. They play the hidden footage for the contestant that is going home and show them what a douche bag they really are.

I am amazed by these people. I know that this is a reality TV show and that parts of it could be staged. I like to believe it isn't because I find that it makes for more entertaining viewing. I can't help but be sucked into this show. For years I have been saying that common courtesy is dead. I mostly blame the cell phone but that is an entirely different rant so I won't go into it. The problem with watching this show is that I was already acutely aware of the lack of niceness and common courtesy in the world around me and now I feel as though it is lit up by spot lights and being enhanced by a microscope.

Today I went to the grocery store. Here are the things I witnessed...

1. I needed to walk in front of someone in an aisle. I said "pardon me." She sighed heavily and glared at me as though I was doing something wrong.

2. A child knocked a box of cereal off the shelve directly in front of his mother. The mother looked at the box and then walked away. She didn't pick it up. I find two issues here - 1. she was thoughtless and 2. she is teaching her child that this behavior is OK.

3. There was an old lady behind me in the line who had a cane and was leaning very heavily on the cart for balance. She looked distressed and uncomfortable. She only had about 12 things in her cart so I let her go ahead of me. It turned out that she had a leaking carton of milk that needed to be swapped out. I grabbed it and said that I would do it. The woman behind me sighed very loudly and said "I'm glad some people have all day because I don't." It was so rude and I wanted to punch her.

4. When I was leaving the store there was a woman in front of me going through the doors. Her cell phone started ringing so she stopped walking (in the doorway, completely blocking it) and started digging through her bag to find it. I said "Excuse me, can I squeeze by?" She had answered her phone before I asked and when hearing me said into her phone "Hold on, some pushy bitch needs to get by."

I was at the store for less then 30 minutes and these are just four of the dozen or so things that I saw that disgusted me. Believe it or not there are more. I am saddened by how people have become so self centered that they don't even seem to notice that how they are acting is unpleasant. I always try to say excuse me, I hold doors for strangers, I yield and let others go ahead, I pick up things I drop, and most importantly I taught my children these same traits.

I am amazed at the end of every weeks episode when they show the contestant their behavior. They ALL say "Well that isn't really who I am" or "everyone else does those things too." There is simply no accountability. Are people really that oblivious to how they act? Have we, as a society, just decided that being helpful and using basic politeness is no longer important?

What has gone wrong with our society when you can get a glare for saying "excuse me?"

Next time you are out and about running your errands, whether on a busy stressful day or a laid back Sunday afternoon, pay attention to your own behavior. How do you react when you are inconvenienced? Do you remain calm and polite or are you the one doing the glaring? And how have you taught your children handle these situations?