Don't Be Rude

I was riding my bike on the sidewalks of Harvard Square the other day, speeding to yet another appointment--maybe a class or a meeting or a rehearsal. Who knows? It was something I was late for. I was weaving in and out of pedestrians and passers-by--nothing hazardous or anything, just trying to get through without being forced onto the autobahn that is Mass. Ave., while avoiding the possibility of getting flattened by a tour bus full of inquisitive grandmothers from Coral Gables.

Arriving at the crosswalk at Holyoke Street, though I knew I was still rushed, I realized I was at least going to make it to my destination on time. A feeling of relief settled over me as I waited for the light to turn green. For a brief moment, everything was in order. Life was good. Maybe, just maybe, everything was going to work out all right.

"Do you mind?" The footsteps came running up behind me as I perched over my handlebars. "You!" A middle-aged lady was treading in my direction, her eyes boring into me. "Riding on the sidewalk, in and out of people! You're an idiot!"

I was caught completely off guard. "I'm in a hurry," I stated calmly, glancing at my bike to emphasize the point. "I was being completely safe. You just can't tell because you're stupid."

"No, you're stupid for riding your bike on the sidewalk," she responded. We carried on further with remarks relating to each other's respective stupidity as the light changed and I headed toward the River, and she toward the Square.

This exchange lingered with me for several days like a bad meal of enchiladas at the Winthrop House dining hall. It wasn't that I was upset about annoying the woman. I wasn't exactly mowing her down with my bicycle, so I don't think I was causing any harm. It was more the encounter itself. I like to think I possess at least some shred of clever, subtle wit in my marrow, and, "You're stupid," while displaying elegance in brevity, is not exactly a riposte worthy of Oscar Wilde.

In addition, the rudeness on both sides of the argument really bothered me. The least she could have done, in initiating the whole rhubarb to begin with, was come up with some polite yet clever way of scolding me: "Lovely mountain bike. Perhaps it would function best in the wilderness." And I would not have retorted so contemptuously. "Such is the urban jungle," I would reply, eyes twinkling, and we'd both go our merry ways.

Rudeness is, of course, prevalent in our society. And whenever anyone writes about rudeness, the first and most obvious temptation is to declare the current period in history the nadir of incivility, the low point reached by mankind after years of tossing values over the side like Sam Adams hurling tea into the Boston Harbor.

Certainly, there is a case to be made for this. Honorifics are basically dead. The idea of agonizing over "Ms." seems quaint because the idea of calling anybody "Mister" or "Missus" or indeed anything other than "Hey, you" has faded away. Go into Abercrombie & Fitch, and the teenage sales clerks read your name off your credit card like you were both going to Riverdale High together.

Of course, the other sort of forced familiarity occurs at The Wrap, where the cashiers take your first name during the order, as if to imply a more "personal" connection to the customer, while staring down at the register during the entire transaction. I have encountered another type of rudeness at this establishment, but one not endemic to restaurants--that of the flip statement inclined to make you feel more comfortable, but which only ends up turning you off. I have often walked in there wearing, along with several others, a tuxedo, to which I always receive the question, asked with a smirk, "Hey, what are you celebrating?" I am tempted, by this point, to answer, "An employee who does his job--now make my burrito."

Maybe today's rudeness is an off-shoot of the culture of protest and action that is a characteristic of the Harvard Square scene. What worked so well for the Vietnam War or civil rights is now applied to everyone's own peccadilloes and fixations. The female pedestrian obviously felt she had the moral high ground to handle me in any way she saw fit since I was a hazard to humanity and therefore deserved no part among society.

Yet rudeness somehow throws a switch in our heads and turns us into people we are not. Suddenly we are screaming, cursing, falling to our knees and waving both extended middle fingers into the air, howling like a beast.

That's the worst thing about the whole exchange on the sidewalk. It brought out a bad side in me. I'm a nice person, damnit, and for this lady not to recognize me as such, for her to treat me as if I were rude, is just too much. I swear, I could have strangled her right then and th--never mind. As you can see, the rudeness is still hovering about me, so you'd best try to avoid me for the next couple of days, particularly if I'm speeding along on the sidewalk. Just don't call me stupid.

George W. Hicks '00 is an economics concentrator in Winthrop House. His columns appear on alternate Fridays.