Recently I was at an airport, about to set off on a 24-hour long haul flight.
If you’ve ever travelled on a plane and felt frustrated at hearing a crying baby on a nearby seat, multiply that frustration and stress by ten and you’ll understand what the parents are going through.
Having a young family myself, I’ve been there plenty.
Knowing this, I try to be as relaxed and open minded when I see other families embarking on long journeys; it’s stressful, tiring and often feels never ending. A lovely family, who I’d earlier discovered had the same final destination as me, sat across from me in the airport restaurant with their two very young children.
I thought, ‘those poor guys, two children under three years of age on a long flight, here comes the pain’. A voice announced the boarding of our flight and we made a move to the gate. I offered to help the family with their bags and we set off.
“Do you not want to put those nappies in the bin?” I suddenly asked as I looked back and noticed that the lovely couple had left two, used and un-bagged nappies sitting on their restaurant table. “Nah, the waiter will get them!” was the reply. In an instant, the lovely couple were lovely no more.
Maybe some people think it’s no big deal, but personally, leaving soiled nappies sitting on a restaurant table is not only disgusting but terribly rude. It’s like going to the toilet, crumpling up the toilet paper and then expecting someone else to flush it down the toilet for you! It really got me thinking about peoples’ perception of what’s acceptable and what’s not.
I recently read in the Wentworth Courier an article entitled ‘Pigs in the Park’. The article discussed how locals in Sydney’s Bronte, Bondi and Tamarama beaches were outraged by the trashing of beachside parks. It went on to talk about how weekend beach goers abused the parks by getting heavily intoxicated and leaving their garbage, including smashed glass bottle strewn all over the. Pigs for sure.
It baffles me when I see things like that. I’m not suggesting that everyone should become environmentalists but surely it’s not rocket science to know what’s acceptable and what’s not; come on, people!
I continued to read the article, truly feeling the plight of the residents especially given my recent airport encounter. Suddenly a local resident’s quote caught my eye. It said “banning westies” could be a way of solving the problem. For those of you not from Sydney, this is referring to people who reside in the western district of Sydney.
What kind of quote is this? The article says the resident spoke jokingly but it begs the question of what underpins that joke. Has he voiced what other locals are thinking? Maybe I’m wrong but unless the person who spoke those words has recently conducted a census of the home addresses of regular beach goers, his quote is so up its own arse that it reeks of the same rubbish that fills the beach. So is that where inconsideration comes from?
Is it a case of do unto others as they do unto you? I’d doubt it – certainly for the most part I think it’s a case of who you are and how you’re brought up. But that said, comments like ‘They should ban all westies’ certainly doesn’t do much in the way of creating harmony between residents and visitors.
It’s a funny old life; too much of something can desensitise you so much so that you feel absolutely nothing for it. If you can’t feel anything, how hard must it be then to show respect?
There will always be people who care only for themselves, but for everyone else, I think it comes down to mutual respect.
Thankfully the majority of us do our best to show just that but those others, don’t they just drive you nuts?
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