Little things make big difference

During the Christmas rush I was shopping in a teens’ clothing store in order to buy a present for my granddaughters. As I stood in the rather long line at the cashier, I noticed that women would take a blouse or shirt off of a shelf, hold it up to see if they liked it, and then just toss it back on the shelf without attempting to fold it or place it neatly. One woman looking at some various colored tops picked up a blue one, opened it up to look at it, and then just stuffed it back on the pile. She then chose a lighter blue top, which she inspected and hung over her arm. Her eyes then caught the yellow tops so she dug down about five deep in the pile, moved the top four over to the red pile, and held up the fifth one. Apparently she didn’t like it so she threw it back on the blue pile, took the light blue one from her arm and dropped it on the yellow pile and walked away. As I looked around the shop, I could see that many of the shelves had similar piles of discarded clothing. Apparently shoppers feel this is okay.

I was struck by how rude this is. It is rude to the sales people who have to go around and straighten out the merchandise, and it is rude to the other customers who have to navigate a bunch of wrinkled, unsightly piles of clothing to find what they want. It’s rude to think it’s OK to make a mess and let someone else clean it up.

We hear lots of complaints about how Congress doesn’t get along, how drivers get into road rage incidents and how violence is permeating our society. If you want to know why, I think looking in the clothing stores will give the answer. It’s the little things that count. If someone thinks it’s OK to just drop a blouse back on the counter, that someone else will be responsible to make it right, how are they going to feel about the bigger things in life? If they don’t think it’s rude to disrespect a sales clerk, will they think it’s OK to disrespect a neighbor, a teacher, a company or a law? Won’t they always expect someone to clean up after them?

I don’t mean to imply that it’s just women that are this way. This is just an example of what is happening all around us. My mother, bless her soul, would never have done something like that. She always stressed putting things back the way we found them. Somewhere between her generation and the current one, we have lost something very important. Somewhere we have lost the respect for our fellow human beings. We, as a society, have become rather selfish.

Think about this. Maybe in the new year we can begin to turn it around.

Gerry Reagan

Yuma