If You Expect Politeness, You’re In for a Rude Awakening

Not long ago, I stood in the rain outside a Sherman Oaks record store and held the door open for not one, not two, but five healthy, shiny-cheeked, prosperous-looking young adults. It must have taken a good 20 seconds for them to pass; I felt like a doorman at the Biltmore.

Not one so much as nodded, grunted or raised an eyebrow. I accrued exactly one response: a glance from a doe-eyed blonde, not of appreciation, but instead checking to make sure she was not in danger from the nut holding the door open.

I paused, door in hand, marveling. Was it my breath? When I was a kid, I was trained to be as courteous as Beaver Cleaver or Batman. Had courtesy suddenly been ascribed to a bygone generation? Was I old and irrelevant?

I let the door close (accidentally, I assure you) right in the face of a young woman with a tiger bafflingly tattooed mid-cleavage. She didn’t mind--didn’t, in fact, even seem to notice.

It occurred to me that, to these people, holding a door open was an alien act. They probably thought I was from France or something. But why? Are people now so paranoid that they are even afraid to mumble a quick “thanks” to a stranger? Then it hit me. . . .

It wasn’t rudeness, or even fear. It was the new courtesy.

These five young people realized--either instinctively or through conditioning in this tough, expedient era--that there are more profitable ways to expend human energy than by saying “please” and “thank you.”

Indeed, given the myriad taxing demands on modern humans--particularly in Los Angeles, where we literally drive ourselves crazy--human energy is unutterably precious.

To say “Thanks” (or give even a quick, friendly nod) and thus evoke the reply, “You’re welcome,” completes an expenditure of energy that is just, well, unnecessary. Maybe even a luxury. One might, after all, need that little quark of fuel later--to rent a video, to stand in line for a movie, to aerobicize, to escape an attack on the Hollywood Freeway.

It was a revelation. Saying nothing was actually the most polite thing those five people could have done. There I was, so hopelessly out-of-touch--indeed, un-hip--that I was spending 20 seconds of my time--of my own life-- and a calorie or two of precious energy, just to hold a door open for strangers. I could have already been inside the store, CD in hand--maybe even on my way to pay for it, rush back home and enjoy it.

Last summer at a Dodger game, a hulking, tobacco-chewing fraternity lad hunkered down in the next seat, then proceeded to expectorate brown liquid between his feet. About twice a minute.

By the fourth inning, I had counted exactly 63 such releases. A minor puddle had formed, which splashed my shoes with each new issue of tobacco juice. Sigma Delta Ptui. But did I say anything? No. He was drunk--and had muscles.

Now I understand that he was actually saving me the aggravation and energy-burn of a confrontation.

Or, at the very least, he was saving both of us the time and energy that would have been consumed had he announced, “Hello, I plan to spit tobacco juice six inches from your shoes.” What would I have said? Judging by his biceps, probably, “No problem.” It would have been a meaningless exercise, a waste of fuel.

He was just being polite.

A few weeks ago, a salesperson knocked on my screen door, offering magazine subscriptions that, if I bought them, might save inner-city youth from lives of crime and drug addiction. She could see me talking on the phone, yet she remained on my porch, shouting her pitch through the screen.

“Sorry, dear,” I said, smiling, “I’m on the phone.” The pitch continued. “Long distance--sorry,” I persisted. Still more pitch, at a louder volume. “Look, honey, I’m on the phone, and I really don’t have any money.” (This was true.)

She bristled. “Then how do you afford this ---- ing apartment?” she demanded. Incredulous, I sought to offer the only reasonable, honest response possible: “Rent control.”

“Rent control, my butt!” she spewed.

I mistakenly interpreted her reply as rudeness and, like a dope, I went to the door and demanded to see her ID badge.

“I’ll show you some ID!” she replied, lunging at me, intent on physical harm. (She was a big one, too.) I just managed to dart back inside and close the door, shocked, while she loomed outside, inviting me to have an unnatural association with my parents.

Rudeness? Nah. She was representing her feelings to me as concisely and directly as possible. Think how much more time and effort might have been involved in a more protracted, old-fashioned, “polite” exchange.

Really, what’s quicker: “Rent control, my butt!” or “Oh, now, sir, surely someone in a fine neighborhood like this could afford just a few dollars to help out some young people who really need it. Please allow me to explain a little about how this works. . . .”

I am a slow learner.

I recently returned from Taiwan with an “accupressure foot massage machine,” which is meant to engender good health by electrically rubbing a knob against pressure points on one’s feet.

The gift, I was told, had cost the equivalent of $40. I filled out my Customs form accordingly, and after disembarking at LAX, approached a Customs official. He was middle-aged, mustachioed and looked either surly or sleepy. I bade him a cheery “good morning.” He frowned, inspected my form, then pointed to the machine.

“Whatsat?” he asked.

“It’s an accupressure foot massage machine.”

“A what ?”

I pointed to the label on the box and smiled benignly. It was, after all, an exotic item. He looked at the $40 figure on the form and sneered. His voice was mocking: “Sir. . . . Are you aware, sir, that you can claim up to $400 worth of goods? Sir? Do you know that?”

“Yes.”

“And you are still trying to tell me that thing cost $40?”

“Yes. That’s what I was told by the person who bought it.” (In fact, I later learned, it cost about $60.)

He looked pensive, as if he were thinking of calling in the FBI. At booths to my left and right, other U.S. citizens were triumphantly returning home, no doubt with hundreds of dollars of unreported goods gloriously secreted in their suitcases. The Customs man eyed me, suspiciously now.

“Just what were you doing on your trip, sir?”

“Visiting friends. Sightseeing.”

He actually snickered.

“What kind of work do you do, Mr. uh . . . Ren-see?”

“I’m a free-lance writer.”

The look on his face resembled a loser on “People’s Court”; his tone sounded like that guy in “Treasure of Sierra Madre” who says, “Badges? We don’ need no stinking badges. . . .”

“A free-lance writer? A free . . . lance . . . writer?” he said.

I nodded. It was an ugly way to earn a living, I agreed, but enough to deny a man his citizenship?

Then it came to me: I was back in Los Angeles, land of the new courtesy. He wasn’t being rude, my behavior had been all wrong. I affected a look of disdain to match his own, eyed him squarely, and said: “So what the hell do you want, man? You want me to open the damned box for you? Huh?”

It was as if I had given the secret password. We instantly knew where each other stood. We stopped wasting each other’s time and precious calories.

His thumb jerked back over his shoulder, his eyes returned to the line of people behind me.

“Get outta here,” he grumbled.

He was just being polite.