Taking Turns

On the first day of Kindergarten, and everyday afterward, our teachers instilled in everyone the importance of taking turns. Actually, as I think back to my own Kindergarten days and then the book by Robert Fulghum titled, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, there was an enormous amount of knowledge shared with us.  Things like:
1.  Say you are sorry when you hurt someone
2.  Keep your hands and feet to yourself
3.  Play fair
4.  Put things back where you found them
5.  Flush
6.  Wash your hands
The list goes on and on.  If you missed that book on the first go around, then I highly suggest a good read for now.  (Unless you have time to go and sit in a Kindergarten class again).

The list goes on and on.  All good common sense social rules to get along with others.  However, lately I have been wondering if some people either never learned these rules or just by-passed Kindergarten totally.  

Today, I witnessed three different times, and I probably drove a total of 6 miles, drivers who did not know how to take turns.  
Obviously, they were much more important than the other person, or perhaps it was who they were going to see or what they were going to do that was more important so they simply cut in front of others and did not see any reason to take their place in line and share to take turns.

The good news is that the driver being given the shaft had the good sense to just sit back and let the uneducated driver have the road so as to not cause an accident or even worse  --  road rage!  The way that I tend to handle it is to talk to myself as if I were talking to them.  And no, it does not always involve four letter words.  It just seems to help me to talk calmly, as if that person really cared or could hear me, and say, "Oh, OK Missie or Buddy..... I see that you are much more important than I am so I will give you the right of way and you go for it!"  What is amusing to me is that most of the time they end up one or two cars ahead of me.  So what did they accomplish? Simply that they were more important and have no social skills and obviously do not care.

We all will continue to hear of horrors that happen out on the byways and highways, which includes the road rage, as well as the crookedness and corruption of politicians on the take or the doctors or lawyers and even policemen who lie.  This is news because these are the exceptions.  There are more good people out there than bad. The stories that people want to hear about are the ones filled with drama.

If everyone would just go back to what they learned in kindergarten and take their turn, this world would function on a totally different level.  And for those who can't do that, the rest of us need to just be the winner in the game of life and know that what counts is how you play the game.  Cheaters eventually get caught. Just give them the space.