Hey, Behave!

 

There’s a program on the idiot box called "Men Behaving Badly." I haven’t seen it. Don’t care to. I mean, it’s hardly likely to provide elucidation on any significant subjects. Besides, there are plenty of men -- and women -- behaving badly in life without one having to turning on the television to see them packaged. Plus, I don’t think people should invest their time and attention in the celebration of misbehavior.

I had encounters with two people behaving badly the other day, one of each gender. One was a woman who lives in an apartment that will be mine in a couple of weeks. She has delayed more than a week in letting me have a look at it. Finally she told the landlord he could bring me by the next morning at 11:30, but then she refused to answer her phone or a knock on the door. That’s downright rude, not to mention that state law requires her to show the place 30 days in advance of her departure.

The second case was a guy who owns a tire shop. He put the wrong tires on my car. I went back to him five times to deal with a pulling to the right, and then a horrendous squeaking sound you might have expected from the original Motel Six box spring. He then realized that he’d put on the wrong tires, put on the right ones, got rid of the pull but not the screech. So when I got to Marin, I brought it to the Acura dealer who fixed things, but the tire guy refuses to pay for the repairs. He further avers that if I took him to small claims court, I’d lose.

Well, folks, first of all, I shouldn’t have to quote law or take legal action. You have a fundamental social obligation to do the right thing. Life isn’t about what you can get away with, or how you can extort people into backing off from a legitimate cause. And what ever happened to the golden rule, about treating people the way you would want to be treated? How would you like to be held up securing a new home? How would you like to diddled by a service provider who not only didn’t provide the service but caused damage in the process?

The good health of our society rests on a presumption of decency and integrity. It’s bad enough when our political and corporate leaders fail to do the right thing, but when your average man on the street acts out of consort with reasonable social strictures, then the fabric of the society is torn, and they should be pushed outside of the city gates to feed the wolves.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.

 

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