Whatever Happened To 'Thank You?'

Coming out of a shop the other day, being the courteous person I like to think I am, I struggled red-faced with my shopping bags as I held the door open to let a family of five pass by. As I smiled and nodded in turn to what I assume must have been the mother, father, teenage son and two teenage daughters, not one smiled or nodded back at me. It was as if I didn't exist. Totally exasperated by their rudeness and to the horror of my usual timid nature, I found myself shouting: 'Don't say thank you then!' On hearing this, they all turned round and stared at me in amazement, as if I had gone completely bonkers, and then carried on their merry way totally ignorant of their lack of courtesy as well as my mild distress. Was I surprised by their bad manners? No I wasn't. I was annoyed but certainly not surprised.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been polite to others without receiving the slightest murmur of the fast-becoming-extinct-phrase: 'thank you'. Not only do I rarely get a 'thank you' when holding doors open for people, stepping off pavements when there's been too little room for people to pass, letting those with fewer items go before me in the shopping queue, etc, but lately, I hardly ever receive a 'thank you' after having sent gifts to various people (whom I shan't mention here) for birthdays and for Christmas.

To say 'thank you' doesn't cost anything at all and yet it's priceless. It makes you feel appreciated, and I'm sure most people like to feel appreciated. And to send a 'thank you' note only costs the price of a second-class stamp, and a little extra for the scrap of paper and the envelope of course. What's so painful about that? Why do some people find 'thank you' so difficult to say?

With much credit to my parents, they instilled good manners into me from an early age, which I've continued to practise into my adulthood. I believe it is every parent's duty to instil good manners into their children, but a lot of parents don't seem to bother these days. I find this particularly sad. Politeness is what helps to make the world a nicer place to live in.

After having finished my encounter with the rudest family in Britain, with a face like thunder I carried on down the road with my heavy bags of shopping and a heavy heart.

Whatever happened to 'thank you?' Two such simple words. And yet they make so much difference.


Copyright Donna Antoinette Coleman (2003)

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