BRAZEN ACT OF SELFISHNESS ALERT

Normally, when I talk about specific acts of selfishness, I try to hang out my OWN dirty laundry. (Or, that of my husband, with permission of course.) :)

All of us have bad days. Each of us is self-serving at times--downright rude at others. And I do enough uncalled-for, me-focused things to keep this part of cyberspace hopping--so I don't share "Jerk Alert" stories very often.

BUT, JERK ALERT AT APPLEBEE'S LAST NIGHT!

Seriously, I want to post the story because I'm still so baffled by the rudeness I witnessed. I literally was blown away by this guy's conduct.

When we first got seated, two young girls (maybe late teenage years?) came to the table, clearly ready to pitch us their fundraiser opportunity. I admit, my first reaction was an internal "Aw, crap" because I don't like having to say "no." But with all the kids asking for money for various trips, we often have to...

Fortunately, this one was easy. We'd happened into the restaurant during a day Applebee's agreed to donate 15% of every bill to a student ambassador's trip to Japan, provided the customer presented a coupon to the server. So, the teenage girls gave us the coupon, told us all we had to do was pay our bill, and thanked us. No problem.

We continued looking at the menu and chatting with our friend--barely paying attention to the girls as they visited a table across from us, which seated a young boy, woman, and a man. But, we couldn't HELP but notice when one of the girls said, "Hi, I'm going on a trip--" and was cut off by the man with a loud, sarcastic:

"Oh, you're going on a trip? How nice. We're here to eat. Thanks." Then he turned his back to them.

What the heck?! I mean, I know people are sensitive about being solicited in general, but was that his ONLY option? He couldn't hear them out and discover--like we did--that they weren't actually selling anything? Luke and I exchanged astonished glances and forgot where our own conversation had been going because we'd never seen such an overtly-self-interested scene in public before.

I honestly would say it disturbed me, mostly because I can't even figure out this guy's motives. It seems to me he snapped--but why?!

And what did he have to lose?... He couldn't even let the girls finish their sentence before politely declining the offer? Naturally, we watched that table the rest of the night with curiosity, and I just kept wondering: what causes people to react that way? If he had considered the pros and cons of other options, would he still have chosen to place his own meal (which, by the way, hadn't even arrived from the kitchen, yet) at a higher level of importance than another human--making a scene and embarrassing two girls, for....whatever reason?

Oh, if I can do one thing with my life, I want to help people THINK. But usually, stories like the above just cause ME to do the thinking--often being left with no explanation for the extent of human selfishness in the world.