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Hey Ron!

Hey Ron! - Barn Livin’

I know this is a stereotypical thing to say, but kids these days don’t have any manners. When I was 12 or 13 and riding the subway with my friends, I made it a point not to curse if adults were around. Nowadays I get on the train and hear 14-year-old...

I know this is a stereotypical thing to say, but kids these days don’t have any manners. When I was 12 or 13 and riding the subway with my friends, I made it a point not to curse if adults were around. Nowadays I get on the train and hear 14-year-old kids talking about having sex and girls going down on guys. It’s so disrespectful. If my mother heard me talking like that she would have smacked all kinds of tastes out of my mouth.

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I think part of the problem is bad parenting. You see kids getting into trouble on the news, and when they interview the parents the first thing they say is, “My son is a good kid.” Why is your 15-year-old kid out at four in the morning? What is he doing? When parents don’t teach their children good manners, it’s hard to blame their kids for not knowing how to respect their elders.

I’ve noticed kids in New York do this thing where they stand like guards in front of the train doors, so when the doors open you have to physically push them out of your way to get on. It’s gotten to the point that I just barrel through whoever is standing in my way. I don’t care if they’re eight or 80, blind, crippled, or crazy. If they are standing in front of the door, I will walk right through them and not look back.

Now, I have been known to eat on the train before. If it’s late and I’ve had a couple of drinks, I might chomp down on a slice of pizza on my way home. But I see some people eating full-on breakfast on the train. Most of the time it’s women. You can tell they spent three hours doing their makeup at home, but then they are eating a bowl of cereal on the train! It’s like, who carries milk and cereal on the train? Are you serious? You can’t spend the extra ten minutes at home to have your cereal like a sane person? There used to be signs on trains telling people not to eat, but now it’s like gay marriage, people have just accepted it.

I’m fortunate enough to not have a roommate. But I know a lot of kids who live in New York have to live with other people for financial reasons, and I hear some horror stories about the total lack of common courtesy in those living situations. First off, if you live with someone else, you need a chore list. If you don’t have a schedule laying out the days that everyone should clean, the house turns into a trash can. Everybody who lives there will assume that it’s the other person’s turn to clean. If it were me, I’d say, “Listen, let’s sit down and figure out what you like to do.” Because some people might like washing clothes, others might like sweeping or mopping or whatever else. Personally, I like to wash clothes. I use a lot of fabric softener because I like that smell.

Also, you should only own one plate, one knife, and one fork. That will make everyone wash their dishes as they use them. If I were living in a place where the dishes piled up in the sink, I would throw them all out and start eating off of paper plates. I hate washing dishes.