Are You Part of the Rebel Nation?

Both of the commenters in the post below (Two Great Responses...) refer to the "rebel" mentality that is so prevalent today.

Gee, I thought I was the only one who had noticed that we live in an utterly adolescent social disorder.

There is a Safeway store in my neighbourhood. Sharing the parking lot is a bank and a wine store. All over the red brick building that houses the bank and the wine store are white stencilled signs that say clearly and often, "No Parking."

There are so many parking spaces on three sides of the Safeway, that I have never seen the lot jammed and unable to take another car.

Yet...every single day, there are at least 3 cars gumming up the works parked next to the brick wall and directly under the "No Parking" signs.

Now, who is driving these cars? Teenagers? Criminals?

No. Just your average middle-aged, middle-class underachiever who just has to express his little personal rebellion in some way today.

I know that I live in the only city in the world where ignorant selfish drivers regularly turn left around round-abouts rather than drive the circle...and that includes City trucks and police.

Few drivers observe the right of pedestrians crossing an intersection. Many wave cheerily at you from the warm comfort of their giant monster SUV's while they splash in front of you in the rain.

The cell phone battle is lost. Almost all people yell indiscriminately on their phones wherever they may be. It seems to now be a given that my conversation is the most important sound in the vicinity.

Which I find peculiar, because I am so old that I still think my phone conversation is a private affair and I don't want you to hear it.

I watched Michael Moore's "Sicko" last night. A group of Americans living in Paris sat around a table in a restaurant and explained the beauties of the French medical system. What they didn't add was the obvious sense of civility they enjoyed.

O.K. The Province of British Columbia is only 150 years old.

But isn't it time we grew up?