In the past few weeks I’ve noticed more than usual the general impatience of people around me. More than the usual horn-honking, cutting each other off in traffic, shifting restlessly in line, etc.

The post office next to South Station is always busy around lunch time. If you need help from someone behind a counter you can expect at least at 20 minute wait every day. They even have a ticket system so you don’t have to wait in line, just stand around until your number is called. While I was waiting to mail a package a few weeks ago, about 15 minutes into my 20 minute wait a woman was called up to the counter and had a box full of full-page-sized envelopes, probably about 15 of them, which each had to be weighed for postage. Another woman who had just walked in and seen a 20 minute wait estimated on her ticket almost immediately started sighing impatiently. A few more minutes and she muttering under her breath, though loudly enough that I could pick up a few words from across the room: “… honestly, some people have to …”, “… can’t you just …”, “… incredibly rude…” and the like. In between mutterings, at approximately 15 second intervals, she’d release either a sigh, or that hissing/popping/clicking sound made when you open your mouth while it has just a little bit too much suction in it, used to express general disbelief.

It’s this kind of person that really gets to me. The one who believes that the world ought to provide convenience to her at the expense of everyone else, and who by extension makes the world more of an inconvience to everyone else. She’s the person who huffs and walks out of places when the line is long. She’s the one who lays on the horn the second the light turns green. She’s the one who runs the red light while simultaneously cutting across three lanes of traffic to make an illegal left turn.

Last week at Au Bon Pain in South Station I saw, within moments of each other, a clear distinction between this type of person and a much more reasonable one.

As I was ordering my coffee, a man shouted over the counter, “Excuse Me! There’s NO CREAM in this” holding aloft an empty self-server pitcher labelled ‘Light Cream’ and waving it with such force as to indicate that the lack of cream was a personal affront to him that would not be taken lightly. The woman behind the counter apologized and took the pitcher while the man huffed angrily on the other side.

About 30 seconds later, as I was putting my own cream and sugar in my coffee, a woman who had just ordered a tea, looked confusedly at the counter, taking in a row of coffee dispensers and not seeing one marked “Hot Water”, quietly asking herself, “Now, I wonder where…” As I shifted my weight to the side, I moved just enough for her to see the hot water dispenser with the napkin dispensers bucket of sugar, and cup of stirring rods all sitting in front of it, at the very end of the counter, pretty well hidden. She said, “now that’s a silly place for it” as I stepped out of her way and threw away my stirring rod.

I glanced back as I walked away from the counter and saw her, having filled her cup, neatly stacking the napkin holder, sugar containers, and stirring rods back in front of the dispenser as she had found them.