‘Unmannerism’ could be epidemic

Manners is a word often grouped along with "please and thank you," "but mommy," and other such quotations of pleasantry and adolescent objections.

As the fifth and youngest child of a small Indiana town, I have had some experience with these black and white expectations of society.

However, walking fresh-faced and innocent onto a big, scary college campus I was greeted by a culture shock, a sort of illness spread about the university. The diagnosis: Unmannerism. Symptoms include, but are not limited to, obscene and inappropriate exclamations of one's apparent "fineness," uncontrollable adventures to acquire alcohol and an unnatural magnetism of one's hand to "that fine booty."

Jokes aside, as members of what we would hope to be a successful society, this is a matter of great distress. The question lingering is "From what origins do these primates arise?" To search for the answer, of course, we begin at the beginning, and utilize two examples.

Example A, let's call him Benjamin. Now Benjamin has just had his eighth birthday party. Friends, family and strange uncles all arrived with presents for little Ben to celebrate his birth and existence in the world.

 It is a rather exuberating experience for the small boy, eating cake in the living room, and tearing up a mess of papers on the table he knowingly did not have to clean up. To step outside his normal boundaries is exciting and liberating.

However, he knows, as he always did, the chores awaiting him the following day were to be performed with little to no objection or he would be grounded.

Moving on to example B. How about Andrew? It is no coincidence that small Andrew has also just had an eighth birthday. His stupid mom spent the whole day cleaning the house and yelling at him to put all his toys away. But he wanted to play with them! The bathroom was not even that dirty. She was freaking out over nothing.

Then all those people with their dirty lipstick that always stained his cheek decided to come over. 

Once the people all left, he went off to sleep, only to wake up hours later to that same face that belonged to his mother. She wanted him to do the dishes! No way was he going to do that.The difference between Benjamin and Andrew is simple: manners. One was taught them and the other was not.

Even though the demonstration given was a birthday, we can foresee similar behavior in the coming years.

See, it's the Andrews we see in college walking around with a group of friends, giggling about the "hottie with the body" while the Benjamins sit in their dorm room alone, wondering why they can't make friends. So what to do?

 The challenge to us as young adults sculpting the future is to create a surplus of Benjamins and put a stop to any Andrew spotted with questionable actions.

When we reproduce, we must vaccinate against Unmannerism and fight to find the cure!