By Christopher Gabriel, Blog Harbor

The fact the word “Mall” is in the title of this piece tells an awful lot about me.  Yes, I go to malls.  And not only do I go to them, I enjoy them.  Usually.  Most men I know refuse to admit they ever venture forth to these bastions of Capitalism . . . I know better.  It’s no different than asking someone if he/she watches American Idol.  Almost to a man and woman, the answer you’ll receive is something along the lines of, “are you nuts — I would never watch that show.”  Sure.  And most of those same people that don’t watch American Idol never visit malls either.

Today my wife, our daughters and I went out to one of the many malls the Twin Cities have to offer.  And, no, it wasn’t the Mall of America.  Not on a Sunday.  Sunday at MOA might as well be The Running of the Bulls in Spain.  If you don’t have your “game” on, sooner or later you’ll get trampled.

So then, off we went to the mall — actually, one of the nicer malls in the area — in pursuit of a graduation gift for our oldest niece.  I mention it being one of the “nicer” malls because unlike many other choices we have, the pace inside at this one is a bit slower, the patrons tend to be a bit more mannered and overall, being that it’s a Sunday, the likelihood of having to weave through and around giant herds of teenagers participating in text messaging festivals is minimal at best.

The best-laid plans . . .

Here we were strolling along, both of our girls in a two-person stroller, when suddenly I had to do a sharp 90-degree turn to avoid two women — adults — walking at a furious pace, talking loud enough to be heard on the east coast, and not the least bit aware of anyone in front of them or to the sides of them as they sliced directly in front of us at about a 45-degree angle, missing our two young daughters in the stroller by about an inch.

Had I turned my head for a second, they’d have plowed right into our girls and likely fallen on top of them, Starbucks beverages and all.

Now, certainly this kind of thing happening is not uncommon.  Whether you’re at a mall, walking along a busy city street or in a park with joggers and bikers, there are people out there that simply go through life wandering aimlessly.  Some people have great awareness of everything around them, others do not.  And as you would imagine, this little near-collision isn’t the first time this has happened.  But these two women — these ladies were in a league of their own.  In the 90 minutes or so that we were at this mall, the two of them were like the pack of gnats you walk through on a muggy summer evening:  You come in contact with them once, they never seem to leave your sight.  To wit . . .

Not 15 minutes later these same two knuckleheads, still walking and talking furiously without any awareness of anyone else in the mall, plowed into an elderly woman coming out of an outdoor store as they were entering.  The woman lost her balance, dropped her purse and both of her bags but managed to keep on her feet.  And Bulldozers One and Two — they never broke stride as they slashed their way through the store like Barry Sanders in his prime.

It’s probably obvious by now my tolerance for people like this is minimal, at best.  My wife — she’s superb at letting this kind of thing roll off her back.  I simply cannot for the life of me understand how people can walk around and be so utterly engrossed in themselves to the extent they slam into people and then compound it by showing little or no care or concern as these women demonstrated.

But is there a deeper issue here?  I mentioned earlier these kinds of things happening aren’t uncommon.  And to be sure, some would argue this was little more than two isolated incidents involving several rather inconsiderate individuals.  However, the more I got to thinking about it, the more these two women seemed representative of what can fairly be called The Me First Era.

No matter where you go these days you see it, you hear it and you feel it.  People consciously or subconsciously putting themselves before others.  It happens in restaurants, in stores, in offices . . . it’s become as much a part of daily life as saying “good morning.”  Random acts of kindness and consideration, though still out there, are steadily being replaced by frequent acts of rudeness and selfishness. 

Often times, people are rightfully preoccupied with something important and are focused on getting someplace in a hurry.  Maybe they skip an “excuse me” or a “thank you”; we’ve all been in that place.  Other times, let’s face it, people simply have bad days.  Either way, we’re all human and we aren’t always at our best. 

But, on balance, it seems to me there is a growing majority of people who live within their own existence and their own being, paying little mind to those around them.  Young, old, men, women, white, black . . . it makes no difference who you’re talking about.  Those random acts of kindness seem to be losing the battle with the frequent acts of inconsideration   

On my old weekend radio program at KTLK in Minneapolis, I once asked listeners a simple question: Is America growing cold?  I wanted to know how people thought we treated each other.  I didn’t mean family and friends, I meant strangers.  Simple things like opening doors for people, being polite whenever possible, trying kindness before jumping to a nasty verbal conclusion . . .

With so many bad things, and people, in our world, is it even possible to act, react and live in a way that demonstrates civility over profanity, and warmth over disregard? 

I’d like to think the answer is a resounding yes.  I want the answer to be yes.  I want my daughters to grow up in a world where the answer is yes. 

The listeners that day — they overwhelmingly told me no. 

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