Mamacita says: People who indulge themselves at the expense of other people are not nice people; they’re selfish and inconsiderate.  I do not understand how their minds work.  These people baffle me with their insensitive glossing over other people’s lives.

When my kids were tiny, and I was RIFFED from teaching for a year here, and a year there, and was actually a SAHM, I wouldn’t even take them to town for lunch, etc, until the main lunch times for working people had passed. Why should I, with time to spare, take up seats that a person on a strict schedule and not much time should rightly have first? My tiny children and I had the luxury of being able to eat lunch any time we wanted; working people didn’t.

I’m still that way. I just refuse to inconvenience someone else if I can help it at all. I’ve done my share of waiting for a table in a crowded restaurant at prime lunchtime, with less than a half hour in which to eat, while table after table was taken up by SAHM’s and their kids, leisurely kicking back and visiting, meeting friends, eating slowly, not in any hurry, savoring their time together, and apparently not aware of all the people with very little time for lunch, some of whom would be returning to their jobs still hungry because there just weren’t any tables during their only break time of the day. I’ll probably really hear it for saying that, but I’ve been on both sides, and I say, the people with time to spare should not use very much of that time when others with NO time to spare need it. Meet later in the day.

As for people who go through a fast-food drive-through with “special orders” during rush hour. . . .  I’d like to tell you what I think of them but, to quote Auntie Em, “For twenty-three years, I’ve been dying to tell you what I thought of you! And now… well, being a Christian woman, I can’t say it!” She was, of course, referring to Miss Gulch, who became the Wicked Witch of the West in Dorothy’s dream, but frankly, that opinion of “special order during rush hour” drive-through people that I’m far too polite to say out loud is based on my firm belief that these people, too, would melt if water touched their skin.

I’m not sure which is worse, stupidity or base meanness.

Drive-throughs are for quick, easy, simple orders. Drive-throughs are supposed to be a fast way for busy people to get their food and go. Ditto for the bank. These things are not for leisurely laid-back jaunts; they are built and intended for speed.

And this was my opinion even when my kids were small; we ate “out” AFTER the busy people with little time to spare were finished, and all of my paperwork was filled out and ready BEFORE I pulled up to the bank window. It’s just politeness, plain and simple. Why is this so hard for so many people to comprehend? These drive-throughs are there for your convenience only if you pay it back in kind. Otherwise, you’re just a rude beast stealing time from working people. (I bank online now. No lines, no waiting. Awesome.)

Oh, and how about those people who bring bags of stuff to the post office, and proceed to pack their box right there in line, mooching tape and sharpies from the postal clerk and seeming not to even notice the glares from the nice people who did all that at home before driving to the post office. . . . I’m not speechless; I just don’t want to waste my choicest vocabulary words on people who aren’t worth it. I will say this, though: there’s a part of me that understands why postal workers sometimes go, well, postal. I also assume these are the same people who wait until they pull up to the window to root through a purse to find their stamps and proceed to peel and stick one on every envelope in the stack and then drop each one individually into the mailbox like Meg Ryan in “When Harry Met Sally.” That, too, is something nice people do at home before so much as opening the car door.

Am I being cruel? I’m betting you think so only if you’re one of THOSE people.

So, if it’s noon on a weekday and you’re in town for a lark, with all the time in the world, and you pull up to the drive-through window and utter any variation of “One hamburger, plain; one hamburger with mayonnaise; one cheeseburger with ketchup only, three small fries with absolutely no salt, and what kind of toy is in your kids’ meal today?” I don’t much like you.

But, but, but, “My kids are very particular!” So were mine. We didn’t eat out during rush hour.

If it’s not rush hour, order your personalized combos; nobody will care because you’re not inconveniencing anybody. Order your “four cheeseburgers, one with lettuce only, one with mustard and pickles, one with mayonnaise and onions, and one absolutely plain” at noon on a Wednesday with a long line behind you composed of people who have all of fifteen minutes to get their food, eat it, and get back to work, and you’re a self-centered narcissist.

Wah wah wah.

I dare say I’ve been insensitive about insensitive people. As to that, I’ll misquote Falco and just say, simply, “Bite me, Amadeus.”