Greedy Sucks

I'm wondering if parents today actually teach their kids any manners and selfless behavior or if they leave the teaching to anyone the kids meet outside their homes. I was completely disgusted the other day by the behavior of a neighborhood kid; he happens to be a friend of my next-door neighbor's 15-year-old son. I don't know his name so I'll just call him Boor.

I had advertised my old kitchen table on Craigslist and the buyer and his brother showed up to get it. It had started to snow just before they arrived so they wanted to load up the table and get it back home as quickly as possible. Right after they left my neighbor's son and his friends, one of them being Boor, arrived home from early dismissal at school. Shortly after that my neighbor called me to ask me if the two guys who'd just left with the table had come from my place; when I said that they had she said that one of them may have dropped his cell phone. 

I called one of the two numbers I had for them and confirmed that the buyer had dropped his cell phone and was panicking that he couldn't find it. Happy to know where the phone was they turned around and came back to get it. In the meantime I went next door to get the phone from my neighbor and when they men pulled up in the truck I met them at the truck, phone in hand. He was grateful to have his phone and asked me if he needed to offer the kid some money for finding the phone; I told him it wasn't necessary and he got back in the truck as I turned to come back into my home.

Right then I heard a kid yell, "HEY! You owe me $10 for finding that phone!" It was Boor. I looked up and saw Boor and another of the boys hanging out my neighbor's upstairs window; they'd been watching as I returned the phone to the owner and, I guess, were waiting to see if the guy was going to ask to speak to whoever found the phone. When he started to leave Boor decided that he needed to say something. What the fuck?

I kept walking back to my home and the truck continued to back out of the parking spot. Just as I got to my door I turned to make sure the men were leaving but the truck had stopped and the phone owner was outside the truck door speaking up to Boor, "What? I can't hear you." Boor repeated, for probably the third time, that the guy owed him money for finding the phone, the owner said something in response and the next thing I know he was agreeing to give Boor the $10 he'd demanded. I heard Boor race down the stairs - my neighbor and I share a wall and our staircases are side-by-side - to get his 'reward' and then race back up the stairs.

I actually felt bad for the owner of the phone because he was also young, couldn't have been more than 24 or 25 and really wasn't sure what to do in the situation, but I guess he thought he needed to oblige Boor in his demand for money. To make the whole thing even worse, my neighbor, a grown woman about my age, didn't say a fucking word to stop this incident from happening. She actually allowed Boor to demand the money for finding and returning the phone.

If one of my kids had done what Boor did not only would he or she not get a dime out of the deal but there would be serious consequences for that child to pay once we were alone. There is something seriously wrong with any kid who demands a reward for doing anything for another person, and something even more wrong with a parent who stands by and lets it happen.

You're probably saying, "You're a parent and you didn't say anything." You're right, I didn't, for the simple reasons that I don't know the kid and he wasn't under my care at the time. You can rest assured that if one of my kids' friends did that I'd have stepped in and stopped it and then I'd have reported it to the parents of the child. It was completely disgusting behavior on the part of Boor and he and his parents make me utterly sick. Why his parents? Because they obviously haven't taught him that you can do something nice for someone without expecting anything in return but a 'thank you.'

These are the same spoiled kids who will grow up expecting to be paid for everything they do in life and will get pissed off and start all kinds of shit when they don't get their way. When they end up in trouble for it their parents will wonder why and how their kids got so spoiled. Either that or they'll agree with their kids for their spoiled attitudes. I'd love to find out how Boor would react if someone found a lost item of his and demanded a reward. I'd bet money that he'd take his possession and then tell the finder to fuck off about a reward.

I'm constantly telling my kids that just because they help someone with a favor doesn't mean they need to get paid for it, that it's better to just do something nice instead. It's too bad that more parents don't teach their kids the same thing. Perhaps if they did we'd see a lot less selfishness among kids today and a lot more gratuitous behavior. It is what it is, though, and I can't control the bullshit attitude of others, I can just hope it isn't catching and that my kids become infected with it.

Until next time...peace to all.