A black cat literally crossed my path
this morning.
  I was driving home from
the gym at the early hour of 7am minding my own business when all of the sudden
a cat popped out of nowhere and scampered across the street right in front of
my car! I paused for a moment and wondered if the cat crossing was an ominous
sign.
  Did the cat know that Halloween was
looming on the horizon?
  Did he want to
give me a little pre-Halloween scare?
  I
have absolutely no clue.
  What I do know
is that the silly cat succeeded in spooking me a little and became the inspiration
for today’s Manners Monday post.
 
Appropriately entitled, “Bad Manners
that Spook Me,” I thought about the multitude of bad manners we have resigned
ourselves to accept over the years that are natural repellents preventing us
from being our best selves, as well as the collection of appalling manners we
have come to amass more recently as a direct result of our deeply entrenched technological
age and it scared the 
bejeezus out of me!  The bad manners examples  seemed endless with the most popular categories falling the three prominent areas of table,
tech, and every day manners.  Below is
just a smattering of what we found spooks us the most when it comes to bad manners.  What spooks you?  Share with us and let’s see if we can make a dent to decrease our ill-mannered ways by next Halloween. 
Bad
Table Manners that Spook Me
  • Chewing
    with one’s mouth open.
  • Talking
    with a mouth full of food.
  • Using
    a finger to push food onto a fork rather than using a knife.
  • Cutting
    ones food using the pitch-fork style rather than using the Continental style of
    dining.
  • Cell
    phones on the table during the meal.
  • Parents
    who let their kids use tech toys at the table to keep them calm.
  • Relentless
    rudeness to the wait staff.
  • Haggling
    over dollars and cents rather than just splitting the bill.

Bad
Tech Manners that Spook Me
  • Personalized
    smart phone rings that draw too much attention.
  • Texting
    when in the company of others.
  • Texting
    in favor of conversing with another who is well within ear shot.
  • Texting
    a back-and-forth heated exchange instead of just picking up the phone!
  • Irresponsible,
    thoughtless tweets. Who knew 140 characters could get us into so much trouble?
  • Causing
    FOMO on Facebook by posting egotistical photos and captions of one’s fabulous
    life.  
  • Emails
    with poor grammar, sentence structure and spelling.

Bad
Every Day Manners that Spook Me
  • Slow
    drivers who refuse to move into the slow lane.
  • Someone
    who lets the elevator door close when another person is clearly approaching
    entry.
  • A
    poor handshake that resembles a knuckle-cruncher.
  • A
    loud talker who thinks the world needs to hang on their every word.
  • Showing
    up to any party without a gift, unless it expressly says, “No gifts please.”
  • Repeated
    tardiness from the same person.
  • People
    who consistently exclude, put-down or are critical of others.
  • Someone
    who continuously forgets your name and acts like they’re meeting you for the
    first time.
  • Belching
    and passing gas in the company of women.
Feel free to add the manners that spook you the most to our growing list. Send them into us and we will be sure to incorporate them. Happy Halloween!!