Ignorance is a Plague

I never thought I would believe in Astrology, but a recent string of events has me believing that Retrograde Mercury is in fact a real thing, and that it's out to make my life hell. Nothing has been going right for the past few weeks.

There was a day last week that was just all sorts of awful and also relevant to this blog. I was walking down the stairs to the light rail, as I do every weekday morning. There were two women walking slowly down the left side of the staircase, so I decided to stay to the right to pass them. Apparently I wasn't moving fast enough for the guy behind me, who felt he was justified in using both hands to push me forward from behind to get me out of his way faster. Unlike me, he had a train to catch. Fortunately, I have a habit of always keeping my hand close to the railing, just in case I lose a battle with gravity (or, ya know, get pushed from behind by an inconsiderate douchebag in a suit, because that apparently happens more frequently than originally thought).

After I calmed down and stopped wishing horrible bouts of diarrhea on the guy (with lots of expletives in between), I started thinking about how glad I was that he pushed me and not someone else. What if it had been an old lady that he pushed? Or a pregnant lady? Or maybe someone else with a really bad medical condition who wouldn't be able to catch herself? Did he only have the guts to push me because he thought I was able-bodied enough to not get hurt? Or did it not matter, because I was a woman and wouldn't fight back anyway? None of this excuses the fact that he did it, of course. Some people are self-centered enough to really not care who they are hurting as long as they aren't inconvenienced.

Anyway, this goes back to the point I was making about invisible illnesses awhile ago. Just because a person seems healthy doesn't mean they are. And just because you're in a rush doesn't mean you have a right to inconvenience others, or make them eat concrete for that matter. I think we need to bring back those Victorian etiquette classes...