I have always enjoyed receiving jokes and then forwarding them to others to make people laugh. Some time back a humorous story was sent to me about an 80-something man. He was having difficulty placing an order in the drive-thru lane of a fast-food establishment. A woman in the car directly behind started honking her horn and yelling something at him. When the man got to the first window to pay, he told the clerk he was also paying for the car behind him.
As he drove up to the next window, he saw the woman in his side-view mirror mouthing “thank-you” to him and giving a thumbs up. At the second window the man took, not only his order, but also the woman’s. He proceeded to drive away with both orders, thereby forcing the woman to go through the queue again. The moral of the story was don’t mess with seniors — we have been around for a long time. I admit I chuckled at the tale.
I have a longtime friend who regularly supplies me with interesting photos and videos. Recently, he emailed a video to me from a religious group that he thought I would find amusing. It featured an elderly gentleman, whom I assumed was a pastor, reading that very same story in the above paragraph to an audience. The narrator found the tale so funny that he almost fell over from laughter. I, on the other hand, found myself suddenly somewhat appalled.
The old man in the joke knew he was holding up the entire line and that the woman directly behind him was especially upset. When he decided to pay for her food, it could have been a genuine act of compassion and empathy. Perhaps she had kids to pick up from soccer practice or a handicapped person at home waiting for the meal. The man could see her gratitude as she smiled and thanked him.
He had momentarily done a wonderful thing — he had taken a scowl and turned it into a smile. But this was never meant to be a story about kindness to others. This was a tale of needless incivility that accomplished nothing except to soothe an old man’s ego. The woman in the story had gone from irritation to momentary happiness to deep anger when she learned what the old man had done as he drove away. Whether he meant to or not, the man had snipped away one more small thread from the fraying civil cloak of our society.
So why then was that pastor laughing so hard at the tale? Shouldn’t it have been a teaching moment to demonstrate to his listeners the error of the man’s way? Why didn’t the pastor emphasize that the old-timer had acted irresponsibly and without regret for his action? Was he advocating a faith of “do a misdeed onto others?” That would certainly be a negative insight to preach.
I was struck by the fact that, when I read the story in a secular setting, I found it amusing but, when I heard it told in what I assumed was a quasi-religious arena, it seemed nasty and deleterious to civic values. It made me wonder, not for the first time, if one of the problems of our secular society is the lack of a compassionate, empathetic spirit for our fellow citizens.
I fail to see the joy in making someone deliberately angry. But I know from long experience that the old-timer in the tale, if he ever really existed, likely took great pleasure telling his family and friends about his exploit. They probably all had a hearty laugh just as did the pastor in the video.
I am anything but a religious person and I realize the original written version of the story was probably fictional. (How could he know what the woman wanted and, if he merely gave the cashier some extra cash to pay her bill, then her order would not have been ready with his.) Nevertheless, the glee exhibited in the video by the pastor and his assemblage was both real and indicative of their lack of sympathy and concern for a fellow citizen.
I admit my concerns mentioned here rank on the sub-atomic level of societal problems, but, as the old song from the ’50s said, little things mean a lot. We need to begin working on developing genuine respect for the dignity of everyone. If we continue to ignore the small concerns, they will eventually no longer be a laughing matter. I certainly plan to continue passing on jokes I receive but I will now delete those whose implications seem mean-spirited and harmful to me.
Richard Szlosek lives in Northampton.