Sense of Entitlement Can Drive You Crazy

Friday, April 6, 2007

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Sense of Entitlement Can Drive You Crazy

By J’AMY PACHECO

I was at Disneyland with a friend a few weekends ago when we decided to take our children on a ride called “Autopia.”

The ride is attractive to children because it lets them have their own experience behind the wheel of a track-bound but otherwise free-moving motor vehicle. While driving to Anaheim in a real car is thrill enough for me, I have a hard time denying the kids the opportunity to hit the (sort of) open road.

In line, we found ourselves behind two pre-teen boys who spent most of the 45-minute wait roughhousing and occasionally, bumping into our little party.

My friend and I are relatively tolerant in the theme park environment, so while the adults with the boys ignored them, we dealt with the situation by putting our children behind us in line, and taking the brunt of their pushes and shoves.

When we boarded the ride, my friend took the lead car and I brought up the rear while our children filled the cars between. Before long, as in the real world, I found myself in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

I had to stop my little car so many times that it stalled – twice. It wasn’t until I got off the ride at the end that I learned what had caused the tie-up: the boys from the line were directly in front of my friend, and kept stopping their cars to talk to one another.

This is forbidden behavior on the ride. Cast members commanded them to drive, my friend yelled at them to keep moving, but the boys repeatedly ignored them and kept the rest of us waiting. It ruined the ride for all of us.

Later, we boarded Indiana Jones. It’s my favorite ride, and we were delighted to end up with front-row seats.

Our delight immediately turned to dismay, though, when a teenaged girl behind us began screaming. Now, I can see screaming at some points – like when it appears a giant boulder is going to roll over your jeep.

But this girl screamed all the way through, just for fun. It didn’t matter what was happening, she screamed. People in the car begged her to stop, then demanded she stop – to no avail. If the ride had been any longer, I suspect somebody would have pushed her out. It might even have been me.

By the time we got off, we were all so mad that I wanted to follow her and scream continuously in her ear as we exited. Only good manners – and the thought of being escorted out of Disneyland in a straightjacket — kept me from doing so.

I don’t get this selfish behavior. I also don’t see it limited to the theme park environment.

A few days ago, for example, I was driving on the freeway with my little girl in the backseat. I was on the I-15, which for people who live south of the Cajon Pass, is the road to Las Vegas. For us desert dwellers, however, it’s simply the route home.

Presumably because it leads to Sin City, this freeway seems to attract a greater than usual number of high speed drivers. I’m not one of them, so I generally drive the speed limit in the second to the slowest lane, leaving the fast side of the freeway for the death seeking speed demons.

In recent years, however, I’ve noticed a trend in which speeding drivers use the slow lanes to do their high speed passing. The other day was no exception, and I couldn’t help wincing at the number of cars that came barreling up on the backside of my car, just a few feet from my little girl.

My daughter asked me what I was doing wrong. As several of these cars passed, she observed, the drivers glared at me as if I had committed some terrible offense. I began to wonder if something inappropriate had been scrawled on the back of my car at our last stop. I assured her that it was the dolts who wanted to speed on the wrong side of the freeway who were at fault.

Coming on the heels of my recent theme park experiences, it made me wonder where people are getting this sense of entitlement; how people decide it’s okay to bowl over their fellow human beings. Has it always been like this? Am I just noticing it more because I’m getting older and crankier?

I don’t know if we’re any more narcissistic than we used to be, but maybe it’s time we ask ourselves if that’s possible. Maybe now is a good time to slow down, take a deep breath, and do something nice for somebody else. Or at least something polite.

And if, while you’re barreling down the I-15, you come up behind a white car with a little girl in the back and a Tinker Bell sticker in the window, wave as you go by.

Just not with THAT finger, please…