Be a Good Neighbor (Or at Least, Not a Shitty One)

Your house is your castle. I get that.  You are king of your castle.  However, your rights to be happy and comfortable in your home end where they start infringing on someone else’s rights to enjoy living in their home.  Do you love watching TV late at night?  Great!  Turn down the volume.  Most places have noise ordinances, and if you only have an enormous television, there’s a good chance that watching it between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. is a violation of the law.  Make sure it’s low enough that people trying to sleep around you aren’t disturbed.

You want to smoke pot?  Well, OK, that’s illegal (and, really, kind of sad if you’re older than college-aged), but - whatever.  But when you smoke in your apartment, all of your neighbors are getting high, too, whether they want to or not.  Maybe buy an air purifier or something to keep the smoke from disturbing everyone else.  Some of us really can’t afford to get the munchies.

Other ways to be a good neighbor involve:

1.  Cutting trees that invade your neighbor's air space or grounds.

2.  Paying your share to maintain a joint fence.

3.  Not walking your dog on their lawn.

4.  Not allowing your pet to terrorize or attack their pets.

5.  Calling 911 if their house is on fire.

Ways to be a bad neighbor:
1.  Laugh when your dead tree falls on the neighbor's house (you'll stop laughing when you get the bill!)
2.  Refusing to contribute to the share of maintaining a joint fence while insisting that your neighbor replace it and refusing them to walk on your property to do so.
3.  Encouraging your dog to shit on their lawn, sidewalk, driveway, etc.
4. Laughing when your dog eats their cat and/or children.
5.  Setting the neighbor's house on fire just watch it burn.

How to Walk a Dog

Now, this one can be a little tricky, so I'll try to make it simple.  Here is the right way to walk a dog:
1.  Put your dog on a leash.
2.  Venture out into the great outdoors.
3.  Walk on your own property and areas open to the general public.
4.  Keep the dog a reasonable distance from other dogs, especially if likely to bark/agitate/attack.  Move between the dog and pedestrians when there is room.  Do not allow to race off, chasing other animals.
5.  Any time the dog goes to the bathroom, use a plastic bag to pick up what he leaves behind.  Throw it an available trashcan, or wait until you get home.
                                   

How Not to Walk Your Dog (avoid all of these things):
1.  Open the front door and let the dog race out, leashless, while you saunter about half a block behind, sending text messages.
2.  Cheer the dog on if he gets into an altercation with another animal.
3.  Lead the dog into your neighbor's property so he can chase their cats/poop on their lawn/harass their dogs through windows and fences.
4.  Any time the dog goes to the bathroom, leave it there.  Laugh, knowing that someone will eventually step in it.   (If you do this, I sincerely hope you get a ticket.)
5.  Any time the dog goes to the bathroom, pick it up.  Save it, then leave it on the doorstep of someone you don't like later, or throw bags of feces out of a moving car at pedestrians.  (Seriously, don't do that. You could get arrested.)

If you're not willing or able to pick up after your dog, hire someone who can.  If you can't afford to hire someone, and you're not willing or able to pick up after your dog, you should not have one.  You're not allowed to bring your dog onto someone else's yard without permission, whether they have a fence or not, and it's not funny to watch them fight with other animals.  Take care of your dog.  Be a responsible pet owner.  It will make you a better person and a better pet owner in the long run.

How to Ride a Bike

So, this may came as a shock to some of you, but it turns out, bicycles do not have some special immunity that means that they do not need to follow traffic laws.  Stop signs outlined in white are not optional.  You don't get the benefits of both being a car (by forcing all the cars behind you to drive 10 mph) and a pedestrian (mowing down innocent people on the sidewalks).

It turns out, all of the same rules of the road apply to people on bikes.  You have to stop at stop signs.  You don't get to just fly through intersections when there is a red light.  When you do that, other people have to slam on their brakes or swerve to avoid you, which means that you could cause an accident or give someone a heart attack.

If you don't care about hurting others, then maybe you should care that you could die by plummeting headlong into traffic like you don't have a care in the world.  Even if you think you always have the right of way, isn't your life worth enough to maybe at least pause and look before barreling through the intersection?  Don't you want to see the person who is about to kill you, because they have the right of way and didn't see you coming?  I feel like I would.

And if you don't care about other people, or your life, I mean, you probably don't want your bike smashed, right?  Right?  Be careful out there.

Forced Admiration

Don’t show pictures of your children/grandchildren to total strangers.  They don’t care, and it’s awkward.

It's one thing if someone asks to see your pictures.  Then, they've demonstrated interest.  But sitting down next to someone at the bus stop, whipping out a stack of pictures, and saying, "Isn't this the cutest baby EVER?!" is another story.  Everyone thinks their relative is the cutest baby in the world.  Not every baby can be the cutest baby in the world.  For the first few weeks, nearly every baby looks like Winston Churchill.  They all look the same - small, red-faced, and wrinkled.  There is only so many times I can smile, nod, and say, "Oh, look!  A baby!"

Worse, if you try to politely decline to look at the photographs, everyone acts like you're a monster.  I'm sorry, but riding public transit is one of the few minutes during the day where I do not have to do anything.  It's freeing.  It's wonderful.  I want to enjoy those moments and read Harry Potter.  I don't want to pretend I care about people I will never see again.  You're invading my personal space, and it's rude.

The Bill of Responsibilities

People are always throwing the word “right” around, and it’s become distorted.  You do not have a right to do whatever you want, no matter how it affects other people.  That wouldn’t be living in a democratic society - that would be chaos.  Wait.  You didn’t think you were the only person who had the right to do what you want, did you?  All citizens have equal rights.  So, if you have an automatic right to do whatever you want, so does everyone else.  Essentially, we have somehow managed to breed a society full of self-entitled assholes.  Everyone thinks they have a right to do anything that pleases them, and wants to sue everyone else for doing anything they don’t like (even when it’s legal).   Everything that goes wrong is (obviously) someone else’s fault.  Thus, I propose a change.  Instead of a Bill of Rights, maybe what we need is a Bill of Responsibilities.

1. You have a responsibility to choose your words so as not to hurt others.   You have a responsibility to practice your religion in a manner that does not infringe upon others beliefs.  You have a responsibility not to publish information that puts others at risk.  You have a responsibility not to harm others while assembling peacefully.  


2. You have a responsibility to keep your guns clean, safe, and out of the reach of children.  You have a responsibility not to shoot other people, except in self-defense or to defend others.


3. The government has a responsibility to provide quarters for soldiers other than the homes of others.


4. You have a responsibility to respect and abide by the laws of the United States of America and the state in which you live.  You also have a responsibility to be smart enough to say no when a police officer asks if he can search you, instead of voluntarily handing him your stash of pot and asking if he wants to smoke a joint with you.


5. You have a responsibility to refrain from saying really, really stupid things that will come back to bite you later, especially when talking to police or the judge.  You also have a responsibility not to post these things on Facebook.


6. You have a responsibility to secure your own witnesses and not expect the prosecution to prove your defense for you.


7. You have a responsibility to request a trial by jury where one is permitted, if you want one.


8. You have a responsibility to show up in court when directed to do so.  If you behave in a manner that suggests that you are not trustworthy enough to be left to your own devices, you have a responsibility to post bond to secure your own release, or find a friend or family member who will.


9. You have a responsibility to work to change laws that you do not agree with.
10. You may have other responsibilities that are not listed here, created by state, federal or local laws, or general morality, ethics or rules of not being an asshole.  This list is not all inclusive, and the failure to list something here (e.g., feeding your children, paying your bills, etc.) does not mean that it is not your responsibility.

Tip Your Server

In most states, when you go to a restaurant, the person who is bringing you food and drink makes less than minimum wage.  Way less, in fact.  In some states, a restaurant is allowed to pay servers only $2.13 per hour.  They have to make the rest up in tips.  They get those tips from customers.

The tip is supposed to reflect whether the server did a good job.  If the server is polite and friendly, brings you what you ordered, and keeps your water glass full, yes, that’s the job they’re supposed to do.  But they don’t actually get paid a livable wage for doing that, so do the American thing and go ahead and tip like you’re supposed to.  Standard these days is about 20% of the bill in most areas, before tax (some servers will tell you after, but that’s usually not how it works).

Now, this system is stupid.  The person who came up with it should be punched in the balls repeatedly.  It makes far more sense to just have employers pay their employees and roll it into the cost of doing business and price dishes accordingly.  That way, it’s very easy for me as a consumer to look at the menu, see the prices, and decide if I can afford to eat (and I can’t decide to stiff the server as a means of saving money).  However, it’s the system we have, so we all have to work with it.  I get it - it’s not your fault they took a crappy, low-paying job.  Well, it’s not the server’s fault that you’re an asshole.  Be glad that you didn’t have to accept a job that only pays $2.13/hour, because it probably wasn’t the server’s first choice, either (most of us would rather find a job as “rich housewife” or “kept man” rather than “waitress or waiter).

                                                                     

When in doubt, ask yourself, “Will the server appreciate the dollar more than I will miss it?”  If the answer is “No,” you should not be going out to eat.  In America, we all know that tipping is part of the cost of eating out.  When deciding whether to eat out, look at the available amount of money you have to spend.  If it’s so low that you cannot order a meal AND tip, then eat at McDonald’s.  If you have enough money to eat out, but not order the most expensive thing on the menu and tip, then you order something less expensive.  Where money is an issue, you need to calculate the tip before placing your order.  Your phone probably has something that will do this for you.  If it doesn’t, one of your dining companions probably has a phone that will do this for you.  If you don’t have any dining companions, or any money, why are you eating out?  

I’m not saying that the waiter can be a jackass, insult you, ignore you, spill food all over you, bring out the wrong order and still gets at least 20%.  This is called “Don’t be an asshole,” not “Be a Total Schmuck.”  But when you get a waiter with an attitude, the problem is, not tipping doesn’t always make them think, “Gee, maybe I was a jackass who doesn’t deserve a tip.”  No, it makes them think, “What a jerk!  I can’t believe that guy stiffed me!”  You’re better off talking to the manager about the problems you had with the service.  Maybe that will help the server in the future.  Or, at least if they still just think you’re a jerk, you can at least feel better about being the bigger person.

Control Your Child

Don’t make store employees or total strangers step in and stop your child from running rampant in stores.  If you want to let your child behave like a selfish asshole at home, that’s fine (well, it’s really not, but whatever).  In public, the child should behave.  Figure out how to make it happen.  If you absolutely cannot do it, leave your child at home.

If you choose to ignore paragraph #1 entirely and have no idea how to control your child, and someone else is forced to, say, stop him from ramming shopping carts into the crotches of other shoppers, say, “Thank you.”  Do not scream at the person for having the audacity to prevent your child from trying to castrate everyone else in the store.  Other people don't want to parent your child any more than you do - unfortunately, you leave them no choice when you act like you have better things to do than be a parent.