A PERSON was invited to dinner, brought food then pestered the host why it was not served at the table. I do not know what etiquette dictates but in my mind if you are invited to something, you are JUST a guest and cannot dictate what should be served on the host’s table. And what did he bring? Some spicy goulash that if it were served, wouldn’t complement the sumptuous pasta spread on the table. The host remarked how this person felt “entitled” when he was just invited. It would have been easy to shoo him out if he gatecrashed into the event so the host had to endure the boor at the table.
Entitlement. The word has become synonymous to bad manners and it is.
At home it can be mistaken as simply borrowing a sibling’s clothing without permission. After all it is assumed that a sibling is entitled to another’s because they are siblings. But I am sure this kind of claim has fueled many domestic fights (our house included).
At work it can be someone who claims s/he can hoard the coffee mix at the office pantry because it is free. Or the neighbor who celebrates an occasion by blaring the karaoke from dusk till dawn because the once-in-a-blue-moon celebration is an excuse for noise pollution. Or it’s that OFW excited about coming home, stands up to open the overhead luggage bin, mindless if something falls out and hits another passenger while the plane is still taxiing the runway. Or the rich kid who thought he could just lend the teacher’s copy of the movie shown to the whole class because he was distracted when it was shown then cries about being unjustly bullied when refused by the teacher. What about that ousted official who felt entitled to millions worth of goods from the duty-free shops after all, it operated under her office?
If athletic meets are the microcosm of how nations behave when under pressure then Japan’s recent behavior at the FIFA World Cup will be the millennial record to beat. After each of their games, the Japanese fans cleaned the bleachers by picking up all the trash -- theirs and everybody else. The team would acknowledge fouls and did not even raise a ruckus over bad calls. When they lost to Belgium during the last crucial minutes, Japan didn’t mourn the loss by thrashing the benches. Instead, they left their lockers impeccably clean (and even better looking) and even left a Thank You note written in Russian. In effect, the Japanese team won the respect of the world big time.
Japan is one of the richest countries in the world yet the team and their fans didn’t seem entitled to express grief by acting out their disappointment by posting rants, messing up, cursing, or getting into brawls. Class act, right?
Sadly, it is not something that the goulash-bearing boor at my friend’s table has.