Siana Bangura: Week 3

Do you want to know what really winds me up? People who have no manners or consideration for others. And people who blame bad behaviour on the drink.

Remember when you were younger and your parents and teachers taught you to always say please and thank you? Then they told you off if you didn’t? Maybe you cried, felt a bit embarrassed, or threw your Thomas the Tank Engine yoghurt pot across the room to the dismay of the people around you.

I bet you didn’t realise, though, that those were some of the wisest words you’d ever hear.

Frankly, I am tired of holding the door and making way for ungrateful bastards. If I step to one side so you and your bleeding pushchair can roll along, why the fuck can’t you say thank you? What example are you setting for your kid?

If I’m in Costa and I wait at the top of those damn stairs because you are on your way up and out, I expect you to say ‘thank you’. I don’t care if English is not your first language. Every tongue understands a smile, a thumbs up, or a nod.

I don’t care if you are an old age pensioner – if I give you a seat on the fucking bus, you say thank you. I don’t care if you are a big gun in the City – when the waitress clears your shit off the table, you thank her. It may well be their job, but having appreciative customers makes it a little more bearable. The world does not owe you anything, pal.

And before anybody says anything like ‘just don’t give way or hold doors’ I simply can’t do that. It is second nature. I have this ridiculous default reaction of apologising even when someone has bumped into me. That’s how much having good manners has been drilled into my head. Damn, my mum would CRINGE if she knew that I swear as much as I do.

People, how can you step on my toes with four-inch heels and not say sorry? I don’t get it. If you cut the queue (fuck, just don’t cut the fucking queue) then apologise if it was an accident or politely ask to go in front of me and make up a marvellous story about desperately needing to catch that train that will take you to Gatwick, so you can catch that flight to Budapest and meet your best friend who is now a monk or a tree, or whatever.

If you want to use my plates, cutlery, and my mum’s wine glasses, don’t just waltz into my cupboard, take what you want, and leave the washing up for me to do. What is this? If you’d like to steal my food, don’t take half a loaf of bread, fool. Steal a slice or two or better yet, ask me if you can have some. I’ll almost always say yes.

Don’t just help yourself to my shower gel, or my olives, or my halloumi cheese. Don’t use my George Foreman grill to make your STEAK when I’m a fucking vegetarian. Don’t leave your pubic hairs in the sink for me to see when I am brushing my teeth. Don’t leave skid-marks in the loo for the next person to deal with when they go to the bathroom to do what nature intended. Don’t leave drops of blood on the rim of the seat (I am sure you tried to clear it but be more vigilant PLEASE) for someone else to clear.

Hello, there is a bath mat for a reason. Use it. I’m not a swimmer or a sailor. I don’t appreciate walking into the Thames every time I fancy a shower. Don’t leave water in the kettle for days on end. It causes lime scale and means that I get things that resemble flakes of dead skin in my frikkin’ green tea. Don’t cough in my face when we’re having a conversation and think I don’t mind. My immune system and I really do mind. Don’t sit opposite me in class, picking your pimples and wiping whatever comes out of them on the goddam table. It makes me want to vom on your lap.

If you are drunk and I am wearing a slightly low-cut top, don’t throw peanuts down my bra or offer to drink your beer or my cocktail out of my cleavage. That does NOT make you a lad. It makes you an ASSHOLE. Don’t blame it on the drink either. I don’t buy that line, home boy.

In short, OCD or a little anal – I don’t give a flying fuck- don’t take advantage of people’s good nature and blame it on ‘being a student’ or being drunk or any other lame excuses. Good manners and courteousness cost absolutely nothing and will always be important no matter who you are, what you are, or where you are in life.

The little things make a BIG difference.