Gee... Long time reader, first time commenter.. (Wanted to try how it sounds on talk radio, just for the heck of it.

Most people today are slobs. Harsh? Yes, it is and I am. I see it everywhere in so many ways. It is laziness brought on by innumerable things in our society that people have just absorbed. Is there a cure other than random violence? I don't think so. It's a shame but pointing it out to the very young seems to me to be the best hope that someday the trend will reverse.

Here's a story of a 3-year-old who wasn't -- same Starbucks -- but she was British:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2007/12/

Just missed the table I like. A kid was sitting there. A little girl, about three, I think. Great. Probably more where that one came from. And indeed there were. Daddy came up, with a stroller with a baby in it, and Mommy followed soon afterward. They were Brits, too...and...I don't know if this is common to British children of late, but if it is, we should try to copy whatever it is the Brits do to parent them.

The family sat there, politely, civilly, with minimal squawls and noise from the kids, and minimal mess. Finally, they got up to leave. I wondered if these parents, like so many parents these days, would leave an enormous mess -- crumbs, trash, stuff spilled on the table and floor.

Nope, not them. They cleaned up every bit. Well, almost every bit. And, here comes the amazing part. The little girl was staring at me a bit while she was sitting there, as little girls tend to do. (Red hair? Don't look or dress like a mommy? I dunno.)

Anyway, I'd initially asked her dad to let me know when they were leaving, as I wanted to move to their table. So, maybe it was because she knew I'd be moving over, but there was one tiny scrap of a wrapper on the table -- really just the corner of a wrapper, smaller than a penny -- and as she was walking away with her parents, she looked back at the table, backtracked a few feet, picked it up, and threw it away.

The family had already left before I could think to say anything, but I wanted to run after the parents, tell them what a great job they did raising their kid, ask them how they did it, and basically just throw myself at their feet and thank them.

Amazing, isn't it, how rare this sort of thing seems to be, children who think of somebody but themselves, and actually show it, too.

So you Brits who comment here, or people who have a lot of contact with Brits with kids...is it different over there, the way kids are raised? How? Do you think you're like the French in how you raise your kids? And finally, what do you guys do that we in the USA should be doing?

And P.S. bratty children and what to do about them are part of a book I'm writing.

Of course, the parents are usually to blame -- as I wrote here:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/ag-column-archives/2007/12/look_before_you.html

The parental "no" has officially joined the ranks of chronically missing items like The Holy Grail, Atlantis, and Britney Spears' underpants.

I could write for days on this subject.

A couple of weeks ago I took my youngest daughter to see Alvin. When the movie was over and the bright lights came on (seemed brighter than usual, possibly because of high number of young children), I noticed that very few picked up their drink cups and popcorn containers as they left. Large barrels are provided so they only have a few feet to go to do something so simple. But no, it is left at their seat. These kids are with their parents. All the way to dinner I was ranting to my daughter about how awful those parents were. Finally, she reached over and touched my arm and said "I know dad." I realized I was sounding just like my father who would rant and rave, very loudly, about how terrible those parents were.

Last Saturday, I took my daughter to see National Treasure, and as we were leaving I noticed an attractive older couple (not as old as me and much more attractive) picking up there area. It was the retired govenor and his wife. I pointed this out to my daughter and said there must be a profound meaning in what we were witnessing.

I noticed that very few picked up their drink cups and popcorn containers as they left. Large barrels are provided so they only have a few feet to go to do something so simple. But no, it is left at their seat.

Pet peeve of mine, too.

I just came back from the Starbucks licensee store that's in our local Safeway (the closest REAL Starbucks is 120 miles away in Tucson). I found myself throwing away all the stirrers, napkins, sugar and fake sweetener packets that were left by previous patrons on the condiments bar. There is a trash receptacle RIGHT NEXT to the bar. We have a whole bunch of tourists in town, and I'm hoping they were the culprits, because it's not usually like that at all. It's the start of tourist season here, and we just got the Starbucks a few months ago. This is a small town, and though the city counts on the tourist trade and we love their money, most of us are real happy when they're gone. Oh, and the buskers are showing up now, too. You can smell them before you see them.

Ever try to park in a space that's blocked by an abandoned cart? That's a pet peeve of mine, especially when--a few steps away--are cart corrals.

Maybe they're from Los Angeles, Maggie. Here's the Santa Monica Starbucks from another day:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2007/03/its_starbucks_n_1.html

And yes, Doobie. I'm with you on that.

Ha, Amy, that's exactly what the bar looked like this afternoon! And there were a lot of California license plate in the parking lot. lol

On another note, the mention of Cathy in the linked thread brought tears to my eyes. I miss her posts dreadfully, and can just imagine how YOU miss HER.

bet they left a shitty tip too. Strike that, bet they left no tip.

I'm reading about the Starbucks mess leavers, and I'm nodding and saying to myself, "Thank you! It's not just me! People should take care of their trash. Mmm-HM!" Then I read further down about the movie theatre mess leavers. Oops! I'm tragically guilty of leaving my garbage behind in the movies. But that's not as bad, right? They clean up in between movies, don't they? I'm trying to convince myself, someone back me up here.

I just don't get it either. When you're buying cheap food served by minimum wage workers with a crappy job, just like making it even less worth their while or what? And the theater thing is even less easy to understand. Every theater I've been in anyway has the barrels by the doors on the way out so all you have to do is pick your trash up and dump it on the way. Is that so difficult?

I'm hanging my head in shame now. New Year's Resolution: I will make a conscious effort to throw out my trash in the movie theatres.