On the kindness of strangers.

(Why yes, I am in fact feeling cynical, how kind of you to notice!)

I was pleasantly surprised to see my wallet in my mailbox when I got home. So yes, I did carelessly forget my wallet, and I can only assume it was seated on the roof of my car when I drove to Char’s place, but I had considered its loss a foregone conclusion.

Naturally, having a bad habit of being efficient. I had cancelled my credit cards and was going to make the obligatory police report, when I discovered that police stations do not open on weekends. Rather shocking, don’t you think? I’m suddenly overwhelmed with confidence at immediate efficacious response if I should be stabbed somewhere in between the hours of Friday afternoon and Monday morning.

I digress. The kindness of strangers. They do have this bad habit of surprising you when you’ve assumed the worst of the human race (and as a whole, humanity still occasionally strikes me as rather vicious and unsavoury). I suppose I should be grateful, and I am, but it makes me wonder, just how many kind strangers are there on this tiny green-blue ball?

And just as I thought that maybe people weren’t so bad, I’ve had a few ‘friends’ invite themselves over to my place for dinner, made a mess, and fucked up a couple of random things, leaving me with additional irritations.

With the occasional exception, I only invite close friends over for dinner. But when persons lurking around the vicinity of your conversation assume that they are invited, and drag additional sycophants along, that just riles me. When said persons demur when you inform them of the lack of food, and sit down and expect to be served at your board at no expense, it boils the blood.

I do not run a charity. When a ‘guest’ ignores you in your own home, it reeks not only of bad manners and shoddy breeding, but a discourtesy that requires a pointedly discourteous response. And when these selfsame persons overstay their welcome to the point where you walk off, are unmissed, and don’t bother to help clearing up despite numerous ‘suggestions’ to that effect, it makes one want to take blunt objects to their overly thick skulls.

Never again. Strangers might be kind, but it takes people you know to tear down whatever hope you might have for the decency of the common man.