Social Graces

I picked up the phone and a man identified himself as a Customs Official and I needed to come to the border to claim my vehicle and answer some questions as my car had been used to attempt smuggle goods into Canada.

I wish I could say that was the last straw, but it wasn't.  I had been through so much in the last year.  Also, I really wish I was making all this up, but, I am not that creative.  This all happened and it happened almost 30 years ago.

It started when I met my friend Donna a year earlier.  Actually, we both were attending orientation for our new jobs.  We were hired on the same day for the same job in a small traditional town that happened to straddle the border of Canada and the United States.

We were both about the same age, were new to the town, we both had the same degrees and we both had the same job.  That was about all we had in common, but, that was plenty.  We became friends.

Donna was, ummm, unabashed.  She was loud, brazen, flamboyant, unapologetic, bold, and not afraid of anything.  I didn't know too many details about her childhood but I know it was horrendous.  In many ways, she was a breathe of fresh air in this traditional insular town.  They had really not seen anything like her before.  She also was probably the first open lesbian person in the community.  For whatever the reason, the town seemed to embrace her because she was so brazen.  But, they didn't really know her as well as I did.

It started on our second day of work.  She didn't show up.  When our boss called her, she said that the HR lady had told her that she would be accumulating 15 sick days/year.  She decided that she was going to use that 15 days up front.  She was really shocked that it wasn't the way it worked.  She told our boss it was an innocent mistake and she would be right in.  She strolled in 4 hours later.  Time seemed to be a concept that she didn't understand.  She never was a few minutes late for work, she was typically two hours late for work.  She saw one of our co-workers taking a half hour off work for a medical appointment.  The next day she went for an appointment and was gone for two hours.  My boss asked her what the appointment.  She said she was shopping and he told her that wasn't a legitimate appointment ad she would have to make that time up.  She changed her hours to noon to 8 pm since she couldn't get there any earlier.  She repaid our boss by leaving a few minutes after him at 4:30 pm.  Her work life was not optimum.  As her friend, I often felt guilty by association.  Our work habits were dramatically different.  I was always on time; always volunteering to do extra.  She wore jeans and t-shirts.  I liked clothes and I was a young woman.  I dressed professionally and I had a lot of clothes.

Our personal lives were also different.  Although I did like fashion, I was making a good wage and saving for my future.  I could afford to go out every now and then.  She was making the same wage that I was but had a great deal of debt.  She barely made ends meet and any time she had money, she spent it like it was growing on trees.  She was a hoarder and have stack and stacks of things everywhere, often with the price tags still on.  One day she was walking through a department store where she was encouraged to sign up for a credit card.  She got the card and proceeded to run it up to its maximum before she left the store.

When we went out for work functions, she would tell me that I was paying since she was broke and I had money.  Again.  Same salary.

She phoned me in the middle of the night crying saying that her grandmother had just died.  Her grandmother was the only positive influence in her life, and she wanted to go to the funeral.  She said she had no money for a plane ticket and asked if I could book the ticket on my credit card but she didn't know when she would be able to pay me back.  I said not to worry about it now.  She said she didn't care if she was fired because this was important to her.  I said she was entitled to compassionate leave and she wouldn't be fired.  She told me to tell our boss where she was.  I told her needed to call him.  It wouldn't be a problem.  She hung up at 3 am and phoned our boss.  She came back from the funeral and I remember months going by and she was throwing money away and never gave me any money for the plane ticket.

She had a horrible car which broke down often.  When her car wouldn't start for the first time, she just didn't come into work.  My boss phoned her mid morning to find out where she was and was told that wasn't a valid absence and she would have to figure out a way to get to work.  She thought and then told my boss to tell me to come pick her up.  Our boss said no because I was working and she would be given a day without pay.  She phoned me in the evening to complain how mean he was and asked me why he seemed to like me better than her.

I went away for a week's holidays and she was supposed to water my plants.  She stayed at my place because it was closer to work and she ate all my food.  She told me that she had hid her supply of marijuana somewhere in my apartment because she was scared of the police raiding her home and finding it but she knew they would not suspect me.  I found it the first night and didn't know what to do.  I found a better hiding spot.  She couldn't afford to call anyone long distance so when she wanted to make a call she would come to my apartment and use my phone.

When her car finally broke down for the last time, I was expected to drive her to and from work, despite it being on the opposite side of town.  Of course, she was never ready when I told her so it made me late to and she worked later than I did so I would go home, go for a run, and then go back to work to drive her home.  After two days, this wasn't working so well, so she decided that she would just borrow my car since I lived within walking distance of work.  She dropped it off when it was empty of gas and she would have supper at my place while I went to fill it up.  She took it up to a back roads community where she got stuck.  She phoned to ask for my CAA number.

Again, you probably think I'm making this up.  I'm not even close to telling you the challenges our friendship was to me every day.  Going out to a store or restaurant were moments of complete embarrassment.  She had no social graces.  That's why I didn't say anything.  I couldn't believe that anyone didn't have the common sense of any 3 year old.

So, a couple months without my car, I get the call from Border Security and walked to the border. Using my car to smuggle goods.  I couldn't even imagine what the story would be this time.  It turned out there wasn't much of a story.  She just went shopping and bought a few groceries and a couple of tops on sale.  It came to less than $30.  She likely wouldn't had to smuggle them and if she had declared them, she likely would have been waved through or at most, had to pay a few dollars in duty.  Because of the insignificant "smuggling", there would be no criminal charges but she would be on "border probation" for a year meaning she would be searched every time and she came across the border and her goods were confiscated.  After I had been questioned, I had to pay a small fee and had to agree not to have anyone drive my car other than the registered owner.  I was both thrilled about this because I could drive my car again, but also upset because now I would be her chauffeur again.

This was on a Saturday afternoon and took about 2 hours of time to get through the whole thing and my poor "Rosebud" (my car) was searched top to bottom.  I was humiliated.

When we were finally released and I was driving her home, I was silent.  She found the silence uncomfortable and then talked about what jerks these Customs Agents were and what a waste of time and she couldn't believe that they confiscated her tops.

That was the last straw.  I started yelling and I let her have it.

First of all, you put my means of transportation in jeopardy.  The Customs Agents were doing their job and if you had just declared this, none of this would happen.  Why would you take my car across the border?  Shouldn't I get a thank-you for coming to get you?  Shouldn't I get a thank-you for loaning my car?  And, what is your plan for transportation?  Are you going to use my car forever?  And why are you shopping when you still owe me for the plane ticket and all the meals out and the phone bills and my groceries, etc?  Why is your ethic so poor yet you give no thought to how it affects my work as your friend?  I am embarrassed every time we are in public.  Your behavior is so boorish.  I feel like your personal servant rather than your friend.  You have never once said thank you or even please or ever I am sorry.

I went on for probably 15 minutes while she was silent.  After I was out of breathe, I stopped and looked at her.  She said nothing for another 5 minutes, but I could see the wheels turning.  Finally, she said, "oh."

Oh?

It turned out, I was giving her information that she never had before.

She had been "raised" on an isolated farm where it was just her, her abused mother, and her alcoholic abusive father.  Her mother spent the majority of her existence in bed.  They didn't have a tv.  She was "home schooled" until her mother died when she was 15.  By home schooled, it meant she was not schooled.  She wasn't groomed every day and only fed when her mother was well enough to get out of bed.  When her mother died, her father packed her up in his truck and dropped her off with her maternal grand-mother who she had never met.  Her grand-mother was shocked that night and gave her money for A and W down the street and told her to go get food.  She had no idea what money was or what to do.  Her grand-mother walked her down to A and W and that was the first restaurant she had ever been to.  She didn't know how to read, she had never been to school.  Previously, she had only seen two other humans.

Her grand-mother had her work cut out for her and Donna didn't graduate high school until she was 20, but she did graduate.  Her grand-mother helped her obtain scholarships and student loans, and she was able to graduate from University.

Her grand-mother had done all that she could and when she got her first job, the job of raising Donna fell on me by default.  And, I had done a horrible job.

All the time I thought she was being rude, it was that she literally didn't know.  All the time I muttered under her breathe that she didn't have the social graces of a three year old was actually true.

When I was yelling at her for all of her transgressions, I was actually giving her new information that she never had.

We actually went to her apartment and cleared through her hoarding to find a place to sit and she started writing things down.  I gave her etiquette lessons.  Major life lessons for her.  Like to say "please" and "thank you".  And, I gave her lessons from then on.  At times, I felt so patronizing telling her to wait her turn in line when she goes for fast food, but, it literally was news to her.

And from our nightly lessons, "the world according to Shelley" evolved.

I helped her make a budget.  She thought a credit card was someone giving you money so she really didn't realize she was supposed to make payments on her loans and credit cards.  I introduced her to nutrition information.

Taking care of yourself and planning for your future involved getting dental care.  Dental care was the hardest lesson on both of us.  As she had never seen a dentist, well, she had to be fully sedated to even get her mouth open and she ended up needing a lot of work.  She was so frightened and couldn't go to any appointments without me.  They were very hard lessons for both of us, but, atleast I was feeling compassion for Donna.  Never having any oral care and likely never brushing her teeth for the first decade of her life was not a good recipe for healthy teeth.

We worked together for three years.  I did my best with Donna.  All I know for sure was she legitimately didn't know the lessons I had given her before.

She had taught me the biggest lesson, though.  She taught me that all children weren't as lucky as I was when choosing their parents.  I thought everyone knew basic manners or social graces, but I learned that is not the case.  After my time with Donna, I became a better person.  I was less judgmental and more compassionate.  I stopped interpreting intent when someone was rude to me.  They may have not had intent.  They may have never been taught basic human decency.  It led me to want to help and have volunteerism as a personal value.  I felt some adults, based on their childhood, never really had a chance.  No one was available to give them lessons they needed.

So, I shouldn't ever wonder why common sense is not common practice.  It turns out what I think is basic common sense was not learned by some.  It is one of those truisms and it reminds me of the poem that "Children learn what they live".  I remember that if a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.   If a child lives with fear, he learns to be apprehensive.  If a child lives with pity, he learns to feel sorry for himself.  If a child lives with jealousy, he learns to envy.  If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty.  If a child lives with friendliness, he learns that the world is a nice place to live.

So, the next time someone doesn't exhibit the social graces that you think are common sense, suppress the urge to tell them off.  Do the opposite action and show compassion and kindness.  They may not have nefarious motives, they may simply were never taught.

And that makes me feel so grateful for my friend Donna.  She taught me a lot about people and she gave me a masterclass in compassion.  She taught me not to take things so seriously.  Apparently, your car can be used for smuggling goods across the border, and you will still survive and learn to laugh about it.  Mostly, she made me so thankful for my childhood and I will always feel blessed that I had the most wonderful parents ever and they did everything they could to teach me all the life lessons I needed just by watching them as role models.

Common sense at its finest.