Emily Postal at the taxi queue

Jarko the building cat has been bringing me dead animals again. The other week it was a giant rat, this week it was a cockroach. If a cat brings you dead animals it is a tribute: he is sharing his food with you. In appreciation of the gesture I went to the supermarket and bought him a couple of cans of tuna. (I’ve offered him the high-protein kibble my three house cats eat but he refuses it, preferring table scraps.)

My grocery chores done, I walked to the taxi stop to catch a ride home. As I approached the door leading to the taxi stop, a heavyset man darted in front of me, barely avoiding a collision, and parked himself in front of the queue. Since there was no one else standing in line, there really was no need for the person to cut in front of me. (Bakit siya sumisingit, e wala namang pila?)

I gather this... queue-jumper... did it for the sheer pleasure of annoying total strangers, or maybe he was in the habit of racing people to the taxi stop. Usually it is best to leave such individuals alone — perhaps he needs this split-second sense of triumph (“Nakaisa”) to make up for the general misery of his daily existence.

It could also be a case of what my friend calls “utak-gutom,” famine mentality, the feeling that if one does not hurry up and take whatever he can, there will be nothing left for him. “Parang mauubusan.” (Do you ever observe how people behave at buffet restaurants? It is a subject worthy of the National Geographic channel. Note the diners who, though clearly neither destitute nor starving, heap their plates with food then leave most of their meal untouched. That’s utak-gutom.)

Yes, it is probably best to ignore these people. But sometimes, though one tries to be charitable, one is in a mood. Then she turns into Emily Postal.

Emily Post, of course, is the author of the well-known guides to etiquette, and to go postal is to run amok. The expression “going postal” is derived from documented incidents of meek, mild post office employees who suddenly snap and open fire on everyone in the building.

Miss Emily Postal believes that everyone should be polite to each other. She is deeply offended by bad manners. These days etiquette, the code of proper behavior, is often regarded as old-fashioned, insincere, a relic of class privilege. Emily Postal begs to disagree.

There are eight billion people sharing this small planet whose resources are severely strained as it is. It is in everyone’s best interest to treat one another with respect. We all do not have to like each other, which is impossible, or to pretend to be friends, which is phony. We only have to treat each other the way we would like to be treated — that is, considerately.

As for class privilege, Emily Postal finds that many of the rudest, most uncouth people she has ever encountered are rich and “educated,” while a natural nobility of spirit is often present in people who have nothing. Good manners is really about self-respect. If you respect yourself, you can respect others. If you loathe yourself, imagine how you would treat other people.

When Emily Postal encounters rudeness, she is incensed. Occasionally she becomes violent, although she is not proud of herself afterwards. She is channeling Edith Wharton by way of Hannibal Lecter: You can’t help what you are, but don’t be rude.

Emily Postal wanted to feed the queue-jumper to some stray cats with some fava beans and a good Chianti.

Someone out there is asking, Why does she take taxis, then? Why not drive? Because, to quote one of her favorite movies, she is a public transportation snob.

Another person in her place might accost the queue-jumper, wag a finger in his face, and say, “Hoy, bakit ka sumisingit sa akin, walang modo, hindi ka ba tinuruan ng mga magulang mo,” etc. (Why did you cut in front of me, didn’t your parents teach you manners?) However, Emily Postal has observed that people who have no qualms about cutting in line will probably not hesitate to engage in public shouting matches.

Besides, she was not exactly angry. She was more embarrassed for this uncouth person — an embarrassment compounded by the fact that he felt no shame at all at his boorishness. If he did not have the grace to feel embarrassed then it was up to her to teach him some embarrassment.

Emily Postal examined the subject to determine his weaknesses, rather like the Terminator reading a target to decide how to kill it. His hair contained too much product, his shirt and jeans were one size too small, and his man-bag was in a loud geometric print. And then she noticed his shoes. They were in very shiny patent leather (charol) and much too pointy — like the shoes Lotte Lenya tried to kill James Bond with in From Russia With Love, if she was doing a tap dance recital afterwards.

The evidence suggested that this was a person who cared about his personal appearance and desired to be seen as a man of fashion. Emily Postal knew what to do.

She stared at the shoes. She stared at them very hard. She stared at them so hard that the queue-jumper had to notice, but just to make sure that he did, she emitted a little snort. When he turned around to see what was so fascinating, she arranged her expression into something one part horror and one part hilarity. She looked like she was about to laugh and throw up at the same time. It was easy: she simply recalled scenes from Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell.

All this time she never took her eyes off those shiny, pointy shoes.

It is a wonder they did not combust. Finally she administered the coup de grâce. She pretended to realize that he had noticed her staring, and she put on a look of the most insincere apology.

This took about three minutes.

Two taxis arrived. The queue-jumper practically ran to the first one.

The driver rejected him. Emily Postal took the second taxi and got home without further incident. Jarko the building cat got his tuna treat. He was very pleased.

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