Question 7 – Where do people get the nerve?

I’ve heard that starting anything you’re writing with a quote is the GROSSEST worst writing ever, which is a bummer because I like a good quote.  I kind of get it, it’s a bit of a “cheat” to use something someone else wrote to try and juice your own thing (if you know what I mean).  Anyway I had a good quote for this but you’ll never know it now. NEVER!!!

When I was a kid I had a pathological fear of asking people for things.  Part of it was just my general shyness and reluctant to talk to anyone, but I had a specific “thing” about asking people for something.  Obviously I got over it, but it was something that I had to work on in collage.  It didn’t help that usually whenever I did get the gumption up to ask someone for something it was a disaster.  One memory that sticks with me is when my sister dropped me off for swimming lessons and I asked the teenager at the pool where I was supposed to go.  They asked me what class I was in and then told me there was no such class when I told them when I had been told.  I told them what class I was in the year before and they go “oh, you need to be over at the library.”

Seemed odd, but I thought maybe the first day we would look at books about water safety or something.  I’m sure you’re all shocked to find out there were no swimming lessons at the library.  The librarian was a real bitch about it.  So I walked home and called my mom and she was SUPER mad at me for reasons I couldn’t understand.  Actually I do understand, she thought I was ditching swimming class because I hadn’t wanted to go anymore, but I didn’t understand why she thought I would do that.  Actually I do understand because that’s the kind of thing my sisters would do, but I the point is that’s one of the only times I remember my mom actually yelling at me and I cried like a baby. 

I remember one other time hiding behind a plant and pissing in a garbage can because I was too afraid to ask where the bathroom was – I think in a waiting room or some kind.  Anyway, the point is there seems to be only two kind of people – people who are afraid to ever ask for anything, even from people whose job it is to be asked and entitled assholes you ask everyone for everything.  Now, I realize that this is wrong, that it only SEEMS like this because you don’t notice the normal people.  There’s nothing noteworthy about someone acting within society norms so it doesn’t stick in your mind like when someone who’s foot has been crushed by a shopping cart crawls out of the store rather than asking for help while someone else is at the customer service counter demanding to speak to the manager because they don’t like someone’s “tone” as they try to run a return scam on the person behind the counter. 

But the question is where do the people that ask you to pay the bill or for you do to your job for them for free or whatever get the nerve? 

I have mixed feelings about this question, because you don’t get anything without asking for it – so you need to ask for things.  But, there’s not much more that I find disgusting than someone being presumptuous – feeling that they’re owed something.

But those that do, where do they get the nerve?

One of my favorite comedians is Paul F Thompkins and he has a bit about the Magic Castle, which is great, wherein he talks about how one of his favorite things is the sheer GALL of people who try to sell your cheap tourtisty crap.  Such as the fellow at the Magic Castle who would take your picture for forty dollars PER PERSON.  Where does someone like that come from? 

I would imagine there’s two types of the “nerve” people.  One is the people who are just playing the odds.  We all remember the episode of King of the Hill where Bobby was disappointed that Boomhauer’s reputation as being a lady’s man was the result of him just asking out tons of women and being rejected most of the time.  It’s like that, cast a wide net and you’re going to catch something.  If you take your Xbox into Target and try to sell it to a cashier enough times maybe you’ll make a sale eventually.  When I told that story of a friend of mine she was all like “he was probably mentally ill” and knew right then she was 89,000% nicer than I am.  I would never think that someone acting like a jerk was doing so because of mental problems.  The people in this group are just trying to get something for nothing and they know they won’t most of the time. 

But there’s a second group, a group of people who absolutely think they’re entitled to every single thing they want.  And I have to assume that this mostly comes from their experience in life.  Clearly for me at a young age asking for things didn’t work out so I adjusted (overcorrecting in my case) accordingly.  These are the people for whom it worked out.  Either through luck or chance or whatever, they started off shooting for the moon and they got it enough that they decided that’s what’s supposed to happen.  I have to assume these people do get what they want more often than everyone else but are probably still more angry about everything because they don’t get their way as often as they want.  Which is, you know, some kind of lesson.  About things. 

In conclusion what I said above.