There’s been much debate about the lack of manners in this country. Courtesy used to be called common courtesy. It’s now neither.

So, what can we do to bring back niceness? I have a suggestion.

Meetings.

Let’s send those who lack the social graces (we’ll call them cretins) to meetings. Ten minutes in an average employee staff meeting would do far more to set a cretin on the straight-and-narrow path than a smack upside the head ever could.

As a matter of fact, I believe that after being forced to attend a series of the kinds of meetings that contributing members of society have to endure, most cretins would beg for solitary confinement.

Before you pass judgment on me as a terrible person and think that what I’m suggesting is cruel and unusual punishment, let me explain. Not everyone deserves the same type of meeting. I think the meeting should fit the crime.

For example, if a cretin is a lane changer who refuses to use a turn signal, they should be forced to attend a meeting at the local garden club during the “Taking Cuttings From My Dahlia Tubers” presentation by Edna Fernbuckle.

A cretin who drives in the left lane at the same speed as the person in the right lane would deserve the much harsher sentence of an Amway meeting; after which, they’d be required to repeatedly ask all of their friends if they’d like to make an extra $3-$5 thousand a month, until one of their friends pummeled them.

The worst of the worst are cretin cell phone talkers. These are the ill-mannered folk who, regardless of their location, speak on their phone at the same level as a Boeing 747 taking off. They could care less whether they’re in a restaurant, a hospital waiting room, an elevator or at a funeral.

So, I believe that’s exactly the meeting they should be forced to attend. A funeral.

Now, you may argue that funerals aren’t meetings. Oh, but they are. By definition, a meeting is a required gathering. And in my family, funerals are required. Even if you don’t know, never knew or didn’t want to know the deceased, you’re going to a funeral if the edict is handed down.

But, here’s the catch. We get to pick the funeral. I recommend we delay the cell phone talker’s sentencing until the next Hell’s Angels funeral. That’s where we send them. After the cretin arrives, we give the service 10 minutes to get started, then we all give him a call.

©2014 John Moore