I
have been brought up with firm and clear rules about how to behave, etiquette, acceptable social conduct and more.After all, both my father and grandfather were in the military (MP and Navy, respectively), while my mother was a schoolteacher and her father a notary.
Moreover, my whole upbringing took place in the quite conservative and “antique” Italian middle-class of the end of the 50’s and therefore I still value qualities like honesty, cleanness, neatness, reciprocal courtesy, respect and so on.
For example, my grandmother always told me before I went out: “Don’t forget that to greet someone is a courtesy, but to respond to a greeting is a duty, no matter who or what”, which in practice meant that I was not to be haughty or disdainful towards anyone, no matter how better or worse he or she fared within the social structure and that courtesy could only be met by another courtesy and that that was not a matter of being condescending, but it was just what civilized people did. Period.
I was also educated not to throw anything on the pavement, but to look for a garbage bin and if that was not in sight, then I had to keep my garbage with me until I found one, even if that meant to walk around with my pockets full of garbage until I was back home. It was after all, just a matter of respect.
I would behave this way even when no-one was in sight and no-one could have actually seen me throwing anything on the pavement or dispose of my garbage just like that, and I would do exactly the same also (and especially) in the free nature. Sole exception would be a small amount of organic debris that could be considered as a source of nutrition for a wild species (like an apple pith, a morsel of bread or cheese, but never a chewing-gum).
For those reasons, I passionately dislike people who throw their garbage on the ground, even if that is just a small candy wrap and also if the pavement is already strewn by debris from other specimens of the unmannerly kind.
Since nowadays you cannot just reproach anyone on a public street without risking to be shot, knifed or clubbed to death, and since I have long ago given up the idea that the word “human” goes arm in arm with the adjective “civilized”, I mostly do my bit, try to put up a not too disgusted face towards those who pollute our world with their mere presence, and calmly move on.
It’s just once in a while that we see some “knight in shining armor” picking up the challenge and responding with an appropriate and immediate vendetta upon the misbehaving shithead.
And it’s even more pleasantly surprising when that knight is a dame, on a motorbike.
She not only pays back with equal coin, but does that while filming both trespasser and his/her earned penalty.
A masterpiece of “street justice”.
Here she is, our Russian “dame in shining armor”…