Well, perhaps the problem that needs fixing is your own admitted irrationality. If I’ve got a question about my bill at the grocery store and someone in line behind me butts in because I “need to be told” they don’t have all day… Well, sweetie, it’s a big store and there are other lines and you’re welcome to go stand in one. Not your money, not your business. If I’m being an irrational jackass about a nickel, there are employees who deal with that. Not. You.
You seen to have a little problem with the idea that the world needs to run your way. Pull over for a funeral procession? Waste of my time! Get up in other people’s business at the grocery store? Perfectly good use of my time!
Now, you’re allowed to obnoxious as you choose to be regarding the customs and habits of other people, but you really mustn’t be to surprised if they take you to task in a similarly rude fashion.
Someone “butted in” to my grandmother’s funeral procession*. Unfortunately for him, he happened to do so in front of a relative he’s a cop. And ended up with a ticket on his hands.
*Yes, I know you said you don’t butt in. It’s still a douchebag thing to do. It’s not just respect for the dead – it’s respect for those who are grieving.
No you can’t. Turning up at the funeral or wake of a stranger would be a weird dick move. The dead person and their family are almost certainly strangers to you.
How you are observed as treating strangers is a significant factor in the way other strangers will perceive you.
The people who think you are a scab for defying this social convention are different people every time it happens. It therefore doesn’t matter even if you have the best possible rationale for doing what you do. Nobody who sees you doing it is interested in your explanation, only your outwardly-visible behaviour.
The only thing that would be a dickhead thing to do would be to impede or obstruct them.
Getting out of the way is neither so don’t worry about it. You don’t know them and don’t owe them anything other than the respect of getting out of their way in an unobtrusive manner. Those in the procession aren’t going to see you speeding ahead of them (that is sort of the point of your actions) so don’t sweat it.
Similar to the 2 minute silence on 11/11. If you don’t agree with it then slipping to one side and silently going about your business is fine, pushing on through a group of observant people and tutting while you do it is obnoxious.
This is clearly one of those cases where what we are talking about isn’t the heart of the issue. I’m not sure what the real matter here is, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t “I’m impatient by nature and can’t stand waiting 45 seconds for a funeral to pass me.”
Wanting to get out of the way of funerals is one thing. Having an ace to grind about the general expectation that people pull over for them is… Well, I’m sure there’s more to it than that.
SHould every single deceased member of the human race have a funeral procession? what if they did? why do only a few select dead people get to be first in their own parade?
Should we require pedestrians to stop in their tracks, take off their hats and bow their head too?
That’s exactly what they do in areas where the cars pull over.
Seriously though; what are you getting at? Why would it bother you that it’s a social custom in some parts of the US to do these things? No less weird than the elaborate West African coffins, or the funeral customs of just about any other culture that you’re not brought up in.
I’ve always viewed the pulling over as a sort of nod to the concept of:
Basically it doesn’t matter who’s in that hearse; by pulling over, you’re acknowledging that someone has died, and we’re all a little diminished by that loss.
I don’t think a procession is a special event. It isn’t a parade. It’s people getting from a church or funeral home to a cemetery or whatnot. It isn’t like high school marching bands are leading the way with dancing horses and a National Guard platoon marching along with them.
Dear Husband, if that’s you, this is MY message board and you need to go find another one.
shyguylh, you’d be happier and healthier and people would probably like you more if you did learn some patience. But if you don’t wish to pull over for a funeral procession, go on your merry way. No one’s going to think much about it either way and they don’t know you anyhow.
Growing up in the midwest we gave way to funeral processions too. I never thought of not interrupting a procession as respect for the dead but rather respect for those who don’t know the way to the cemetery and would get lost if they lost contact with the car in front.
I guess I’m the evil bitch that agrees with the OP. I don’t want to pull over either, and I don’t like the endless streams of funeral processions. I don’t butt in but it does annoy me, but then I am someone who is understated in everything and I would be mortified if I stopped up traffic with my own funeral procession. Come to think of it, maybe we should - I might be mortified enough I’d get out of my coffin* and walk off set.
*Could be extra interesting; I am going to be cremated.
I see funeral processions on the road quite often, and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed anyone pulling off to the side of the road as they pass by. People only do that for speeding emergency vehicles with lights and sirens on. (I live in Maryland.)
Now if it’s a police funeral for an officer killed in the line of duty, they will actually close the road. But that’s different.
In this case, your choice is seen by and affects other people. Not pulling over for the couple of minutes to let the procession pass makes you seem like a self-centered jerk.
Perfectly said. And also demonstrating that it’s not about the OP.
What’s self-centered is the notion that “I’m so important and my time is so important that I can’t be bothered to conform to the social norms and niceties of the people around me, so everybody better just get the hell of MY way.”
What exactly those social norms and niceties are varies from place to place. However, every place has some expected patterns of behavior: saying ‘Gesundheit’ when somebody sneezes, holding the door for ladies and the elderly, saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ bowing your head in church, greeting your boss with a formal bow, shaking hands when meeting, eating only with the right hand, saying congratulations to a new bride, pulling over for a funeral, whatever the proper behaviors are in the community in which you reside.
You, however, are saying you don’t need to respect the norms–you’re too important to play by the rules and observe the social niceties. Only your time and your feelings matter. That’s pretty much a textbook definition of self-centered.
Many of the social niceties impose a burden on the person observing them. I could get in the building much faster if I didn’t hold the door for the man in a wheelchair; I’d be more comfortable if I took the last seat on the bus and let the pregnant lady stand in the aisle. However, it’s not all about me. Inconveniencing myself briefly, or taking a few minutes out of my day to hold a door, or say ‘thank you,’ or pause for a funeral procession, isn’t going to kill me, and it shows the people around me that I respect them too. In the case of a funeral procession, by pausing I am saying, “I don’t know who you might be, but I acknowledge your grief and the passing of your loved one anyway.” In parts of the world where this is part of the tradition, failing to observe it is basically saying, “I don’t care who you are and don’t give a damn about your grief and loss, because I’M the only person who matters.”
I see funeral processions on the road quite often, and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed anyone pulling off to the side of the road as they pass by. People only do that for speeding emergency vehicles with lights and sirens on. (I live in Maryland.)