BAD MANNERS

Bad Manners

Ignorant or ignoramus

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I’ve known Jeanine for well over twenty years and throughout those years, she’s always proved her ignorance. While she attended college and spent the next twenty-five years in military service, her course of studies, somehow, went awry.

Don’t misunderstand me. Jeanine has a good heart, but her intelligence lacks something, and I’m not quite sure what.

Hers’s an example. If she needs to speak about a restaurant that offers an “all you can eat” buffet, she’ll say, “Let’s go there for lunch. The have an open “booffet.” Another example happened years ago when her granddaughter started school. “Anna started kidney garden today.” At first, her words threw me off kilter. It only took a few seconds to realize what she meant but I couldn’t resist asking, “Her mother sent her to school to learn how to grow kidney beans? I mean, I know she’s not growing kidneys, but why?”

I wasn’t trying to insult or ridicule her but with my warped sense of humor, I just couldn’t resist my comment, yet she was neither insulted nor hurt, but responded with, “No, no. You know the first class before first grade.”

“Oh,” I said, “you mean KINDERGARTEN!”

“Yeah, well, whatever!”

That was twenty years ago, and she pronounces it kidney garden.

There are so many other words that she mispronounces, and I have often wondered if this is deliberate or she just can’t learn the proper way to pronounce her words.

But this isn’t her only problem.

Jeanine, I’ve learned, has no empathy. She doesn’t seem to care what she says about people or to whom she makes those remarks.

I’m not sure if she’s ignorant in proper manners or if she’s an ignoramus who just doesn’t care. Or maybe she thinks she funny.

Here are a few examples:

Jeanine’s nephew happens to be gay. She doesn’t like him and we never got into the whys and why-nots. Yet, the few times she speaks about him, she refuses to call him by his name. She prefers her slur, “Gay Guy.” I asked her why she never uses his name and replied, “I don’t like him, plus he’s gay, so as far as I’m concerned, he’s ‘gay guy’.”

Then there was the time I was a caregiver to a woman who had severe dementia. Miss Agnes could no longer speak or feed herself. She could barely walk. While she still had her sight, she could not focus.

One afternoon while I was at work, Jeanine called to ask a question. I asked her to make it quick since I was still at work. “Oh, you’re still taking care of that whacko lady?”

That question put my anger into overdrive. “I need to go and take care of a woman who can’t take care of herself – unlike you and me. Gotta go!” Then I disconnected the call.

It made me wonder if anyone asked her about my grandson who is autistic how she responds.

Another strange thing about Jeanine is how she treats her friends. We had a mutual friend, Lynn. One instance I’ll probably never forget was the hurt and embarrassment Lynn felt at Jeanine’s actions. Lynn was hit with an unexpected appliance repair. She asked Jeanine if she’d lend her two-hundred-fifty dollars for two weeks, just until her Social Security was deposited.

Jeanine’s response? “Sure, not a problem. I’ll write out an IOU for you to sign, and you’ll need to repay me the two-fifty plus another thirty-seven, fifty. That’s a fifteen percent interest.”

Lynn declined Jeanine’s offer and came to me telling me how Jeanine wanted to handle a request for help from a friend.

Wait, did I say “friend”?

As of today, I’ve long ago abolished the “friend” aspect of the relationship between Jeanine and myself. As far as I’m concerned, we are no more than acquaintances, someone I see, perhaps three time a year.

As for her friend, Lynn? She stopped speaking to Jeanine several  years ago. The way she said it was, “trying to keep up with her ignorant ways and inflated ego, is just plain tiring.”

I mentioned to Jeanine about two weeks ago that I’d heard from other mutual friends that Lynn had passed away. Jeanine’s response? “Well, none of us will live forever.”

No empathy! No sadness! No regrets about losing what had been a good friend.

That makes me wonder even more.

Is Jeanine ignorant?

Is Jeanine an ignoramus that just might know better but refuses to adapt?

Or is Jeanine just wired more differently than others.

Just last week, she asked if we could meet for breakfast.

“The only days I have open are Monday’s and Fridays and that also depends on the week,” I replied.

“You’re still taking care of ‘that person’?

“She’s now in a home but I have another patient who I see a few times a week, but I set aside a few days each week for the doctors’ visits for my husband. He also needs a lot of care lately. We can go on a Friday.”

“No, we can’t. I play cards on Friday afternoons. We’ll find time when I come back from my vacation in two weeks.”

And that was that!

She left two days ago without a goodbye.

And I can’t help but secretly think, “good riddance.”