Politeness Man, the next Superhero.

Sometimes I wish I was more of a smart-ass. I used to be, before age crept up on me and I started to value the way people perceived me. I think it passes, though. I think, as we grow older - older than I am now - we decide that we don't care how people think of us because they have no perspective and their tiny lives are no comparison to the length of time we've spent here. That happens when we're old and cranky and we think we've seen it all.

I haven't seen it all. I've seen some of it, and I'm not that big a fan. There's a lot of nonsense that I have to put up with on a daily basis just to make it to the next day. Nonsense that requires a response, but because I am Politeness Man, I find it difficult to reconcile. For instance:

I'm in the local convenience store (because it's convenient) and all I have on the counter is a turkey wrap, and the clerk asks, "Is that it?"

Politeness Man responds, "Yes," because that's his superpower. He has the ability to take a stupid question and respond with a polite answer. The proper answer is something wholly different, but Politeness Man does not have that superpower. The proper response would be something like, "That'd better be it." Or, "That looks like it." But, yes suffices.

Then, Politeness Man is listening to a debate over the latest sports failure, that of Big Brown, the horse who failed in his attempt to win the Triple Crown. The debaters were debating whether or not Big Brown was injured or that maybe the heat got to him or maybe he just didn't feel like running on Saturday. The debate took far longer than it should. Politeness Man stood idly by, and shrugged his shoulders. The proper response would have been an eye-roll and a "Jackass, he's a horse." Listening to people debate how a horse feels about running a mile and a half is a true test of Politeness Man's superpowers.

Politeness Man was driving along at the posted speed limit, all the while being tailgated by a woman in a giant vehicle who wanted to go faster but, because of Politeness Man's grip on the road was unable to proceed further.

They both got to the intersection simultaneously, and Politeness Man was in the left lane, ready to make a left turn. Tailgater was in the right lane, ready to go through the intersection. They stopped for the red light. When the light turned green, Politeness Man noticed that Tailgater was distracted because she was fiddling with her cellular telephone.

In a momentary lapse of reason, Politeness Man laid on his horn, and Tailgater's head shot up like yours does when you accidentally fall asleep in an important workplace meeting. Tailgater was startled, then proceeded on her way. Even though Politeness Man was not deterred by Tailgater's phone usage, he found it necessary to alert Tailgater to her loss of control of her vehicle.

Politeness Man is not infallible.