Today is Sunday, July 27.  There are 36 days until Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer and 56 days until the actual last day of summer.  We remember the natal anniversaries of Alexandre Dumas, Leo Durocher and Norman Lear.  On this day in 1586 Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first tobacco to England from Virginia, in 1837 the US Mint opened in Charlotte, NC, in 1844 fire destroyed the US Mint in Charlotte, NC and in 1990 Zsa Zsa Gabor began her three day jail sentence for slapping a cop.  In Puerto Rico they are celebrating the birthday of Jose Celso Barbosa, in Gilroy California the Gilroy Garlic Festival ends today and in the Virgin Islands tomorrow is Hurricane Supplication Day.

I have been noticing recently that people, in general, have become totally oblivious to everything and everyone around them.  Each person functions as if he or she is the only person around and; therefore, the only person who counts.  Examples abound.  All you have to do is watch as you go through your day.  That is assuming you realize there are other people around you.

Here are some of the things I have seen recently.  I was out running errands yesterday and had to parallel park in front of the store I was going to.  I know, some of you are asking what that is.  It is when you have to park your car at the curb with one car in front of you and one behind.  It was all the rage when I was learning how to drive … but I digress.  So here is the picture – I am one of five cars in the line.  I am the only car moving. 

All the other cars are parked and no one is in them.  As I am backing into the space, my backup alarm starts beeping very rapidly.  I look in my mirror to see if I had missed something and there was a woman darting behind my car to get to the store.  She had parked across the street and run over to the store.  Why she had to go behind the only car that was moving is beyond me.  I don’t think she knew I was backing up.  I can understand how she might have missed it – I was driving a black SUV and was in motion (please note the sarcasm in my voice).  The store was a pool and spa supply store.  Maybe she was afraid they were going to run out of PH increaser and that would spoil the pool party she had scheduled for later in the day.

One of the best places to see examples of this phenomenon is at a mall.  Here is an example that I saw recently.  A young woman was standing in the middle of foot traffic, talking on her phone.  She was having a conversation about something important, I am sure.  She finished her chat, put her phone in her purse, turned and walked right into a guy.  Had it occurred to her that there might be someone else in the mall on a Saturday, she might have looked before she started walking.  What made it even better was that she was with the guy she walked into and had apparently forgotten he was there.

People have become so absorbed in themselves that they do not even bother to think about anyone else.  They walk along staring at their phone and would walk into people if they did not get out of the way.  What makes it better is when two people going in opposite directions bump into each other because they are not looking at where they are walking but are absorbed in their electronic devices.  When that happens, both people stop, give the other person a look that says, “Jeez, can’t you watch where you are going?” and then just walk on, again concentrating on their device.  It never occurs to them that maybe they should look up once in a while.

You see the same type of attitude when people are driving.  They are on the phone.  Yes I know it is illegal but they do not care because the law apparently does not apply to them.  Besides, there are never any cops around to enforce the law, so who really cares … oops, digressing again.  People drive as if they are the only car on the road.  When they decide to change lanes, they change.  It is not their responsibility to watch to see if there is someone where they want to go.  It is your responsibility to watch out for them.  If I want to go from the far left lane across two lanes of traffic to get off at the exit that I am about to pass and almost missed because I was not paying attention to the signs, that is what I will do.  You need to be more careful and attentive so that you don’t crash into me.

I could go on and on, but after a while it becomes as tedious to write about it as it does for you to have to read it.  The bottom line is that people do not worry about anyone but themselves and too bad for the rest of us.  A couple weeks ago I mentioned that it was a day when there were no holidays.  Maybe we could create one for that day.  It could be “Watch Out For Others Day.”  We could encourage everyone to pay attention to what is going on around them.  We could have flash rallies where people could walk through a mall and watch for people to avoid walking into.  We could sell T-Shirts that say things like “I See You” or “Please don’t walk into me!”  We could create bumper stickers that say “This car brakes for other cars.”

Or not.

This week our fact tells us that an American urologist bought Napoleon’s penis for $40,000.  There really isn’t much more I can say about this.  All I want to know is who it was bought from and why it was bought.