A Door are like your mouth...

Once you've open it, there is a moment to close it...

Here starts our new lesson in basic manners, but before we really start on this, I want to clarify a point: very recently I have been struck by a terrible truth, I have been wrong all along... According to several of my Dutch friends (whom strangely enough all seem pretty much well mannered), it is not that Dutch are so impolite, it is all about Hilversumers... It seems to be common knowledge to most Dutch natives that people from Hilversum are real pains in the a...

I don't really know why, but several non Hilversumers I know seem to agree with that (they even came to talk about it without any incentive from me), it seems Hilversumers drive like assholes, can't say "hello", are rude, and, from personal experience... Can't close a damn door!

My theory about why this touches Hilversum more than any other place (supposedly) is that Hilversumers are a mix of paysans and cocky parvenus (or "Kakkers", as are the local aristocrats called), therefore they probably have this mix of rudeness from the paysan side and of overated egocentristic pride from the cocky side.

However, living in Hilversum, I am trying my best to forget my manners and become a real asshole, but till now I could hardly suppress the "sorry" escaping my mouth when I notice I bother someone (to be honest most people will apologize when they notice they hurt you in some way, the biggest problem being in making them notice...), anyway, there is one thing in particular I terribly hate, coming most of the time from teenagers and young adults, but sometimes also most surprisingly from adults, the ones from the generations that was still supposed to have received some basic social life education from their parents. For those people, it seems way harder to close a door that it is to open it...

I happen to go eat at Bagels and Beans for time to time with friends, it is a nice cosy place where you eat decently healthy snacks and the atmosphere is pretty enjoyable, that is until some trash group of 18 girls come in all jiggleling, go find a sit, leaving the door open behind them, as the place is often pretty crowdy, they often don't get a sit and leave the place... and the door open...

Ok, there is a pretty simple reason in my reasonning for that: they come in pack! No seriously, here is the deal: the first gets in (and therefore opens the door, that's pretty important for the rest of the process), then comes the second in, and so on, till the last, who simply comes in, and doesn't close the door.
"But why?" will you ask, well, don't burn your brain, I thought about it for a long while, and here are my theories:
1- She doesn't know she is the last of the pack: therefore, believing she is followed by one of her peers, she simply gently leaves the door open for her to get in.

2- She did not open it: of course, she didn't open it (remember? the first one did it, this is a stack, they have to enter one after the other, the door opening is not large enough for all of them to get in at the same time), so why should she close it? The bitch who opened it should close it, in this case, the best solution would be for each of them to get in in a 3 steps process: open the soor, get in, close the door, next!

3- (and I am afraid it is unfortunately the one reason closest to reality) She doesn't even think about it: and why would she? It doesn't bother HER does it? No, then whythefuckshouldshecareaboutit? well... indeed... I can't fight against such a good argument.

So, you will tell me, "what's the big deal?", well I will tell you what's the deal, I wouldn't really mind if we were living in some tropical or tempered counrty, I might not even care in summer, but hell, when it is -5 freaking degrees outside, and there are people inside (where it is about 20 degrees, and you have to remove your 5 layers of clothes) IT DOES FREAKING MATTER!

Of course most people who are bothered will simply close the door in a little exasperated gesture 8 times during their lunch, so they probably don't care that much... For my part, I think someone with so little social abilities, so much selfishness or so much lazyness does not deserve to have hands... It is such a gift, think about the pinguin, I am pretty sure pinguins would love to be able to close doors! So if you don't use your hands (or your brain) then you probably don't need those.

So little people of Hiversum, do yourself (and myself) a favour: learn to use your brain and hands (Yeah, I know sometimes hard to coordinate both) and learn how to close a door (it is actualy the same movement you did to open it, only reversed, requires quite some brain processing, but after a couple of times it is almost natural).

Thank you for your attention. next time I will explain you why it is handy to let people out of the doorway before you get in...