Common Courtesy Is Dead

So I'm sitting at the local Panera eating my tasty sourdough breadbowl of broccoli cheddar soup (my favorite) while hubby went to fill his cup with ice tea. Its a beautiful day, we just hit the Costco for bulk goodies, and now we were going to have a very nice lunch together and relax.

I'm vaguely aware of someone wandering around in front of me, then a female voice says loudly: "Do they bus the tables here?" I look up from my lunch and there is a woman standing in front of my table holding some trash items. She repeats: "Do they bus the tables here?" I say "um, over there (I point to the trash container), there's a trash container to throw your stuff in." To which the woman responds with "I'm from out of town." and she walks over to the trash and leaves.

Now, this has me very miffed for a myriad of reasons. I'm old enough to remember a time when people were courteous and had manners. Back in the "good old days" the conversation would have been something like this:

Woman stands up and can't see where to toss her trash. She approaches my table and says "Excuse me, but I'm from out of town and not familiar with how Panera works, is there someplace I should throw my trash, or do they bus the tables?" I look up and said "Over there (pointing) that's where you can throw your stuff". The woman looks at where I was pointing, then says "Oh, thank you" then leaves to throw her items away.

Is that so hard? Seriously, is that really so hard?

The problem with this is that nobody seems to remember those "good old days" and has forgotten how to behave in public, how to interact with other human beings, and just perpetuates rudeness throughout the land. We're doomed.