When did people get so cold?

[RAS6]

I mean, honestly, what happened to neighbors helping others out? A man stopping to help a woman stranded on the road? :rant:


I am so frustrated today with people. We had terrible weather, a thaw and a cold snap that ended up with my car tires getting sunk in and then frozen in the mud. My husband was working and couldn't come help me, so I tried everything I could think of. I put the kids in the house and got to work. I filled holes with cat litter, used boards, rags, everything I could think of. I even left the car in reverse and pushed as hard as my little sick body could push!! (Not very hard BTW!!)
And the whole time DOZENS of cars sped by!! I live on a VERY busy road, and so many people saw me. I even tried to flag a few down, including a utility truck who was making a call acrossed the street. He stared, but just drove away.

I don't what frustrates me more to be honest: people being so uncaring these days or the fact that I need help and I never did before. All in all it has left me very disheartened.

The rough part was that my daughter had to miss a mental health appointment she desperately needed and I was not able to go fill my prescriptions before my surgery on friday. Now I have ot get all my errands done tomorrow...
Maybe my plight didn't seem that important to all those people speeding by, but it made my day VERY bad.

I will go away from this experience remembering to always put myself in some one else's shoes. As long as the situation does not seem dangerous ( I am only 5'2" after all!), I will continue lending a helping hand and I WILL NOT let an illness leave me feeling weak or helpess!!
And I have huge hole to fill in once we get that car out so I can't be weak!!
I hope Kharma is in fact real, that I will continue to see the rewards of helping others, today just wasn't that day......

[dyno]

I am sorry you had such a tough time. It certainly isn't the same world it used to be. I always try to help people when I can, but like you said a lot of people just don't care anymore.

[ICNJess]

I am so sorry that happened to you! It is so sad that no one even bothered to help! Whatever happened to decency and kindness? GRR. This might make you laugh though...

I'd just gotten my license in December of '98 and I was out in my parents' HUGE conversion van. (Not fun to drive when you're 16 and trying to be cool). Anyway, it was early January and so it was snowy and icy on the roads here in WI. My best friend and I went to another friend's house (he was a foreign exchange student from Belgium with bright green hair!) and we were meeting one of his friends there who I'd had a massive crush on. We get to his house and he says his friend went the wrong way--could we please go out and drive and try to guide him to the house? (he had just moved into a new host family's home and the friend didn't know the neighborhood well). Soooo we hopped in and went down this hill to find that the friend waving his arms and shaking his head no frantically. Evidently he was stuck going up hill and was trying to tell us not to come down the hill.

Too late. We were down the hill! And now, my parents' huuuuuuge vehicle was stuck going UPHILL...in the dark...in the snow. It took us quite some time, but we managed to get back up the hill without need a tow truck. I can :lmao: at it now but I was pretty panicked at the time. Ok so I know this doesn't have the same premise to your story--but just imagine two panicked 16 year olds in a huge van with two 17 year old guys trying to push it uphill?

:bonk:

[Claredale]

I had a flat tire a few months ago and a couple of men stopped to help me. I had almost had it finished (I thank my driver's ed teacher for making me learn how to change a tire!) but they helped me out. I was a little worried that I wouldn't get the lugnuts tighten. I had forgotton you could stand on the tire iron.

People down here are normally polite with the exception of letting you on the interstate when it is bumper to bumper traffic! But, I am sure we have our fair share of the people that think chivalry is dead down here too.

Sorry, you weren't helped. That is just so mean. I just think if it was their wives, would they not want somebody to help them.

T83

[waterflow]

I don't know what city you are close to in NY state but I'm towards the bottom and I can tell you the people are the same here. You could be on fire and no one would stop to help. I live out in the country and the town has dug ditches along both sides of the road for water. These things are like canals and people always go off into them. They come to my house because we are the only ones who will help. Thought our neighbors house was on fire. Went down knocked and knocked on the door but no one came. Could hear the tv on and then noticed it was the dryer vent. They say people in NY state are rude and will not help and it is true. Never used to be that way but they are and I have to admit it I've joined the club. I have offered to help people and they just about bit my head off. I've had elderly ladies (In their 70's) who you would think have manners but they don't. I was at the store grocery shopping and checking out the cereals and this lady walked right in front of me , just about pushed me out of the way, grabbed a box and left. She was well dressed. You know the kind? :rolleyes: I used to help people all the time but I don't now. Actually better since you never know the people. Could be a set up or they could turn around and sue you. Imagine the people who drove past you were thinking the same thing. What ever happened to the days of Mayberry?? :confused:

[leelee88]

Rach, I am so sorry.. But I do understand how it feels not to be helped. But there are a few good people left. They just were not in your town today..
Maybe tomorrow will be a better day..(((((hugs))))))

[ltlmiss]

I am so sorry you had such a hard time today, I hope you have better luck tomorrow!

[Annie2]

I am so sorry you had such a difficult time today! Rest assured there are still lots of thoughtful, caring people out there. I am sorry one didn't pass you and recognize your need, but hope the next time you need assistance, your faith in humanity will be restored by the act of a compassionate stranger.

During early fall we were driving on the Interstate near Cincinnati, OH. We were in the left lane and traffic was busy, but not yet rush hour quantity. There was a car in front of us and a utility truck ahead of the car. Suddenly the car in front of us swerved to the center lane. A huge, thick piece of metal edging had fallen off that truck into our lane. Only when the car in front swerved could we see that big hunk of metal in the road and there was absolutely no time to react. We hit it with the left front tire (hubby and I were in my big SUV). Immediately tire pressure warnings went off and we were able to move across lanes and safely get off the side of the road. Not only was the tire ripped to shreds, but the entire wheel was badly bent. At least we were ok and the weather was comfortably warm. My hubby started lowering the spare and preparing to change the tire. Just then a big service truck pulled off the road in front of us. Turned out to be a gentleman whose business is traveling highways and servicing big rigs with tire / wheel problems. He was on the way home, saw us and stopped to help. He had every piece of equipment that could possiblly be needed on his truck. He just stepped up and said, "let me take care of that for you". He had the tire changed in no time. We had just had our vehicle serviced in preparation for a trip and had requested our dealership check the spare tire pressure to make sure it was ok. They said they did it. Hmm......well, that tire only had 20 lbs of pressure and hadn't been checked at all. We were so thankful to have help getting the spare in shape and all taken care of. I went to get my purse to pay this kind stranger for his help and he just ran past our vehicle waving at us, jumped in his truck and took off before we could even properly say thank you. There really are some great people in the world!!! Here's hoping the next time you need help with anything, one of these kind souls will be there for you! And thanks for reminding me; we still need to keep our eyes open for someone on the road in need of help so we can say thank you by helping someone else.

[Berkshire Road]

I am so sorry that happened to you, Rachel. But not everyone is like that. There are still some good people out there.

A few years ago, there was a major blizzard around here. It hadn't been expected, and it started during the school day, and they were sending the kids home early. So my next door neighbor and I, who both had kids at the elementary school, were waiting at the bus stop, in the blizzard, for 45 minutes and the bus never showed up. We kept calling the school and were told there was a slight delay. Turned out no one at all knew where our particular bus was, and all our kids were crammed into the office, no snacks, no water, no one paying any attention to them... so we decided to go pick them up. Only my car at the time, a minivan, was completely covered with about a foot of snow and so was the driveway. Husbands, of course, were not around. My neighbor is about 5 feet tall, and she and I were desperately trying to shovel, scrape the car -- getting cold but getting nowhere except increasingly panicked.

Suddenly a man walked by with a snowblower. It was really strange, he was wearing a business suit and overcoat and walking along clearing all the sidewalks. Neither of us had ever seen him before. We both ran up to him and tried to explain our predicament through our frozen lips ... I think we got across the point that our children were stuck at school. So he cleared the driveway, then took the broom and scraper from me and did the car (this all took maybe 10 minutes), and disappeared. We had a terrifying drive to the school, and found our kids as described, crammed in the office with no one attending to them, not even allowed bathroom trips. The secretaries were irritated bc. they couldn't leave the building while the children were still there, so they took it out on the kids. Very nice. Presumably the principal wouldn't have let that happen, but he was on the phone continuously with frantic parents.

So we got ours out. We could have taken several others from our neighborhood, but we didn't have "permission." My neighbor Gabby, who was about 6 at the time, was clinging to my leg and begging me to take her home, and the secretary was screaming at her to stop making a fuss and I wasn't her "emergency mother" so she couldn't go with me. But we at least got our own kids home, fed, and hot chocolated, anyway. Later we heard that some kids were stuck at the school, hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, and not allowed to work on homework bc. there wasn't enough space. I don't know whether they eventually got to pee, but the last kid left around 7 pm. I honestly can't understand why they didn't just call the fire department to drive the kids home (surely some of the moms were stuck in the same predicament we had been, with cars and driveways).

So it wasn't pleasant, but I'll never forget that man. The town is small, the neighborhood is tiny, and I have no idea who he was. But he showed up when we needed him desperately and then we never saw him again. To this day, I wonder sometimes whether he was a good samaritan or an angel with a snowblower.

I wish you'd had your own angel, Rachel, but there are still some out there, and I'll join you in your vow to always try to be one of them.