By Merlin Lessler —<\/p>\n
When we are little kids our parents strive to teach us to share. It gets us started, especially if we have siblings. We don\u2019t especially like it unless it\u2019s our turn to be the one on the receiving end.<\/p>\n
The training really ramps up when we go to school, kindergarten in my day, pre-school these days. I still remember my first week in Kindergarten. My neighborhood friend Woody and I raced to the toy cupboard when our ABC\u2019s and Shoe tying lessons were over. He grabbed a metal fire engine; I snagged an ambulance.<\/p>\n
Then, a giant of a kid came over, pushed us aside and grabbed them away from us. \u201cYou can\u2019t play with these; they\u2019re mine!\u201d<\/p>\n
It was our first, of many to come, encounter with Butchy, a bully that harassed us for years, often sitting on his bicycle on the playground with a baseball bat resting on his shoulder. He wasn\u2019t afraid to take a swing. Fortunately he always missed; he was pretty uncoordinated. He didn\u2019t learn to share. But we sure did. <\/p>\n
Now my issue is with the people who share too much, like the loud guy (big mouth) talking into his cell phone in a restaurant or another public place. It\u2019s even worse when he has his speaker on and we get blasted with both sides of the conversation.<\/p>\n
Also, the driver with an expensive stereo system, blasting so loud that anyone sitting near him at a stoplight gets clobbered with noise. He\u2019s \u201cSHARING.\u201d It\u2019s so loud that were he in a workplace, OSHA would deem it in violation of the 85 DBA noise limit. <\/p>\n
How about the guy whose exhaust system on his car has been modified; you can hear him coming two blocks away. Some Harley motorcycle guys do the same, sending a blatting crescendo of engine noise across the roadway.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at me; I ride a Harley!\u201d Most Harley riders, the ones with standard exhaust systems, resent the blatting rider too. It gives them a bad reputation. <\/p>\n
The world is full of over-sharing people. The ones whose dogs bark all day long, the bands in bars and restaurants that crank up the volume so high you can\u2019t talk to the person next to you.<\/p>\n
There are way too many sharers out there, including some of the advertisers on TV that raise the volume of their ads, in violation of the FCC rules; it appears that FCC is asleep at the wheel.<\/p>\n
My list of over-sharers is pretty long. How about yours? <\/p>\n