Unbelievable

When did people become so stony-hearted? asks Nury Vittachi

A FRIEND watched the dinosaur movie Jurassic World IN FRONT OF HER PET BIRD so that the creature could remember when his kind ruled the earth. She was trying to be nice but I thought it was really insensitive.

The same friend told me that I was as “dumb as a box of rocks” while we walked past a rockery in a park.

“Sssh,” I said. “They can hear you.”

But of course there are no people on earth as insensitive as children.

Child: “Can we have a bee hive on the balcony?”

Me: “No. Mum’s allergic to bee stings.”

Child: “When she’s dead can we have a bee hive on the balcony?” Me: “I guess.” Now a question: if someone is two

hours late for dinner and then complains that the food is overcooked, is it justifiable to dice him into cubes and lightly flash-fry him with herbs as an extra meat dish? I knew you’d say yes. I do this sort of thing a lot these days (identify acts of thoughtlessness, not flash-fry friends). Because it is clear that a massive epidemic of insensitivity is spreading around the world.

The most astonishing example is the funeral company that set up hundreds of fake gravestones bearing the names of (living) local residents in gold letters. Sales staff would show residents their names, saying: “Look! That could be you.”

Residents were unimpressed to the point of apoplexy. The hard-sell morticians at the China Dragon Garden graveyard in the Beijing suburbs were eventually persuaded that their venture, though creative, scored 8.9 on the Richter insensitivity scale. Especially in a community where omens are taken as scientifically verified proofs.

Doctor: “You have three months to live.” Patient: “Were my test results bad?” Doctor: “Your test results were fine, but you picked Waiting Ticket 44 and sat in the Unlucky Chair. You’re a goner.”

If you think about it, most disputes are due to thoughtlessness. In the paper was a story about a bid by organisers of a UK vegetable growing contest to attract more entries by allowing people to enter vegies bought at the local supermarket. They never thought about the vegetable growers, who were outraged. A cynical colleague reading over my shoulder (GO AWAY) said that everyone had probably been entering supermarket vegetables for years anyway.

He maintained that people today were overconsiderate, and offered an example. He and his sports-mad friends were recently discussing how they would like to vaporise the rival team and use their ashes as confetti as they danced on their graves singing their own team’s anthem. When his wife complained that he was not being very nice, he thundered: “That type of political correctness is ruining this country.”

Not sure that I agree with him, as I still think it’s good to be thoughtful. On the afternoon before writing this, my bird-owning friend declined an offer of ice-cream because she said her teeth “were extremely sensitive these days”.

I replied: “Sssh. They can hear you.”

The same friend told me that I was as “dumb as a box of rocks” while we walked past a rockery in a park