Narrative of (In)Civility - Personal Statement Example

Although I have been through many experiences of civility in my life, I would, here, narrate an experience when a person acted uncivil toward me. This experience is important for me as I learnt a very good lesson which benefitted me many a times after that. I was driving with my dad to the beach on a hot summer day when our car got stuck in traffic. It was a holiday and, thus, most of the people were out. Our car was at a signal. On green light, the driver in front of our car did not move. My dad has always been very against rudeness but, still, he kept his nerves.

We got out of the car, and went to the driver. I saw that he was trying to grab his cell phone from the back seat that his kid has thrown there. “Excuse me! The signal is green from ages. Will you mind moving? The whole traffic is waiting for you to move on, and you seem like not caring at all,” my dad asked him. “Yes, I will mind moving until I grab my phone. You’d better stay back,” he replied with much arrogance. “How rude that is!” dad exclaimed, “Don’t you know you are bugging others in the line?

” “No, I don’t!” he shouted at dad, “I’ll move, just go, I know I don’t have to stay here forever, as I am not that free as you are. Hey Jimmy, did you find the damned phone?” This time he shouted at his kid, who looked puzzled and was at the verge of crying. The signal had already turned red again. I felt bad as I was very excited about getting to the beach as soon as possible. My dad wanted to end the situation without any quarrel. He is basically a very polite person, who never gets rude to anybody without reason.

But he looked annoyed, and this annoyed me. I wanted to punch that man right in his face. He really wanted some lesson. But I kept silent, and let my dad talk. “Hey man,” Dad said loudly this time, “I won’t allow you to be rude to me. Move your car right now. I’m getting late.” Everyone was giving horns and shouting at us to move. I could see all other drivers staring at us. The man had found his phone by then. He grabbed the phone while still shouting at his kids. He gave us a wave with his hand with a look as if trying to tell us to shut up.

I heard him say, “Piss off, you old man!” “What did you just say?” Dad asked. “You would know if you were travelling with little kids in the car, you old man!” shouted the man while trying to concentrate upon his keys. That infuriated my dad, but I held his arm and told him not to indulge in quarrel. I could sense him getting furious. The man turned his ignition on, and moved away with a jerk staring at us which was even more exasperating. We could also see him staring from his back view mirror.

However, we, at once, got into our cars and moved away from the scene to unblock the traffic behind us. We, then, talked about road sense and driving tips. I could see that my dad was trying to make me learn how to be conscious on road. We reached the beach, but we were no more enjoying. It was as if something had taken our excitement away from us. That was definitely the negativity of that man’s rude behavior, which kept bugging us the whole day. We tried to have some fun, and that we did, but we could have enjoyed much more if we had not encountered that rude man.

When we got home, my mom could sense that something was wrong. I stayed quiet, but dad told the whole story to mom, who also felt annoyed and angry at that man’