Monday Manners: Turistas

This weekend, I caught a couple of films at the National Constitution Center. It was cold, but since it's technically spring, and it was a holiday weekend, the tourists were out in throngs on Saturday.

Yeah, yeah. We all know tourists can be rude and annoying. They blow those stupid duck whistles up and down the streets. They complain loudly about things they don't like or approve of. They act like, since they're here spending money, we owe them something in return.

But let's face it: they are here spending money, and since we want them to continue to spend money, and then to come back and spend money, we do owe them a little something: our courtesy. When I was weaving through the assembled masses in front of the Liberty Bell, it was amazing how pushy some of the native Philadelphians trying to get through were—and how vocal they were about their disdain for the tourists. I'll admit that I stepped between people, moved around people, and even said "excuse me" to a handful of people because I needed them to get out of my way (I was running pretty late), but I never pushed or shoved my way through the crowd, and other than the occasional "excuse me"s and "pardon me"s, I kept my mouth shut. (At one point, I was on the phone with my mother, and I mentioned that there were a lot of tourists in town, but that was as vocal as I got.)

Unfortunately, I witnessed a good deal of pushing and shoving, and I heard even more statements of "fucking tourists" and "I hate tourists" said between friends but purposefully loud enough for our visitors to hear—and even worse, I heard a good amount of "could you move?" and "get out of the way" and "you're blocking the sidewalk."

You wouldn't treat your house guests like this, folks. So why treat Philadelphia's?

Image via this site.