SCRABBLE: Common Sense; Common Courtesy
Sometimes I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s because we were all raised differently and I become confused when other people do things in other ways and have different standards of conduct.
When we play at clubs and tournaments we usually share our personal equipment. I brought out my brand new set of tiles (black letters on white tiles). They were fresh and clean. After the session when I was putting my things away, I noticed that several of my new tile were stained with ink. I understood where the ink came from and that made me only the madder. Some non-caring players, when counting their scores, place the inky tip of their pen directly onto the tiles as they count them. (Couldn’t they have simply pointed at the tile? Couldn’t they have touched the tiles with a finger that wouldn’t have stained the tile? Couldn’t they have cleaned the tile after dirtying it?)
One of my clubs plays in the cafe section at BORDERS book store. Their cafe tables are much too small to play upon. I made the management a deal that they could not refuse. I purchased two 8′ folding table for use at club, I house them at their store, and BORDERS could use them any time other than the few hours that we play each week. Management was delighted and agreeable. After the second week of use I noticed a few changes to my tables. There were places on the table tops where people had doodled and/or written; there was a wad of gum stuck to the bottom of on of the tables. In my mind I was certain that my players were not responsible. Many of the patrons who come to BORDERS use it to read, do homework, have personal meeting and the like. It is an unthoughtful yet common practice of many regular patrons to take books and magazines from the shelves, use them, then leave them abandoned on the cafe tables when they leave the store. About once every 20 – 30 minutes a store employee must be scheduled to wander the area, pick up the misplaced items and re-shelve them.
What are those users thinking? They obviously are not thinking.
Oh yeah, I learned that my suspicions about the dirtying of my tables and the gum were traceable back to thoughtlessness of some of my club members. Pretty sad and disgusting.