What you don't know...

Yesterday, we received in the mail an item that was for someone else. I looked at the address and saw that it was less similar to ours than the misdirected mail we frequently get usually is, and we had not received any for this person before.
Since it was a postcard, I also saw that it was for a little girl whose birthday is coming up, and the postcard was for her to receive a free meal at a national restaurant chain. I wanted to make sure that she got this little card and gift, but was reluctant to drive over and try to find her house, which is what I often do for the guy with the same house number on a similarly named but different street that is not too far away, whose mail I usually get. (Besides, he brings my mail when it comes to his house; I was especially grateful for this one time when it was a letter from my son who was then in Marine boot camp, and I wasn't hearing from him anywhere near often enough.) So I decided to try to catch the mailman (read postal carrier, if this bothers you) when he came by today and ask him to deliver it to the proper address. (We got tired of watching for him, so I stuck it on my mail slot cover with a clothespin, which also works.)
My 9-year-old, meanwhile, learned through this experience that
1. It's ok to look at a postcard in such a situation, but I wouldn't open a letter for someone else that came here by accident because that would be illegal
2. We are required by law to give mail that isn't ours to the proper person, or back to the mailman or post office
He didn't know that, and it got me to wondering, how many people do? Where are we supposed to learn such things? I don't think the Postal Service is up to the task, although they have sent out info about the collections of donations for hunger centers that they do every year, the ways you can get postal supplies, and once, a handy card that told the abbreviations for all the states. But I don't think I've ever seen or heard of them telling us what to do if you get someone else's mail. Or that it's also illegal to take mail or packages left for other people at their houses (like somebody must've done with several things that never arrived here in the past. So I put up a sign that tells delivery people not to leave things out front, and it mostly seems to be working.)
I suspect this problem will be moot in the not-too-distant future, when the Postal Service goes out of business. (It can't last much longer, with hardly anybody sending Christmas cards anymore, or writing letters, and with the price of stamps getting totally freaking ridiculous.) But until then, please make sure the people you know are aware that they must not just throw away mail that doesn't belong to them. (Although I was really tempted to, that time it was a Playboy magazine...)
Then I started thinking about other signs that people don't know things that they should. Like, often when I shop for food, I'll see an item sitting on a shelf that someone decided they didn't want and apparently just stuck in the nearest convenient place. Unfortunately, these items are often things that must be kept refrigerated or frozen to prevent spoilage, so when I give them to a person who works at the store, I point out that they were left sitting on a shelf and not refrigerated. I hope and pray these people realize that, if they do not dispose of such items properly (don't just put them back in the refrigerated or freezer section), they could cause someone who ends up consuming them to become very sick or even to die from food poisoning.
Driving provides many proofs that a lot of people have no idea what they're doing. Worst is when an emergency vehicle is trying to get through, and they just keep going their merry way, oblivious to the law that requires them to get the hell out of the way, if possible. I mentioned turn signals in a previous blog; there are lots of others, but I'm sure you get the drift.
The same thing is going on in my Church: I think they need to do a refresher course on the main points at least once a year- from the pulpit- since most people aren't going to try to correct their ignorance on their own. Most of them don't even know what they don't know, or care, from what I can tell.
I got in a minor fender-bender on the way to the cemetery in a funeral procession in January, because a woman was trying to break through from a side street and created a distraction that almost caused a multi-car pile up (thank God we were going about 25 mph, but the roads were wet and nearly icy). I glanced at her and the escort who was blocking and confronting her as I drove by, then looked forward to see that the car in front of me had come to a dead stop. I hit the brakes and narrowly avoided rear-ending him, but the guy behind me couldn't stop in time. Luckily, everyone was ok and we were able to continue to the graveside service. Funeral processions have the right of way, ok?
If you find money or a wallet lying on the ground or wherever, it is not your lucky day. If you have an ounce of moral fiber, you will try to find the owner. For money, you can leave your name and number at the office of the nearest business and ask them to call if no one claims it, which is a waste, but hey, ya never know. I started realizing a lot of people here are selfish morons the day I dropped $50 going into the grocery. If I had realized it before I went to pay, I might've tried to find the culprit by looking for someone who looked unusually happy. I tried to console myself with the thought that maybe they needed the money more than my hungry and now-broke family did.
And when you're out in public, you have to share with and be nice to the other people you meet. It's not required by law, but it is highly recommended. God sees and cares how you treat other people, and you never know how someone will react if you treat them badly, whether you intended to or not.
Update: Lately, I've noticed that a lot of people apparently don't know about rip currents. We live on Lake Erie, and almost every time there are rip current warnings from the NOAA- which I see online but have heard on tv- someone drowns, and it's usually a little kid. Last week it was a 13-year-old girl; her 2 friends also got sucked out/under but survived, from what I can tell by the online news. It makes me wonder whether people just don't realize the lake is not safe- not ever, but especially when there are rip currents- or they just don't care about their kids.