I'd apologize if I actually felt bad...

About a week or so ago, my son decided to express himself in class in every means in which a baby can express himself. So, I apologized for the disruption. I mean, the other moms were actually trying to pay attention while their kids sat quietly sucking on their pacifiers. And I was instructed to not apologize for the baby--which quite frankly annoyed me.

It seems in today's world, we're required to apologize for just about everything whether it's something we did or feel bad about or not. We apologize for the woman that bumps us in the department store, when it was clearly her fault for not looking where she was going. We apologize for not being able to find the coupon right away when we go to the cashier. We apologize for not finding our keys when we're standing in front of the door. In short, we apologize for being alive. It's just a basic requirement of women in order to function in "polite" society.

And if you don't apologize for minor inconveniences in life, you're provided with that label that falls on all women when they don't conform to expectations it starts with a "b" and ends with an "itch". "Can you believe she didn't even apologize?"

So, what do you actually do? Not apologize for stupid things you're expected to apologize for, "Oh, I'm sorry. Did you not see me standing here in front of the elevator when you bumped me? Gosh it must have totally been my fault for being alive", or not apologize, "No. I'm not going to apologize for talking over you, because I can't hear you through the phone when you don't talk loudly enough and quite frankly most of your ideas are ridiculous and I don't understand why anyone invites you to share them." See? You just can't win. You wind up apologizing at nausea for just about everything so it's a secondary reflex that you don't even think about so people will just leave you alone. So this scenario doesn't have to happen:

"Aren't you going to apologize for hurting my feelings?"

"Was I wrong with what I said?"

"No."

"Then why should I apologize?"

Naturally a few things flashed through my head when I heard the teacher tell me not to apologize for the baby. But instead, I just stood there bouncing my son to help him maintain some level of composure and held my tongue. I figured it was better than apologizing for her failure to understand that I didn't actually feel bad, I was just being polite.