Why Do We Do The Things We Do?

Bluffton Today column
January 5, 2011

So, I’m watching TV and a Badcocks Furniture commercial comes on. The Dad in the commercial is upstairs jumping on his bed with his son. They are jumping, and jumping, and jumping and Mom looks up as the chandelier in the dining room begins to shake. Next thing you know, Dad’s feet are dangling from the ceiling. And, this drives me crazy. Why? Well because I have a hard time believing that by jumping up and down, Dad managed to bust his way through the mattress, box spring, bedroom floor, and dining room ceiling. It’s just not feasible.

As I shared my disillusionment with TV commercials, my TV-watching partner commented, “You never take things for what they are worth, you always dig a little deeper.”

He makes a point. Rather than just enjoy a lazy day on the couch watching TV, I choose to spend 30 minutes analyzing a 30 second commercial. And that made me question (surprise, surprise!) why exactly do we do the things we do?

For example, why do we put our napkins in our lap? If I am at a restaurant and eating a platter of sloppy wings, I wipe my hands on my napkin, and then put that same dirty and now dripping in wing sauce napkin in my lap. So, my hands are clean – until the next bite – but my pants are dirty. Brilliant.

While at the meal, I may also put my elbows on the table. You know why? Because if you are telling me a story I am going to lean in and give you all of my attention. Do you know why? Because if I am sitting back in my chair, with my hands in my lap (on my dirty napkin), I appear un-engaged. It is also important to note, that if I lean forward, no crumbs will hit my lap, and therefore the napkin serves no purpose. Just sayin …

Believe it or not, as I pondered why I act the way I do, I started thinking about Carlos Olivera who lost his life twelve days ago over a car towing incident. Because someone else acted the way he did – it truly makes you wonder how and why people make the decisions they do, especially at the expense of someone else.

Almost five years ago I wrote a column about a car being towed in my neighborhood. As I read that old column, my stomach turned, as I realized that I referenced alleged murderer Preston Oates in my column, as Pro Tow was the tow company in my story as well.

I had been hosting my sister’s baby shower at my house and as the guests dispersed, one of them couldn’t find her car. Since cars don’t usually just disappear in broad daylight, we began our investigation. It took under a minute to realize that one of my lovely neighbors didn’t like that a car was parked in front of her house so she had the car towed.

At the time, my Mom and I were pretty upset and being the ballsy Jersey girls that we are, we marched right up to the “neighbors” front door and started yelling at her. One of our guests, a retired New York City police officer, convinced us to get the heck off that woman’s property before we got arrested. She had a point, so we acquiesced, but my “investigation” continued for days, as I interacted with the Bluffton Police Department and Pro Tow to figure out how the course of events went down.


My Mom and I have had a number of conversations about Mr. Olivera in the past week. And, we talked too about how rash we were to scream and yell at our neighbor, on her front porch, not knowing what was behind her front door.

I’ll admit that I have a temper and if someone ticks me off, I tend to let them know. And on more than once occasion my Mom has said to me, “Cour, calm down, that guy/gal might have a gun.” It scares me that she is more right than I ever imagined.

Maybe I was naive in thinking that moving from the hustle and bustle of New Jersey to the sleepy town of Bluffton, SC would indeed be safer, quieter, and a simpler way of life. But, right now I am on guard. I have read too many headlines this year, in this very paper, about tragic losses of life.

At this moment however, more than anything, I am sad for Mr. Olivera’s family who had to witness this tragedy and who will forever be marked by this reckless act.

Crossing the Line appears every other Wednesday. Email Courtney at courtneyh@hargray.com.