About Gentlemen. At some early-morning coffee.

Lately, the streets have been a true “chaos soup.”
It seems like the two regular rush hours, which used to occur like clockwork, have mixed day with night, like a newborn jumbled time together. The city stands still almost all day, and only when the big shopping centers politely usher out the last customer does it finally quiet down, the streets exhale, and breathe in a short respite before the morning returns with fresh sieges.

The city hums.
Everyone is moving.
Old and young.
Experienced and beginners.
Those skilled with the “beeper” and those sitting patiently pretending they don’t know how to use it.
Men and women.
Girls and boys.
In a crowded city, everyone is trying to reach their goal, which today, as a rule, is very noble—GIFTS.

Yesterday morning, in a rapidly filling store parking lot, a small car had been swaying back and forth in front of me for a while.
At first, I didn’t pay attention, then I focused. I might have looked away, but the little car blocked my path. Behind the wheel sat a woman, already quite flustered. The situation was simple, but for her, it was tricky.

Suddenly, a man appeared from somewhere, carrying large bags and a red poinsettia.
I realized he was a stranger. He set his purchases down on the ground, walked around the “stuck” woman’s car from all sides, and with gentlemanly hand gestures began showing her which way to turn the wheel and how far she could go before hitting the next car.

In a few seconds, the flustered woman was free.
And the older man, gathering his purchases back into his arms, walked away with the red Christmas flower…
and in my eyes, adorned with the purest gentlemanliness.

The day before yesterday, after Dominykas’s school Christmas celebration, our whole family decided to visit the Christmas tree. Time—after work, super “peak.”
Location—as you know, the very city center.
Some people were coming from work, some “to the tree,” some to company parties, some to eat a warm dinner.
Everyone was moving.
Everyone was rushing.

At the main traffic light, a line of cars had formed. A woman pulled out from a side street. We let her pass, but the direction in which her mid-aged car was headed was also congested.
Blocking the car in front of mine, driven by my husband, she kept searching for a gap to slip into—and could not find one.
Visibility was poor; there were many cars.
I saw her illuminated face.
Her anxious eyes, flickering with self-directed anger for her indecision,
and an even greater fear of getting into an even trickier situation right here and now.

Then the “beepers” started from behind.
First one.
Then the chorus.

I watched my husband.
Calm.
Waiting.

I saw the cars behind him start to overtake, slowing down, glaring angrily at us sitting and waiting until the indecisiveness of the woman blocking our path ended.

Our car was overtaken and accompanied again and again by the shrill roar of “beeps,” like a chorus of spoken curses.
But my husband—soaked in beeps—remained calm.
Patiently waiting until the opposite lane was clear, and the car blocking the way had enough space to go where it wanted, he nodded to the woman in thanks.

I fell for my husband all over again.
I had no doubt that he knew the spot where the car “growler” was.
He hadn’t forgotten.
But watching his face, I saw that not for a single second was he ready to join that chorus of curses behind him—this time expressed in piercing “beeps.”

Gentleman, I thought quietly.
And once again, I loved him.

Once, I myself had backed up along a narrow street just because the man sitting at the wheel of the car in front of me had the decency not to move back even halfway to create a gap for me to slip through.
There were no cars or obstacles behind him; nothing prevented him from moving back a few inches.
But he stood.
Did not budge.
And had no intention of moving backward.
Because, by the rules, he had priority going forward.

Couldn’t he reverse? I wondered later.
Maybe his “gear stick” was broken?
But everything in his car worked perfectly.
Only the mechanism of gentlemanliness was broken.

I knew how to reverse.
Sliding the narrow street back, I glanced at his eyes once more.
Triumph glimmered in them.
And I thought to myself—this was clearly a fail, compared to “gentlemanliness.”
But I didn’t say it to him.

FINAL:
Ladies, if you have a gentleman at home, give him a little tap on the cheek “for nothing.”
Or for the fact that THEY exist.
That they didn’t vanish along with the dinosaurs.
Today, on the streets, they save the world from total panic.

V.