Thursday, October 4, 2007

PRESENTING TODAY'S LETTER - "C"

Warning!! Small bitch of the day about to happen! Went shopping with my Nat and the boy yesterday - she requiring a wedding gift (those two go to more weddings than a celebrant) plus something to wear for same (tricky 'cos she's still breastfeeding, hasn't lost her baby weight and Spring is a peculiar time of year). Anyhooooo at the point where Dylan was demanding food and drink, Nat was starving (in the way only a feeding mum can be) and Kieran was tired and grizzly and needed a bit of cuddling off to sleep. Nat goes to order our coffees, drinks and food, meantime I am scanning the cafe for a couple of seats - the place was jam-packed due to school holidays and mid-season's sales (PS WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY ABOUT?), whilst juggling Dylan's stroller, wriggling Kieran and several "diggers" (toy trucks). I spot the only vacancy is two seats on a banquette arrangement around one table, but there is a woman and her daughter at the table. Or, rather, sprawled at the table. The woman was, I guess, mid to late thirties, small, dark and well dressed and the girl, seated opposite her (obviously her daughter) was about 9 or 10. Both were plonked fair in the middle of each set of benches and had generously spread their shopping all over the remaining space - HAH! did not fool me for one moment - I knew spare seating when I saw it. So I struggle up to the woman who proceeds to ignore me staring at her from a distance of maybe a meter, while continuing her conversation with her little brat, sorry daughter. Finally she looks at me, so I say in my nicest voice, excuse me, is anyone else going to be sitting with you? She sneers back that there is no one there at the moment and I shoot back that yes, I can see that (I am not blind). I did not say the last thing of course, after all it is a rather hoi poloi type of place and I was trying my best to be pleasant. Oh I reply, would it be OK if my daughter and I share this table with you? She looks at me as if I was something slimy and rather unpleasant that had just slithered from underneath her shoe. We-e-ll, she responds, you can have the table when we are finished. Now, their order has not even arrived at the table so obviously the time frame we are discussing here is at least another 15 minutes. Like most Australians, I admit that I am prone to rather too much swearing from time to time, however there is one word that I loathe and refuse to let past my lips and I am sure everyone knows it - it starts with the letter C. That was the word that popped straight into my head. Luckily, that's where it stayed. I just flounced off saying "Please don't worry about putting yourself out, we'll find somewhere else.", thinking - it's not worth letting her know how selfish and what a bitch she is and that she has no legal right to refuse to let us sit at the table, we because if we ended up sitting with her you could just imagine how pleasant that would have been. We immediately found a lovely young chap with his little girl who waved us over to his table. I noticed that the daughter was wandering around the cafe about 30 minutes later until she spotted us and then went back to her mum to report and they left. Obviously had been sent to let us know we were permitted occupancy of madam's table. I felt like calling the girl over and telling her to tell her cow of a mother to shove the table where the sun don't shine. That's so much better - I have vented. I told Nat we need to get the tattoos on our foreheads removed (you know, the ones that say "Please ignore/be unpleasant to me. I am a nice person and I won't make a big scene.") This was after she had been ignored for 20 minutes by shop staff while buying the gift.