Mr Grumpy upsets a nice young lady
12:10pm Monday 18th June 2012 in Colin Baker
JUNE is an unusual time to make resolutions, but I have just decided to make one. Why allow the beginning of a year to dictate when self-improvement should commence?
I am going to try and keep my counsel a little more often. Before you all celebrate the demise of this column, I hasten to add that this side of the page will continue to contain my weekly ramblings for the immediate future at least.
You, dear reader, do at least have the opportunity to ignore that. On some occasions people are trapped.
I was in Wycombe Hospital this week and relieved to find it still open and functioning, with a re-jigged canteen. I must admit to preferring the old cafe run by the lovely volunteers rather than the new franchised version, but I sat and had a sandwich while waiting for an appointment.
About five tables away, a grey-suited lady had a fifteen minute conversation on her mobile, every syllable of which I am convinced could have been heard by the person at the other end without troubling the mobile network at all, had she simply opened the window and leaned out.
And I have the diminished hearing of your average chap in his sixties, as that is what I am.
I wish I were able to blot out such distractions, when I am trying to read my paper, but I’m not. I seethed a bit and when she finished promising she would ‘get on to it straight away and sort it out by Friday’ (I do hope she did) I heard myself boom across the restaurant ‘Thank goodness that call is over at last!’ She looked around the room that had been stilled by my ‘outraged of Wycombe’ outburst and begged the forgiveness of the world at large if she had been too loud; she hadn’t realised, she said.
Everyone else immediately protested that they hadn’t been bothered at all; in fact they hadn’t really noticed she was there. Very British, of course, but it left me beached high and dry. Mr Grumpy had upset nice young lady.
In future, I promise myself (and you, if you’re interested) that I will just put up with it and keep my mouth shut.
But I can’t promise not to bang on about it in this column if the Editor (May his descendants thrive and prosper) continues to tolerate my querulousness.
