Bambino and I have been ‘home alone’ for the last three days as His Lordship Malarkey has been a-gallivanting in London attending the London Vet Show. It counts towards his annual CPD requirements and means he gets to go to sleep in dark lecture halls whilst pretending to listen to ‘interesting’ lectures, and avail himself of the endless breakfast buffet in whichever hotel he stays in. It’s all jolly good larks!
I’ve been keeping busy with Tarot research, tidying out various drawers and cupboards, writing the MMM Christmas Story (which took a very shocking turn yesterday, enough to make me gasp in horror and I’m writing the thing!), sweeping up more chuffing leaves, and then yesterday evening Heather and I went to see this…
It wasn’t as good as ‘Mrs Harris Goes to Paris’ mostly because it lacked somewhat on the glittery posh frock front, but it was good nonetheless. Unfortunately, I suffered minor irritation in the form of the man who sat next to me who thought it was acceptable to:
a) encroach on my seat space by over-extending his elbows on the armrest and sitting with his legs akimbo
b) periodically chatting to his companion and laughing at his own comments
c) making a massive drama of opening a bag of Maltesers and crunching them with unnecessary volume, especially when everyone knows if you are going to eat Maltesers whilst watching a film you have to suck them - it’s the law
d) opening and drinking a can of fizzy drink
e) fidgeting unnecessarily.
I think he thought he was watching this film at home, such was his very casual manner. I was surprised he didn’t get up halfway through to go and make a cup of tea, and take a loud piddle in the corridor. Matters were made more uncomfortable by the fact I was wearing a new bra with VERY stern underwiring, which, because I was sitting in my seat in a squashed and tilted manner in order to avoid contact with a complete stranger in a dark place, was digging in to my under bosom something chronic. And when I moved a bare inch to try and reclaim more of my personal space a sudden pain almost made me yelp.
Luckily, I am made of stern stuff. Instead, I had a rootle around under my jumper and readjusted the underwiring which, fortunately, was on the side Heather was sitting. Otherwise I would have suffered in silence because I would not have wanted the annoying man to get any odd ideas.
Why didn’t you say anything to the man, I hear you say? You’ve challenged poor cinema behaviour before, haven’t you? Well, yes, I have. But the thing was the irritation from this man was so low level and inconsistent that I felt it was me being over-sensitive to the noise and fidget. Because I AM very noise intolerant and that is MY problem and not some other idiot person’s. Anyway, next time I go to the cinema I shall wear pyjamas for comfort and work my way through a whole celery and jar of crunchy peanut butter.
This morning I went to Aldi and one of its trolleys ate my trolley token. It’s a PDSA trolley token and I’ve had it for years. The trolley didn’t want to let it go. An elderly lady tried to help me retrieve it by ramming her car key into the coin slot in the same sort of violent manner I imagine my Mum would use in this situation. But it was all in vain and I had to leave my trolley token behind because my frozen goods were sitting in the car defrosting.
I ‘phoned Andy and asked if he could pick up a new trolley token for me on his travellers around the Vet Show. Companies like to give away such things as promotions, along with biros, carry bags, post-it notes and samples of pet food. Andy said he would try but apparently trolley tokens are very last year on the promotion front.
So next time I go shopping I may have to splash out on a pound coin. Which I won’t surrender so easily.
Comments
KJ