April 4th

Offensive chickpeas

scoffed noisily on the train

shut your cake hole dude

 

I take umbrage with bad manners. It really is something that irritates me. Three examples in the last couple of days.

1) A guy in our London office, he’s got his feet, his dirty shoes, perched on the edge of the low table in what we call the “comfy” chairs (they aren’t comfy, they are just low and you have to lean forward to get anywhere near your laptop otherwise you just sink into a spongy mire and possibly sucked into an alternative universe). Anyway, his shoes. I was offended by this as it is disrespectful to any colleague who might happen to sit there after him, but also to our office cleaners, why should they have to scrape the residue of his poo feet from the surfaces? It’s downright rude. I considered shouting “GET YOUR FUCKING FEET OFF THE TABLE!” to him, but I desisted as he was on a call. So I just simmered about it at my desk, because although I like good manners, fairness and respect all lifeforms, I am not particularly brave, or good at confronting people.

2) A guy just sits on a stool next to me at the table in the pub. Now usually it is good manners to ask “do you mind if I sit here?” or “is anyone using this chair?” before you plonk your polyester suited crumpled fat arse into my personal space. He went away eventually, as my vibes of fury were flying into him.

3) There was a guy eating chickpeas on the train. Now usually, I wouldn’t be offended by people eating something as low key as chickpeas, but it was the *way* he was eating them. I believe there is an etiquette to food on trains. Stinky hot food should be avoided. I hate it when people bring burgers onto the train. Or some other rancid conglomerate of semi fried mystery meat. Inert food, that’s cool, like a sandwich with minimal vapours of stink, I’m totally fine about it and yes, I abide by my own rules. So why was he annoying me? Because he was eating them noisily. Even above the screaming metal of train on track and the constant rattle of the carriage, all I could hear was SLURP-MUNCH-MUNCH-MUNCH-GASP-MUNCH-MUNCH ad infinitum. He didn’t need to eat with his mouth open, he didn’t need to chew like a camel, he certainly didn’t need to slurp them! It’s a fucking small nut like thing dude! It’s not slippery, it’s a dry round thing! And finally, he didn’t need to have to gasp for breath whilst chewing because the fucker was eating so fast. I amused myself by mimicking him. It was kind of crazy, but it passed the time.