Old people... again

Yes, it's back to familiar territory again I'm afraid folks....

Troll is taking Baby Troll to the French manifestation of Chateau Angevin tomorrow to give me a much-needed break from the latter's general stroppiness and attitude. (Freedom, at least for five days, beckons heheh.) Naturally, being Troll, he can't be expected to feed himself adequately, much less serve up something which isn't stuffed to the gunwales with ingredients writ large on the Baby Troll Banned Substances List, so this afternoon found us taking on Waitrose in all it's Saturday glory. I'd already cooked some home-made ready meals for the pair of them, so this was really just stocking up on a few can't-do-withouts for the journey etc.

Unsurprisingly, given the demographic of the town and surrounding area, there were a fair number of older citizens trundling around, who, judging by their dress and general demeanour, were of the more well-heeled variety. None of your council-home inhabitants here, oh no... Most of them seemed to be behaving themselves for once, and I thought my blood pressure had escaped unscathed; BUT...

Baby Troll, as is his wont, demanded to go to the coffee shop and indulge in his favourite pasttime of sitting on a barstool scoffing a sandwich and pretending he isn't anything to do with the deeply uncool pair sitting on the table close by. As he hadn't been particularly appalling for the previous half an hour I didn't feel I could deny him on this occasion, so there we were, in the queue, clutching our paninis and Bottle Green fizzies WHEN...

... a reasonably well dressed and stylish old lady interrogated the serving-muppet regarding the hot cross buns she and her invertebrate husband had on their trays:

Old lady Would you be able to toast our hot cross buns for us?
Serving Muppet No, I'm afraid we don't do that
Old Lady (in a doubtful, disappointed tone) Mmmmm

All of which is fairly innocuous... until you realise during this seemingly innocent exchange the creature had been SQUEEZING THE SAID HOT CROSS BUN with gay abandon. Muttering to itself, it then shamelessly removed said buns from said tray and replaced them, without even an apology or seeming SHRED of embarrassment, on the display. For once, gentle readers, I was absolutely gobsmacked - but regained my stride in a few seconds to mutter loudly 'Who will want those now they've been pawed over by you two?' Sadly, I was ignored, and the pair of them slithered off to a table adjacent to that at which Troll had been patiently ensconced with The Times.

Scampering over, I shrieked to Troll 'You'll never guess what I've just seen' and recounted every graphic detail of the the bun-molesting incident in my best I-Want-People-Nearby-To-Eavesdrop-On-This-Conversation tones. Which those sitting at the tables round about did... and these of course included the guilty bun-molesters themselves.

Now, had I been a guilty bun-molester, I would have been absolutely mortified to be treated in this manner. However, you have to remember these were OLD PEOPLE and did they thus show any sign of being embarrassed their filthy, selfish little actions had been spotted and were the subject of now-public discussion? Don't be daft - being OLD PEOPLE they obviously were holding firm to the belief their bus-pass gives them permanent membership of the Infallible Club and instead, they made it plain they felt *I* was the one at fault in exposing their nasty habits. Slurping down their tea, and making ready to slither off to continue their bun-molesting elsewhere they gave me a look which would have turned me to stone, had I not been innoculated by many years of educational torture at the hands of various Anglican nuns. I merrily wiggled my fingers at them with a coy 'tut tut'. Suffice it to say I don't think I'll be on their Christmas card list...

If that wasn't enough, Aquatic Passat II needed some juice for the Troll Twins epic journey to Dover tomorrow so therefore, an hour after the Waitrose Bun Incident, La Famille Angevin could be found at the local Shell garage; Troll doing what he is for and operating the diesel pump, and Baby Troll attempting to climb over the central console, gain the steering wheel and enact his current fantasy of being Lewis Hamilton, whilst I practised my thousand yard stare and clung on to the thought 'tomorrow they will be in France and I'll have some peace'. The fact there were a posse of bikers at the adjacent pump had sort of penetrated my cerebral cortex, but I wsan't really paying attention as they were of the middle-aged-serious-well-behaved-biker-out-for-a-sunny-afternoon's-ride sort of biker as opposed to the I'm-going-to-splat-myself-on-your-bonnet-after-trying-an-exhilerating-but-stupid-move-on-my-overpowered-wheels variety.

The peace was shattered when a shiny, leather-seat-ridden 'executive-mobile' pulled up behind the bikers and beeped them without apparent cause or reason. They weren't blocking the pumps, causing an obstruction or generally doing anything to warrant this behaviour so unsurprisingly the bikers gave their verdict to the driver in the time-honoured one-finger ritual and drove off, having just got back on their bikes from paying anyway. The shiny car stopped IN THE MIDDLE of the two pumps, effectively rendering one of them useless as far as other customers were concerned, and out got a creature which can only have been the result of some bizarre experiment in combining human and lizard DNA. Another old, well-heeled lady, in VERY EXPENSIVE drapey casuals, immobile bob, and immaculate maquillage, who had the air of greyhound-thin, I've-been-starving-myself-and-living-off-fags-and-hot-water-with-a-slice-of-lemon only a fashion model of 1960's vintage could hope to attain.

Again, was this vision at all embarrassed it had upset a group of people who were doing absolutely nothing wrong, and was selfishly taking up double the amount of amenities it required? Again, I regret to say, all it was capable of was staring down its aquline nose at me, slumped in the Aquatic Passat II next to it. I treated it to my best impression of my grandmother's famous 'I know you have dirty knickers on' look... with a flare of its nostrils Mrs Lizard then perused Troll. Who, not realising I'd already put the Angevin evil eye on it from the front seat, just stared back with his usual insouciance...

I've said it before and I'll say it again... how on EARTH can I be expected to wallop any semblance of manners and the notion you should treat your fellow human beings with respect and decency into Baby Troll when we have such glaring examples of the opposite behaviour - from those very people who have been infesting the world long enough to have become so good at the respect thing they can do it standing on their heads. For pity's sake OLD PEOPLE, sharpen up your act. You cannot sit on your skinny butts whinging about what a state the country is in and then go and do exactly what selfish, crappy thing you like, without thought to anybody else. Have some shame.