Friday, April 11, 2008

Interruption (Overheard #1)

Emma: So what are you working on today?

Shane: Reading policy documents and getting my head into data.

Emma: So you’re at home all day?

Shane: No. I’m gonna do some of that at the museum’s café - I need to have a look at that place. We might be taking some of the young rowdies up there.

Emma: Mm. Good luck with that.

A quick jaunt around the museum presents me with more ceramic work than even the most ardent enthusiast could process in one visit, a load of industrial landscape photography, a load of other ‘bric-a-brac’ and finally, the café.

Earl grey (£1.05) and a small plate of biscuits (28p) before me, I settle onto a comfortable sofa, in the quietest corner – out of sight, out of mind, papers out, snug behind. I get down to reading. Fifteen minutes pass before the jolting hollering:

Waitress (gritty, mid-50s): (calls out) Where’s me rubber?

Maintenance worker (male, 40s, confused): Y’ wha’?

Shane (male, 30s, an innocent): (thinks) Oh deary deary me, no – I am here, you are not alone!

Waitress: Me rubber! For me fridge!

Maintenance worker: Oh, right. I’ll get y’ it.

Shane: (thinks) For her fridge, of course. What a filthy mind I have.

An inconsequential hollering, I return to my reading.

2 comments:

OldHorsetailSnake said...

Well, you caught me -- and I am 77 and 189/365ths.

Pat said...

Well I immediately though of an eraser but why would you need it for a fridge?
That Hoss - he'll never catch up. Tee Hee!