In total, I’ve had four different sets of plans for my Friday night, but in the end every single one of them’s been cancelled for one reason or another, and I’ve ended up not catching buses or trains or going anywhere other than my wee local cafe and sitting with a cuppa tea and wondering what the hell went wrong with the end of the week to make me feel so crabbit and miserable and blue.
And I’m sitting here with a wee haun knitted face on in a pure and utter grump feeling like running a million miles away when this wummin walks in and orders coffee and cake and sits a couple of tables away. And every now and again she catches me eye, and even though I’m sittin wae ma face trippin me and ma broos pure knotted in a growl she keeps smiling over at me, and I keep looking away affronted because it’s obvious I’m in a stoater of a mood and amnae ma usual cheery wee self and really don’t want to interact with other humans.
But still she persists. She’s pure beamin like a no righter every time noo, big starey eyes poppin oot her heid and a big cheesy smile on her mush, cheeks rosy rid, eyebroos archin way up off her face like a cartoon character. If ye cannae picture it already, shout TA-DAA!!! tae yersel, and then ye’ve pretty much got it.
I try hoiking the book I’m reading further up in front of my face so she cannae see me, and I take another sip of my freezin cauld tea, and I’m swithering whether or no to order another pot or just accept defeat and go hame when I realise she’s craning her neck up like a mad mental giraffe in order to keek ower the top. And I do a TV drama shift in my seat and cross my legs the other way, hoiking the book up further till I’m practically reading it face-to-page like somebody partially sighted. If it wasn’t already dead obvious I’m hiding from her, surely to God it is now…
And then round the corner to the right I catch her leaning way over to the side to keek round the corner. And I huff, and I’m seriously thinking about locking myself in the lavvy to hide till she leaves when it occurs to me that I kind of recognise her. I chance a wee glance and she nods at me mischievously, as if to say AH-HAH—GOT YE! and I think now I definitely have seen her somewhere before. But I don’t ACTUALLY know her, I’m pretty sure of that, so I give a wee casual smile out of politeness and bury my face in the book again.
Then she stands up.
And when I see her stood up there to her full height it suddenly dawns on me…
…she’s a nurse.
She’s a nurse from the hospital.
THAT nurse from the RAH who screamed at me in surprise when I screamed at her in shock when she shoved her finger up my bum before a colonoscopy a couple of years ago.
Oh bum.
(Literally.)
I’m immediately mortified.
And she’s walking over.
And I feel so tense my arse cheeks squeeze together (though that might be out of natural defence).
And I’m sitting there wondering what the hell she’s going to say to me, as she’s clearly on a collision course with my wee table in the corner…
She stops, and she beams at me with thae big gawky eyes again.
And she jovially says in a sing song voice “Yooooou won’t remember me, but”—
And before she can get another word out, I (maybe a bit more grumpily than I should have) snap at her: “YES I REMEMBER YOU”.
And her expression changes, and she’s shocked, and then she’s puzzled, and her beaming cheeks turn purple as she frowns, and then she looks a wee bit teary eyed like she’s going to greet, and I instantly feel guilty about it, but then a look dawns on her, and she seems to panic a wee bit, and then she says “OH. Oh no no no NO NO, I didn’t mean”—
And she does this motion with her finger as if to say COME HITHER but quite clearly meant WIGGLE WIGGLE, and now it’s MY turn to turn purple in the face, and I know by the way my mouth drops open and I practically get lock jaw that I must look pure scandalised, and she immediately stops it and looks about her embarrassedly before quietly mouthing ‘SORRY!’ at me. And then she whispers…
“I was about to say, I spoke to you at your wee poetry event a while back in the coffee shop—I mean—well, I didn’t think you’d remembered me from work…”
And now I’m supremely mortified.
And she can tell, and she does this polite wee nod, and she snorts and giggles quietly as she walks away knowing it’s silently quite hilariously despite the fact I’m silently raging aboot it. And I can’t believe that for the second time today I’ve managed to be humiliated (don’t even start me on the first), and as if it couldn’t have gotten any worse, I realise that at least half a dozen folk in the cafe are gawking at me now and wondering what the hell just happened, and I kinda wish a big hole would open up and swallow me.
So naturally the best way to get over the affront is to admit to a couple of hundred folk on Facebook that you’ve just been accosted in a cafe by a wummin who once had her finger up your bum.
Sigh.
Why me?