Well, isn’t this holiday just the very wealth of new experiences? Not only did we fly here in convoy, but I’ve been the victim of an ‘age-related’ insult for the very first time from someone outside of my immediate family.
Yesterday, we were stood at reception early doors, waiting to book one of the ‘a la carte’ restaurants (don’t you know) and probably to complain about something, knowing me. Reception has two desks, each staffed by two. We were waiting in the single queue for the right desk and after some time, one of the positions became free. We started forward, but before you could say ‘Uncle Albert’ some chap has dived in in front of us. I politely inform him that we were ahead of him in the queue and goes right off on one, calling me an ‘Old Pratt’ and muttering further under his breath to his wife. I turn and look at this, make no comment and go back about my business. I’m in the middle of discussing the pros and cons of Italian vs Mexican when this fella is back at my elbow.
Now what I haven’t mentioned, but what you might have inferred by the Uncle Albert reference, is that this guy is at least 10, maybe 15 years my senior and bears a striking resemblance to how Captain Birdseye must look nowadays, having fallen on hard times and been replaced by the far more…, erm, very similar, Captain Igloo.
It seems like his wife has told him to behave. Oh how I know that feeling…
“My apologies, fella,” he says, “it’s just, I’m on me holidays, see?”
I look at him, perplexed.
He even does that ‘neck thing’ Uncle Albert does when he feels insulted. “Alright then, don't accept me apology!”
“Erm… I didn’t not accept your apology…” I offer.
“It was the way you snarled at me!”
I’m starting to enjoy this more and more and less and less at the same time, which makes me feel a little dizzy, truth be told.
“Listen, fella, if I’d snarled at you, you’d know about it, ok?”
At this point, I’m reminded of a certain afternoon playing tennis in West Wickham as a teenager, when I’d asked a younger kid who was annoying me if he had any doubt I could change his life forever (it sounded good in the film I'd lifted it from); the scorn from my friends and the damage it did to my relationship with one of them in particular stays with me to this day.
I try to lighten the mood:
“Sheesh [I actually say it], if this is what you’re like on your holidays, what are you like after a bad day down the market?”
He looks at me blankly as I walk away, neither of us quite sure who’s won this unnecessary little skirmish.
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