Day 142: Tray Rage

Crime Scene (add toddlers and pushy woman)

Another day spent outside. Hampstead Heath in the spring sunshine - although it's pretty cold initially.  So I take refuge in the Kenwood cafe while I wait for Jude.  Refuge is the wrong word - although the physical temperature is warmer in there, the atmosphere isn't.  Numerous thwarted toddlers stab the air with terrible shrieks. 

 
And I allow myself to get nettled by a pushy woman at the serving hatch.  She's behind me, but so hot on my heels I'm practically wearing her like a rucksack.  Not very mellow for a Sunday morning.  Although it will not make the process any faster, she rudely shoves my tray forward with hers.  So I push it back.  Just to make my point.  (It's not really the tray that bugs me - it's the sense of her presence intently pushing behind me.  Had she absentmindedly shunted my tray, I wouldn't have given a monkey's.)  She flies off the handle.  I pour some petrol on things by saying 'You seem disproportionately angry.  Is it rare that someone stands up to you?'  I don't get an answer.  But judging by the look of her husband, I suspect it would be 'yes'.   

Criminality with Charm

I escape the cafe as soon as possible, and Jude and I wander around the Heath.  We watch a Old English sheepdog attempting to steal a picnic, and a small furry dog lifting his leg on a sunbather's backpack.  Both crimes committed with a total lack of repentance, but with so much benign enthusiasm that it would be impossble to take offence. 

They could teach Tray Woman a thing or two about getting away with bad behaviour.