Paying for my breakfast at the counter I noticed another customer, reading the paper intently, with his finger (forgive me) driven up his own nostril. It was gone to the first knuckle, earnestly swiveling. He drew it out and inspected it. Roll & flick. Turned a page slowly, thoughtfully, and stuck the same finger back up his nose.
Over breakfast I’d been reading how creative writing students in Australia are beginning to outnumber students of literature. At the next-door table a woman with a piercing whine kept up such a torrent of words that her companion was reduced to what Dale Spender brilliantly called housekeeping — quite often performed by women, for men — “Uh-huh, oh. Really? Gosh, that sounds quite, um…” Self-absorption as a performance art. Picking up a small stack of paper napkins I went over to the forensic investigator and set them down on top of his paper. “Excuse me. Can I offer you a… tissue?” The look he gave me lacked shame, regret, or consciousness: it was of pure surprise.
Tag: manners
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skulldiggery
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I spoke first
In a crowded lunchtime cafe we were pressed elbow to elbow. The couple beside me talked and talked, while both scrolling idly on their phones. At last I turned to the woman, whose mouth was open and full of food, and asked her,
“Excuse me, would you please be so kind (in German we say ‘so dear’ or ‘so love’) as to swallow first, and then speak?”
Her mouth dropped open further. Her gaze sharpened. So I said, “It’s kind of gross. And I am also eating.”
People who lack emotional honesty are often intimidated by it, I think. They turned to each other and went on as though I had not spoken, except that the woman changed her habit. But the man must have been revolving it in his mind, like the visible food in her mouth. I went on with my meal gazing into the beautiful day around us and was startled by his hand on my arm.
“Firstly. You should ask more politely. And secondly. If it is you who doesn’t like it, it’s you who moves.”
“That’s polite?” I said, almost laughing. But she gained courage from his hostility and soon they were both railing at me, jabbing hectoring fingers in my face, telling me off as only Germans can.
“Look, if you want to have a fight about this, can you do it amongst yourselves? I’m not interested.”
This outraged them further and the woman’s chest was heaving. The people at the next table looked shocked. The waiter came so I could pay and asked, how was it. And I said, truthfully, it was ok, thank you, it wasn’t super like it usually is.
Five German gasps went up around me like balloons. The Vietnamese waiter laughed. “It’s because today I cooked it myself.” It is interesting to me and I sometimes experiment, how much you can frustrate a German by simply refusing to make eye contact – whilst jaywalking, for example – because they long to tell off the transgressor and shepherd them back into the fold, but lack the straightforwardness to tackle someone who has not spoken first.