chippie, where did it go wrong ?

This was in a chippie in Balloch, near the Loch Lomond shore.

The menu offered a choice of cod haddock or plaice, but I could see they had not many fish ready to serve and all looking the same. I dislike inviting rebuffs in life, asking for things when the answer might be no, but there is a feeling of fairness involved in taking a menu literally and not make do with what turns out to be provided in practice - I had to find out, so I asked which fish they had. Cod or haddock. Okay I chose cod. Haddock is the standard chippie fish and sometimes unpredictably it can have a funny strong taste, so I chose the cod. Oh, that means we'll have to ask the chef to put a cod on and it will take 10 minutes, is that okay? If I had said haddock it would have been served instantly.

Matter of principle concerning choice and not being humiliated, not to back down, even though it was 6:10 and the wait was annoying. I was feeling worn out and hungry, after Balloch's curious layout with not much of a main street and it's invisible from the buses, had caused me to end up in the Haldane housing estate and find the way back. Positive side of the wait, was that at least they were offering service, willing to put this fish on and cook it for you. That sounded good, so I could plan to have a pickle and a slush drink too.

So when it was time to serve the cod, they had run out of chips and this is in a quite crowded shop. So another 5 minutes wait, and more. By the time I got served I had already decided to walk out in a huff at 6:30 if not served by then.

In most places the vinegar would just be a dollop of their own chosen size. Here, no, helpful again: is this enough? Yes. Now, I think my first mistake was to wait politely until she had stopped pouring, which was another few seconds, she obviously not believing it was enough, before speaking up to ask for a pickled egg. I thought it would be annoyingly pushy to go for it while she was still doing the vinegar. As soon as my voice began any sound at all, literally just the first P, she reacted: "Bit more?" She was that irrationally quick to hear what she expected instead of what I actually wanted to say, even quicker than to let me say it. The vinegar is fine - "that enough? More?" - How was this rational?

Now of course we are both sounding defensive because we are no longer gelling when we speak. I had now had to cut across her swiftly proceeding action to get msyelf heard right. The atmosphere was going wrong, as it always does when a pointless collision of meanings happens with a shop server who is jumping to her own conclusions.

Because she had cut across my speech, I had stopped speaking again, and because I had stopped speaking again, she said "I can't hear you." How the hell was I supposed to expect that, logically? Once someone says they can't hear you, you know they have begun to get annoyed with you, which makes it all the harder to get them to hear you, they are less patiently listening.

No, the vinegar is okay, really - she is already starting to wrap the meal up now -"it's a pickled egg I'm trying to ask for." "Pickled egg, okay. Just couldn't hear you." She has clearly heard egg, so far so good. Despite the unfairness of the "can't hear you" muck, keep hoping this will turn out well. Now, can any rational voice in the world please explain what happened next?

She went over to the pickle jars, and looked back at me: "Egg or onion?" Why the hell does a server who has already heard egg, turn back round and ask you egg or onion? "Egg, yes." So she opened the egg jar, looked at it doubtfully for 2 seconds, then closed it again and opened the onion jar !!! Now, unless you believe folks should be dictated to what to eat, what the hell else did you expect me to do than I did? I called across, "EGG!" In a fed up emphasised tone, because it was completely illogical what was happening, and she answered in the same tone, "Calm down!!"

So in no time I now counted as a difficult annoying customer trying her patience, a dangerous thing to be, because I did not let her force onion onto me instead of egg after she had heard egg perfectly clearly. It was now necessary to escape the hell from that shop as soon as she had served the damn egg, dangerous to stay and let the hostility escalate and get into trouble. So I lost the opportunity to get the slush drink, and having never tasted Irn Bru in a slush form before, I never have still. It was obvious that if I had asked that inconceviable idiot for it, she would likely have misheard something and insisted on choosing the flavour for me and treated me as a troublemaker if I argued.

She was the shop, the host, I the customer was only the visitor, the system is not on our side when astounding nonsense like this happens. The system does not assume that a person whose communication is not being heard right is in the right, it favours the mob in not having to understand anything else than they selectively choose to. When you are a man and the idiot is a woman the PC may work against you for that too. There was no other safe option than escape double quick from the idiot's presence, and carrying a meal tainted by the unforseen emotional bruise, no longer to be enjoyed, after wasting 20 minutes on it.

Bob Lawless