I always struggle to find a fifth element
She tottered up to the bar with all the deportment of a tap-dancing piglet. Irritation struck me like a baseball, smack on the forehead with venom. I knew what would happen. It felt a bit like when you struggle to open a packet of crisps because your fingers are greasy and an apoplectic ball of fire surges through your brain. Or is that just me?
Flowing purple cardigan, black leggies, glasses so square that for a brief and shameful moment my ordered soul leaped for joy, engulfed in unalloyed celebration, miniature trumpets sounded, tiny feet danced with delight, flags were waved and bunting erected. Then rage set in, an expanding fifthelementesque globe that swallowed all of the things that matter. Love, reason, logic, life, all disappeared. I looked in vain for a fifth element.
Three of us were already at the bar. It was one of those moments when we arrived in quick succession, ding ding ding, but the bar staff were fooling around like a troop of circus camelids and didn’t notice. Then she turned up, flitzing about in purple extravagance, a whirlwind of lipsticky urbanity. I KNEW she would be served before the rest of us. And she was.
I glared, the others glared, she squirmed behind those square frames and looked a tad uncomfortable. She should have said we were first, we let her know that. It was unreasonable behaviour, a flagrant violation of protocol. But as I saw those square frames in their ordered, linear glory I remembered that in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter.
What followed is a bit hazy in my memory. Something or someone had to suffer. So I smote morosely at a fly, or imagined I did. Possibly the fly was imaginary. Conceivably I am imagining that I smote an imaginary fly. Either way the damn thing suffered.
Comments
Yeah, importance and business do sometimes motivate me too!
I don't *think* there was a boa involved. But you never know with snakes.
.-= Mo´s last blog ..I always struggle to find a fifth element =-.
Were the square frames made of Boron? There's your fifth element.
.-= Eric´s last blog ..My Bologna (Comune di Bologna) =-.
Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon...
*blink*
Funny man.
.-= Mo´s last blog ..I always struggle to find a fifth element =-.
So the fly wasn't so much "smote" as "smacked around a bit" then "given a stern talking to" and maybe then let out of it's misery by drowning in a spilled sip of beer? (And the good stuff, not a Lite or something. Fly had private insurace.)
.-= Scope´s last blog ..The Heebie-Jeebies =-.
I hope the fly did have private insurance. It would have needed it.
As long as it suffered and you feel better, that's all that counts.
But mostly that something suffered. Not that your emotional wellbeing isn't important, you understand...
I wonder what the fly did to improve its emotional well-being.
Sometimes I think I'm not really British, because on a bold day, when that happens to me I'll throw across a polite "Excuse me, I think we were first."
On the other hand, if someone tries to serve me before the people who were ahead of me, I'll always demur.
.-= Rachel Cotterill´s last blog ..Snow, Hiking, and Fear =-.
It was you was it?
;)
Okay, now you're going to have me thinking about tap-dancing piglets and just how offensive they are in purple cardigans and black leggings all day.
.-= Jan´s last blog ..Beef Stew With Dumplings =-.
Mission accomplished.
.-= Mo´s last blog ..I always struggle to find a fifth element =-.
I could ask about what was erected (bunting was it?), but I shall demure, being the polite, ladylike creature that I am.
Being a female, that never would have, nor has it, ever happened to me...being passed over, that is. Well, that and I tip well. You need to learn to flash the cash.
The fly had it coming.
.-= lola sharp´s last blog ..Tangled Up In Plot Knots and My Famous Procrastinating Techniques =-.
Well I had a tenner in my hand. Maybe I'm not flashing it right.
Alas, life is full of suffering and swatting at imaginary flies. We squint, trying to see the grand scheme of things, but can never quite see it. But we feel its presence, lurking lovingly, as we wait impatiently at that bar of today.
This should be my first stop every Monday morning. Because after reading your words, I always smile. Always. It's a good way to start the week.
Thanks, Mr. Mo :)
Please, just call me Mo.
This is all getting quite metaphorical. But my fly, alas, was literal.
.-= Mo´s last blog ..I always struggle to find a fifth element =-.
At least your British first-to-be-served privileged are colorful. In New York "lipsticked urbanity" requires head to toe black. Perhaps a slash of red on the mouth - perhaps not.
I hope the fly suffered.
.-= Tristan Robin´s last blog ..Get Those Smiles Back! It's GIVEAWAY CONTEST time! =-.
The fly never knew what hit him.
I'd have swatted the fly regardless.
.-= ellen abbott´s last blog ..war and other inhuman activities =-.
Fair point. But it was good to know that he was swatted for a good moral reason.
A sacrificial fly...you may be onto something big here, Mo.
Those glasses were made of Kryptonite, perhaps?
.-= TheKitchenWitch´s last blog ..Veg-Head Monday: Mediterranean Grilled Vegetables =-.
I like to think of it as a "scape-fly".
So long as you got your beer and nobody was hurt.
.-= Captain Dumbass´s last blog ..2022: A Popcorn Odyssey =-.
I think the fly may have broken a wing and a couple of legs.
People ALWAYS get swerved ahead of me because I'm tiny and bartenders can't see me. But I can order terribly embarrassing drinks and it comes off cute, so there's that ; )
.-= Soda and Candy´s last blog ..Fat and fashion. =-.
Also, I meant served, not swerved. Gotta stop drinking in the mornings.
; P
.-= Soda and Candy´s last blog ..Fat and fashion. =-.
I hate it when I get swerved at the bar. Nothing worse than being flung like a cricket ball.
were the piglets wearing those funny outfits? i probably would have gone after them over the fly...
.-= brian miller´s last blog ..160 - no where man =-.
There weren't any piglets on the bar table, but if there were, I'd have sent them sprawling.
Freud would no doubt link the swatting of the fly to your lack of inches in the oul leg department, but no, not I.
No... I'll not disclose the last memory I have of you scutttering along behind the lady in question, begging... yes begging for a wee squint through the square world of her perfectly round vision as opposed to your own rectangle of triangular thinking.
No... today I think I'll look through the arched windies instead.
.-= Jimmy Bastard´s last blog ..In Search of Giants =-.
The problem with Scotland is that it is full of Scots.
So that was you in the corner drinking that dark, dark pint? You should have said. I'd have come over and smote you down...
Shit dude! Are leggings back in fashion!?! WHY WASN'T I TOLD!? I've been away too long. Now I'm never going to get served before you....and believe me....more than a fly will be harmed if I don't get to order a drink in public soon.
People rarely stop to consider that even though you may have had to wait to get your beer...I CAN'T GET ONE HERE. And that's really the issue here, right??
What?
Good job you're leaving then huh?
Of course the fly was literal. Metaphorically, you would have swatted at an old crow, if you'd actually swatted.
.-= Cheri @ Blog This Mom!´s last blog ..We Offer the Finest in Earthquake Detection and Home Security Systems =-.
Hah, if only there had been an old crow...
Oh, and Mo, this? Fantastic. As usual.
.-= Cheri @ Blog This Mom!´s last blog ..We Offer the Finest in Earthquake Detection and Home Security Systems =-.
Apparently her father had no rules about how she could dress....
.-= Jeanne´s last blog ..What Not to Wear =-.
But leggies are better than bell-bottoms right? Or perhaps not!
That would have been my door to "Hello there!"
.-= The Urban Cowboy´s last blog ..The Lady Bera =-.
I don't doubt it my friend!
I'm hoping there was a dead fly somewhere in her food that day.
Ha, I didn't think of that one.
Nothing like a decent smote before downing a pint. Damn those piglets!
.-= Irish Gumbo´s last blog ..Monday Sunshine: Echoes of John Henry =-.
I didn't down it though, just long satisfying slugs.
I would have let you guys order first. And would have let you buy me one too.
I'm generous like that.
.-= Elise´s last blog ..Betrayed by lipstick =-.
I had a sneaking suspicion that she might have been you.
you never can be too sure!
.-= Elise´s last blog ..Betrayed by lipstick =-.
Maybe her square glasses were so small that she couldn't see any of you with her peripheral vision? And her outfit sounds like something I wore in the 80's (but I had round "John Lennon" glasses).
.-= Rochelle´s last blog ..The Blah Zone =-.
A tenable theory, I'll give you that.
I think I would have just made the beer suffer by drinking all of it. At that point I would have totally forgotten who got served first ....
.-= Twenty Four At Heart´s last blog ..The Red Phone Booth =-.
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