Bite of the Apple

People who generalise are all the same.  No-good, Good-for-Nothings all of them.

Of course, I wouldn’t make sweeping statements, tarring everyone with the same brush so I wouldn’t say that all women are mad.  Just all the ones I’ve ever met.  I’m too old to worry about it much anymore but sometimes it still takes me by surprise. 

This is exactly what happened this afternoon:

A number of us sat in an important meeting over lunch.  It’s always easier to swallow bad news if your mouth’s full of a Coronation Chicken roll.  Still, it hadn’t been that bad.  The discussion trotted along nicely until  I took a bite out of a lovely juicy apple.  It made the loudest crunch ever.  In the whole world.  Two people opposite laughed.  I put the apple down and watched it go brown during the rest of the meeting.   

Returning to my desk, I was confronted by a screaming banshee.

This is what she said happened:

As she was making a very important point to some very important people, I, in full view of everyone, stuck two fingers up at her.  In front of everyone.  Disrespecting her.  In front of everyone.  Making some laugh.  In front of everyone.

Now, some lesser mortals, encumbered by a nagging sense of reason might have assumed that such behaviour, in full sight of everyone, would be so wildly inappropriate for such a meeting that it simply wouldn’t happen.  I’m the first to admit that I’ve done some pretty odd things in meetings before now, the trick with the orange and pencil sharpener not least among them, but I’m only ever making a fool of myself.

I tried to point this out.  She would have none of it.

She’d already confronted the two Laughers.  They had repeated, separately, unprompted, un-coached and unrehearsed exactly the same version of events as me, i.e. the actual events.

Again, their assertions absolutely inadmissible.  She hadn’t accepted my shocked rebuttal or the genuine opinions of the others.  I began to suspect this wasn’t going to be a negotiated settlement.

As she ranted and raved and waved her arms about I actually wondered if she’d perfected the art of swatting away sound waves before they could penetrate her ears.  She began to look like a hopelessly incompetent beekeeper.  Or a marionette in the hands of an amateur tightrope walker.  I smiled to myself but some of the grin leaked into the real world.  Needless to say it did not help to defuse the situation.

I tried reason.  I tried sympathy.  I tried evidence.  I tried empathising until my head hurt.  I even suggested I could understand why she might have thought I had stuck two fingers up to her in front of everyone.  Although I couldn’t understand it at all.  The one thing I couldn’t do was apologise for something I simply hadn’t done.  I’m not sure it would have done much good.  I’m not sure she was listening.

After another couple of minutes of noisy helicopter impression, she stormed off leaving me completely perplexed.  Like I say, barking mad.

Still, at least the apple was tasty.

Comments

[the boy who likes to]

Bizarre indeed.

[TomDolan]

Not to suggest that people can become in any way paranoid under extreme prolonged stress, obviously?