I can’t really criticise irritating habits. Hell, I’m a walking sack load of them but still I can’t help but get annoyed at the smallest things. I know, I know, I need to breathe more deeply, and avoid becoming trapped in a cell with mirrored walls.
The man sat opposite me seemed pleasant enough - smart brown blazer, inoffensive tie, pale blue cotton twill shirt with button down collars, moustache. Actually, I doubt that a moustache is ever pleasant unless you’re Tom Seleck, but the greying whiskers on my companion’s upper lip didn’t arouse in anyway. No, it was the apple that did it.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fanatical member of the Apple Liberation Front or the Anti-Apple League. I don’t fly into a rage the moment someone pulls out a Granny Smith. No, I don’t find apples themselves offensive. I’m as fond of a Pink Lady as the next man. It wasn’t the object to which I objected, it was the manner of its consumption that brought back that twitch in my trigger finger.
He did this:
Pick up apple. Bite. Put down apple. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Smack lips.
Repeated until only the core remained.
It must be something about patterns, I find so gnarling.
I know I have an issue with smacking lips. I first realised at College when a girlfriend insisted food was more flavoursome if you ate with your mouth open, sucking in air as you chewed and loudly slapping your lips together as you swallowed. It made me want to find the largest halibut in Yorkshire and slap her unconscious with it. It didn’t last long. She dumped me because she said my habit of digging a fork into my hand when we ate together made her feel uncomfortable.
Now when I’m confronted with smacking lips I lower my eyes, sing quietly to myself and think happy thoughts. Just as the kind doctor told me. With effort, I can endure the sloppy munching of an entire family-sized bag of crisps with this technique.
Today though that wasn’t enough. Because as well as his wet flapping, Caterpillar Lip Man kept picking the apple up and putting it down again. Up and down. Up and down. Right where I’d lowered my eyes. Up and down. Up and down.
It started to rain in my Happy Place.
Up and down. Smack. Smack. Up and down. Smack. Smack. Up and down.
I felt my tick return. I wanted to deliver my own version of smacking lips.
And then he finished. He calmly dropped the core in the bin. He had the audacity to smile. Presumably because he’d enjoyed his apple. Like that was okay.
I suppose I should be grateful that he wasn’t sniffing.
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