Friday 26 February 2010

Same world, different planet

"What's with all the cutlery like?" Asked a young female type, who one could only describe as the whitest blonde I have ever seen (I assumed it wasn't natural), sat at the next table to us in the Indian restaurant the other day.

"What de ye mean?" came the less than gentle reply.

"Well there's, like, one, two (yes, she had to count them!)... two knives and two forks?" She was actually incredulous at this phenomenon.

"One lot's for the starters and one's for the main course." A reasonable answer in straightforward terms. Yet it was my turn to be incredulous that such an answer was, indeed, necessary, bearing in mind that this person (blondie) was at least 18 years of age!

"I'll just use the same fork for everythin', I don't see the point..."

"The point is, we're not tramps so we don't just lick our forks and keep them for the next stuff..."

Seriously? Oh my!

This was, honestly, the conversation hubs and I 'overheard' (more like had rammed down our throats by overly-loud table neighbours) towards the end (thankfully) of a trip to our local Indian retaurant the other day.

Aforementioned blondie was, we estimated, around the age of 18 or 19. Had she seriously never been to a restaurant before? Surely most such eateries in this day and age provide you with starter cutlery and main course cutlery. Hell, if you plump for a dessert, you might even be lucky enough to get a fresh, clean spoon with it!

Friendly neighbours continued in their less than subtle tones to have other baffling conversations 'between themselves' and one of them even managed to squeeze in a telephone conversation in between mouthfuls.

As my hubs later pointed out, we could actually hear every word from the guy on the other end of that conversation, let alone what 'neighbour' said... why not just put the phones down and shout to one another - that way you can save your money for another item of tacky, over large gold jewellery and a couple of Burberry rip-off baseball caps!

Too harsh?

Chavs? In my local Indian restaurant? What's the world coming to?

A speechless (and only slightly tongue-in-cheek) Potential Mummy B