G'day, people.
Sharon/WO, I hope husband is feeling better soon. Lasagne sounds good, but is a fair bit of work if you're making it from scratch yourself.
Sharon/LDM, I hope the neck pain and the rest of it can be sorted for you soon. My neurologist told me to get a down pillow, he said it should help a lot. Not sure how right he is, but I do love my down pillow!
It's been an interesting Saturday for me. My meeting today - it was in a services club and I had the most extremly officious pompous idiot on the door, unbelievably unpleasant. I walked up to him and said, "I'm here for the meeting with..." and he said, "Nobody here by that name. It's not on my list, so don't even bother signing in."
"Well, maybe they're here anyway but didn't register as a formal meeting, maybe they're just sitting in the bistro..."
"Don't believe me, huh? It's not on my list and all meetings are supposed to be on my list..."
At which point I spotted the team who waved to me. This only seemed to make the bloke more angry. I had difficult child 3 with me, thinking we could at least go into the bistro - the bloke then focussed on him. "He can't come in, he's wearing thongs."
I looked at difficult child 3's footwear. "They're not your run-of-the-mill r ubber flipflops," I said. They are designer footwear. But never mind..." I turned to difficult child 3. "Son, go to the car, you'll find my spare ladies' sandals. They should fit you. Go put them on."
"Righto, mum." And he headed off.
The bloke then said, "Eighteen, is he?"
"Pardon?"
"He has to be eighteen to come in here. Your mob are sitting near the poker machines."
The old man was beginning to use sarcasm a lot, it was getting difficult to work out what he was meaning. One minute he was telling me to not sign in, the next he was saying we couldn't do something because... then I would solve the 'because'... then he would put another obstacle in the way, and it was getting wearing. He was letting out information a word at a time, almost sounding smug like a traffic cop playing with his latest victim. And this bloke was the first interface between the club and members of the public! Unbelievable!
"I brought my son to have lunch in the bistro, "I told the man. "That's out of sight of the machines."
"He can't come in the club if he's under 18," the man said.
"Then of course it will be acceptable for me to buy him lunch and then take it to him at the door?" I said sweetly.
One of the group, who is a member of this club, had come over to try to sort out the mess. I was still being polite (the bloke was being rude enough for both of us) but I was ready to rip him a new one. Meanwhile we had to get the meeting started. I finally gave up on getting difficult child 3 some lunch in the bistro - turned out I was out of cash apart from some stray coins, so I gave the coins to difficult child 3 to go get himself a burger from his favourite shop. My friend the club member was outside talking to difficult child 3, she came back in and said, "He asked if the man was stopping him from coming in because he noticed he's a bit different. Poor love."
I explained to the other people at the meeting that difficult child 3 is autistic and felt that was why the man was being so rude. We later reassured difficult child 3 that this was not the case.
I told difficult child 3 (and again told the group) that the man had made a big mistake to offend a writer - the best revenge is to use the man in my next piece of work. difficult child 3 said, "Mum - you're evil!" and went off with a grin. After he got his burger he took himself back to the car to play on his DS. He's a good kid.
We won't be meeting there again. I've had dress code problems at this club before, but never to the extent of today's total rudeness. I'd dressed to kill to make sure I in no way came close to offending the dress code. I'm sure if difficult child 3 had worn his sneakers, they would have found them unacceptable also. And from what I know of club rules - he should have been permitted in the bistro. The man also tried to exclude me based on where I live (our laws allow this) but I live far enoguh away to justify "bona fide traveller" rules.
Creep. I still can't work out why he was so instantly rude to me - I can only assume he's like this with everyone, which could explain why the club was so empty.
At least the meeting was productive.
Enjoy your Saturday.
Marg
