Vilified over Breakfast

For some reason indiscernible to me, the good folk of Wangaratta find my mere presence to be deeply offensive.  At first I thought I was being paranoid, but in the face of mounting evidence, I’ve become irrevocably convinced of my own vilification, and I’m really getting VERY FRUSTERATED by it all.

I’ve just come from McDonalds.  I like to go there in the mornings before I write because you can get a coffee and a macaroon for $5.  Up until recently I was under the mistaken impression that a macaroon was just like any other biscuit.  I was wrong and have been making up for lost time ever since.  Anyway, I had been happily munching my morsel when a little girl sat beside me.  She was super cute and we exchanged a smile and I thought how lovely it was and went back to my article.  When I got up to leave, the little girl also stood, and the poor thing tripped while attempting to dismount her stool.

I looked up to give the mother a sympathetic smile.  The sort of smile that says, ‘Oh what a clumsy little pumpkin!’  But what I was met with was an unsettlingly accusatory glare.  She must have thought I tripped her child!  Tripped her child and then smiled at her in taunting mirth!

She’s got me all wrong!  I thought, bruised by the error in judgement.  So as the two of them exited beside me, I held the door open, again smiling at the mother.  And do you know what she did?  She just walked right through that open door and gave me another scornful stare!  I stood, paralysed in disbelief, as they walked away.  By the time I reached the car, I had become so obsessed with the injustice of it all I was sweating and muttering profanities to myself.

To that mother:  Why would I intentionally trip your daughter?  Why!  What sort of a rampaging sociopath do you think I am?

And before you conclude once and for all that I have indeed gone utterly insane, I must inform you that this was not an isolated incident.  Oh no.  Restaurants, supermarkets, electronic stores.  Everywhere I go, people look at me as if I’m quietly devising a rural terrorist attack.

Of course, when I complain to my boyfriend/ boyfriend’s mum/ sister’s partner’s dog, they all pull the standard ‘Don’t worry Katie, they’re just jealous of your bountiful youth and beauty.’  But I’m onto them.  Because I can tell you I did not look remotely beautiful, let alone youthful, this morning.  I looked like I’d had a dreadful night’s sleep and was desperately worried about the prospect of never succeeding as a writer.  So there.

The next time someone looks at me as if I’m intent on un-footing their spawn, I’m going to say:  ‘Excuse me, but what exactly is it about my demeanour that is causing you to give me that deeply disturbing death stare?’

Devoid of an explanation, I fear I won’t be able to stand it much longer.  I may well end up internalising my anger and carrying it forever on my face.  Much like that woman in McDonald’s.