Aaaah bless, or bah! humbug!

I’ve just realised I have posted a couple of really grumpy posts recently. The first was about a perfectly ordinary, harmless and happy woman who happened to be in the pub with a group of friends but had an extremely loud and dominating voice which drove us from our corner to another part of the  pub (where actually we could still hear her) Then yesterday I wrote about a woman with a child in a café cum bookshop, where I was happily enjoying a coffee or two when I became distracted by the noise she was making; every time the child went ‘wah‘ or shouted, she would make the same ‘wah‘ or shout but much louder. The child became very excited, and in the end I left the café with my head ringing.

Now, isn’t that Scrooge-like of me? With the first loud-voiced woman instead of becoming irritated and annoyed by her exceptionally loud voice (I heard all the details of all the stories she was telling to her bored-looking companion) I should have been pleased she was having a nice time with her friends and enjoying herself. Even if I moved to a different corner of the pub, I should have moved with good grace, not muttering and irritated. And the other woman with the child – well, she was probably looking after the infant for her daughter who was off doing some Christmas shopping somewhere, and she was waiting where they had arranged to meet. I should have been thinking how lucky the child was to have a funny grandma and the daughter to have a mum to look after him while she was shopping. If the woman was  loud, then I should have drunk up my coffee and gone somewhere else.

If my Aunty Beryl had been with me, she would have thought ‘Aaaah, bless‘ and smiled benignly… I just muttered to myself and complained… and thinking of a Buddhist story I once heard, those two people, pub-woman and bookshop-lady are probably right now happily doing something, while I’m here still being irritated…

It’s a lesson to me, isn’t it? …. aaah, bless!