Manuel can from time to time be rather petulant...no really!

No one is talking to me at home. Meh. It happens from time to time especially with my tendency to slip in to asshole mode at the drop of a hat. Actually if you drop my hat I will beat you, hard. But I am used to riding it out, the coldness of others shoulders rarely bothers me. The many many many unanswered text messages, emails, and voice messages mean nothing. I am an island and yes my name is Madagascar.

This latest bout of freeze out the waiter was brought on by some tremendously petulant behaviour. By me, obviously. In my defense I was tired and not in the mood for pleasant conversation and/or the normal civilities of person to person contact. The decision not to replace my last packet of Niquitin lozenges was, in retrospect, premature. I spent most of Sunday rattling like a heroin addict, rattling and snapping. And I did feel bad, for a nano moment, when I snapped at the child who asked for the bill for her mother.

"Your mummy wants the bill?", I asked in one of those cutsie voices people adopt when talking to the little people.

"Yes please Mr Waiter Man", replied the little girl with the cutsie pigtails and chubby little dimples that would make even the most hard hearted bastard go,"ahhhhh".

"Well why don't you tell your mummy to get her fat fucking ass off the seat and come ask for it herself. Okay? Can you remember that? Good girl." And then tapped her on the head and pushed her out of the way.

Okay I didn't but I was sorely tempted. Waiter Chum Number One got a touch of my snap snapping when she suggested I should have seated a table of eight somewhere else and not in her section. Snap. It's funny how much work you can get done when no one is talking to you. Funny but lonely all the same. I was heading into a very dark place when I was stiffed by my last two tables of the evening and that despite having managed to get myself back onto a workable level of happiness. The Aussies left nothing, how unusual, and the lovely people from Cork left Euros. Euros? How fucking offensive.

I swore and I huffed and puffed and kicked the bottle skip as I stuffed my fat little arms into my coat. I was quite delighted to be going home. Home, where there is tea and giant cups from which to quaff the precious brown liquid. And this dear readers is when the real petulant action took place.

The Cousin, who was sitting quietly minding his own cousinly business on the couch, was greeted with a grunt when he wished me a hearty hello as I stormed my way through the sitting room. He was watching The Departed and was quite excited by this and he shared his excitement with me. I didn't care and made some snarky comment or other, I needed a cup of tea and not film reviews. I bashed the kettle on and lifted a cup from the cupboard and poked my chubby paw in the direction of the tea caddy to retrieve the bags of life only to discover that there were no tea bags contained therein.

You can take away my money, you can take away my farty smoking replacement lozenges, you can blank me and ridicule me behind my back or to my face and I will not really care but if you deny me my apres-work cup of life affirming tea then you can expect a reaction. And react I did, poorly at that. Threats were made, stairs stamped on, doors slammed, things thrown that shouldn't ever be thrown (mobile phone for example), sweary text messages fired off to people who shouldn't be spoken to in that way. Oh yes, I was no longer a man, but rather I was a man child and acting in every way like those petulant, arsy customers I detest so much. I was ashamed. But what the hell, one needs a blow out from time to time.

So to my Little Miss Manuel and The Cousin I apologise, oh and Waiter Chum Number One same goes for you too. But I really do like tea....