It was lunchtime and I had a craving for a Pret a Manger Crayfish salad with chilli dressing (see how healthy I am being. Do you see? Do you?!) It was about 2pm so I was concerned the shop may have run out, but I entered the shop just in time to see another man picking up the last crayfish salad. He was looking at it quizzically as if wondering whether he should purchase it. I was so desperate for the object of my craving that I almost blurted out, "Are you going to buy that?" but I knew that would be odd behaviour and kept quiet.
It became apparent that he was going to buy it, so I chose to have the only other remaining salad available which was a basil pasta affair. I was disappointed. This had no crayfish in it at all (unless it had been made by the same person as the crayfish one and they hadn't washed their hands in between, but this crumb of crayfish theory offered no crumb of comfort to me. I wanted all the crayfish, not just some of its scales) and the dressing was free of chilli (see above parentheses).
But I made the best of a bad job and went to the counter to pay.
The man who had stolen my crayfish salad who I already hated with all my heart was standing about a metre and a half away from the counter, but facing the tills. He appeared to be waiting to pay, but was standing much further back than was necessary and was already slightly blocking access to the soft drinks freezer. I was confused as to his intentions.
"Are you in the queue?" I asked.
"Yes!" he spat back of me with the tongue that was soon to taste the delights of the crayfish, as if my question was ridiculous. But if he was in the queue then why was he standing so far away from the counter? I didn't know what to do. It felt very unnatural to queue so far away from the counter and if I stood behind him I would be blocking the soft drinks access even more. I had never seen anyone queue so far away from the thing they were queueing for. Surely he had been in queues before. Surely he knew that the correct protocol was to stand slightly closer than he was actually standing.
"Would you mind standing a bit closer to the counter then?" I asked, not unreasonably, I thought.
But the man stood his ground. "We won't get served any quicker," he replied somewhat haughtily, as if I was the one being ridiculous here.
"It's not really about that," I replied, my crayfish anger rising in my throat and being exacerbated by this pointless and literal stand, "It's a small shop and if I stand behind you then soft drinks access will be limited for the other customers."
He made no reply and luckily for him (as I was ready to punch him for his twin crimes of getting to the shop slightly ahead of me and not knowing the laws of queueing) the person in front completed his purchase and the till became available.
I would ideally have liked to have queued much too closely behind old crayfish face and made him feel as uncomfortable as I had felt at being forced to queue too far away, but another server became available and I had to go and purchase my rubbish and boring pasta salad.
I hope he choked on his crayfish, the bad queuer.
