Mother makes more friends... ?

Two minutes off the plane and we hit chaos. Britain. This country is suffering from some kind of warped mitosis. Mother decides now would be a great time to get our train tickets for the whole week (in theory, this is a good plan. In practice, however, we are faced with approximately 250 travellers and their suitcases waiting in line.)

Mother does not reconsider her plan. Instead she drags us to join the queue. 

The dreaded misfortune occurs when we are joining the mess of a 'queue' from one side at the precise moment 3 post-holidaying young women are joining from the other side. Breaking down the few seconds that this collision occurred, I can tell you the levels of 'awkward' and 'wanting to run away very quickly' increased rapidly. 

There is no way of knowing who owns the next place in the queue.

So I slow down a fraction, allowing the women to slide in ahead of us, whilst Mother speeds up, so as not to allow the women to slide in. Mother's head jolts up, her shoulders eject backwards and her lips purse. She's in the mode. I can already foresee what is about to happen and therefore remain several feet away from both Mother and Ibiza-girls. Hoping somebody else will want to join the queue between myself and them but I am unlucky; I am still within a few feet of them with no protection. 

The girls are not paying any attention whatsoever. Laughing away loudly as they pull their suitcases in front of Mother (who has, by now, marched ahead with the aim of almost touching the unsuspecting male traveller in front). As the girls' suitcases whiz around to 'their' place in the queue, Mother does similarly with her petite pink butterfly case; hauling it up and around the Ibiza cases to join Mother's side. 

The 3 girls all look at Mother.

Mother does not return the look, instead her eyes are closed and her nose is up. 

"Uhm... excuse me? This is a queue...?" Pipes up the leader of Ibiza-girls. 

"Indeed it is! I was here first. You pushed in." Mother retaliates with her eyes still closed.

The 3 girls look rather shocked. They are silently staring at Mother for the next 2 seconds before girl number 2 (with horrendously odd rust-coloured droopy harems gracing her possibly-sun-smacked legs) joins in; 

"Goddddddd, so much for holiday spirit..!" and scoffs. The other 2 also scoff. 

Mother scoffs back. She also tuts.

This is a Very British Problem.

'The Scoff' and 'The Tut'.

I am silently praying that Mother does not fight back with a quip about the trousers (she has been glaring at them since her eyes opened).

She doesn't. Instead, she looks at me.

Instantly, I whip my head around to look at... anything else. I pretend I am thoroughly transfixed by the announcement board.

"Honey. Honey! Darling... come here."

Nope. Not happening. I do not know who this lady is. I am not with her. I did not witness the disorder queue faf. I am gathering important information from the announcement board.

"Can you please come here now!"

Ugh. My eyes inadvertently meet hers and I am caught. I shake my head.

"We should buy the tickets together" She shouts, over Ibiza-girls.

I pretend to look at my phone and nod.

For the next ten minutes, Mother insists on having a conversation with me over the women! She has not grasped the idea that I am trying to disassociate myself.

Then at one point, she leans around the women and gestures with her hands whilst gritting her teeth, pointing at Ibiza-girls. She opens her mouth...

Oh God. Is she actually going to b*tch about them to me right now?! I mouth "wait!" and delicately slide past the girls whilst trying to catch their eye to sort of 'ask permission / apologise' but none of them are paying any attention. They are talking about last night's Mario and his abs.

I have now joined the Queen in the queue and jab her in the side each time she begins to have a moan about 'the stupid girls with their loopy pants'.

xoxo