People don’t listen. It’s a relatively new thing. People used to listen, to varying degrees. You had your good listeners and you had your bad listeners. Now people just don’t listen at all.
I was in the pizza joint in Balham with the builder boyfriend. The waitress was standing at the table with her pad, the builder and I told her which pizza we wanted and then I said, ‘Oh, and can we have one mixed salad and one rocket salad.’
‘One small salad and one large salad,’ she said.
I looked back down at the menu. ‘No. Sorry,’ I said, ‘I mean, can we have one mixed salad, and one rocket salad. Both small.’
‘One small salad and one large salad,’ she said. The builder and I gritted our teeth. He had a go. ‘We don’t want different sizes. We want one of each kind. In the small size.’
‘Yes,’ she said, writing something down. And then, ‘One small salad, one large salad.’
We shook our heads at each other ruefully and decided to have what she wanted us to have. She left the table. We sat in silence for a few minutes. We were trying to be good. We were trying to let it go. But I knew what he was thinking and he knew what I was thinking. And after a while it became unbearable. The builder gave way first. ‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ he said, and he called the waitress back over. ‘I’m sorry, you must think we’re a real pain but what we meant to ask for was one of each type of the side salads.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘One large and one small.’ The builder took a big breath. ‘Can’t we just forget the large and small thing?’ he said, pleading with her with his big blue eyes.
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