Sunday 9 February 2014

dejected do-gooder, dejected hot chocolate

Yesterday I went to stay for the night at my buddy's house in Kingston- to do so I make my way to Waterloo and always pick up a hot drink from one of the numerous food/coffee chain places available on the platform. Yesterday I bought a medium hot chocolate (and a banana because I was slightly hungover and 'nanas are great for perking you up after a night drinking), - anyway, I paid with contactless, grabbed the drink and noticing it was quite small I said, "Is this a medium?" the girl said, "No, because you paid for a small", I thought ahhh never mind, if that's all I paid for,  never mind. I was running late for my train. On the train I found the receipt and I had paid the extra 50p for a medium. So today, as I walked past the cafe chain on my way back home from Kingston I noticed the same girl was there- I told her that I had paid for a medium yesterday and she was really apologetic and gave me the refund and a free hot chocolate. Which was all very embarrassing for me, after living in London for a while you get quite used to being treated like shit by service workers, just I know most customers are arseholes. 

Thing was I'd just finished a really large cup of tea and i had no room in my belly for a large, free hot chocolate. So i thought, "I know, I'll nip outside and give it to a homeless person", it was very cold out today, and there's usually quite a few homeless people outside of major London stations. But not bleeding today, my dress was blowing up in the wind, and I was getting rained on as I marched about trying to find someone to give this ruddy hot chocolate to. Eventually I found a man all wrapped up in blankets with what looked like a broken leg. I knelt down and said "I'm awfully sorry if this is insulting, but would you like this drink? I got it for free and I don't want it", he was said "Thanks darlin', yeah that'd be great", so I gave it to him (promising it "wasn't poisoned", which made it sound like it was poisoned, luckily he laughed), he took one sip and went "No, no, no, I hate hot chocolate, you can have that back- will you go and get me a coffee?". I was a mixture of apologetic and put-out (excellent do-gooder behaviour). I was sorry that I didn't have the drink he liked and put-out that he wanted me to throw away this one and go and buy him a bleading latte. I said sorry- gave him some change and walked off still holding this fricking hot chocolate. At this moment I watched my bus drive off, so then went a stood by the bus stop for 20 minutes trying to hold my dress down with the gale winds and holding this now nearly cold hot chocolate, too anxious to leave the bus stop in case it came during my search for a bin. As the bus pulled up I put the hot chocolate down on the pavement and watched it as the bus and me pulled away. 

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