This passive-aggressive exchange in a café is up there with the best soap storyline
We’ve all seen exchanges in public that caught our attention and had us dawdling at the shop window or staying on the bus a little longer, just so we wouldn’t miss the end. Comedian, Stuart Laws, was a first-hand witness to one such astonishing scene of unnecessarily problematic behaviour in a café, and he kindly shared the drama with Twitter.
He instantly spotted the trouble in store:
At a cafe, empty tables everywhere, a woman moved all the dirty plates and cups from her table to another, that another woman is sat at. I'm absolutely buzzing about where this is headed.
— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
There was no reason for the woman to have chosen the occupied table as a repository for the dirty crockery.
15 table cafe
Occupied tables: 3
Empty tables: 12— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
Of course, the second woman wasn’t going to put up with it.
Clean woman has started moving all the dirty plates back from whence they came. Dirty plate woman has broken the silence.
"What are you doing?"— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
"You put these on my table without asking so I'm moving them back"
"I didn't want them on my table"
CHECKMATE— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
"Well, I didn't want them on my table and you just put them there without asking"
"Well put them on another table if you don't want them on yours"
"No, I'm putting them here"
Sidenote: there's a book group meeting due to start here at 3pm
Sidebar: staff pretending not to notice— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
The original troublemaker doubled down on the odd behaviour.
Dirty plates woman started moving dirty plates back to the clean woman's table, whilst clean woman was finishing moving dirty plates from whence they came. Neither are talking now, or looking at each other. Unbelievable scenes.
— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
Poor Stuart looked likely to be dragged into the ridiculous exchange.
Oh shit, clean woman just looked at me for help
— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
Instead, a staff member had to step in.
Dirty plates woman just dropped a mug on the floor and then raced back to her table and opened a book
— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
Staff member has reluctantly walked over at the sound of the mug and now clean woman is trying to explain the situation but dirty plates woman is now engrossed in her book and the staff member seems confused
— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
He was still called upon to act as a witness for the prosecution.
Clean woman asked dirty plates woman to explain the situation but DPW just turned round and acted confused by what was happening. CW looked at me and said that I would have seen it all. DPW also stared at me and I felt genuinely sick as I nodded my head in support of CW
— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
It looked like it was all over.
DPW: "I'm just trying to have a quiet tea, I don't need all this bother please"
Staff member seems even more confused, starts collecting the dirty plates and cups, CW looks gutted. More customers in cafe now, I think this is the drama over.— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
But it wasn’t …
THEY'VE BOTH WALKED OVER TO THE BOOK GROUP
— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
It's the first meeting of the book group and they are all introducing themselves to each other and the head of the group asked "does anyone, aside from me and Patrick, know each other?"
DPW does a slow sweep of the group with her eyes and shakes her head, CPW staring at her— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
CPW said that she does know someone, points at DPW and says:
"I met this woman about 20 minutes ago when she moved all of the dirty plates off of her table and onto mine, without asking"
Patrick did a little laugh and the Head of Book Group (HoBG) looked very confused— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
HoBG: "Shall we get started?"
They did some intros and brief chat admin. There's 7 people in total. The book is: Nine Perfect Strangers
I wish there were two more people in their group, CPW can't take her eyes off of DPW and DPW is being really charming, especially to Patrick— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
Nothing much happening in the book group at the moment beyond book analysis, rest of cafe pretty empty. I realised that if you count me and the staff member that makes 9 perfect strangers but HoBG knows Patrick and there's another staff member so it doesn't work.
— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
IT DOES WORK. 9 perfect strangers and 2 friends.
— Stuart Laws (@thisstuartlaws) April 15, 2019
