Bad

Feeling like a refugee from a bad Russian spy movie, thick Ushanka hat, heavy overcoat, I trudged gloomily through the snow covered streets. The temperature had fallen to minus something horrible and I was beginning to feel hungry. Having arranged to meet my wife and having navigated to the 'moving' rendezvous by mobile phone we eventually coincided and ducked into Costa Coffee. It had been so cold her glasses immediately steamed up and my fillings (which i am convinced had contracted in the cold) seem to rattle in my head.

It was busy and warm in Costa Coffee and as my wife placed the tray on the shaky table I accidentally bumped it as I tried to reach my seat. Some of my coffee came slurping over the rim of the cup and flooded my saucer. 'You always do that' my wife shook her head (she is correct actually, it must be one of those rogue genes that run in families, my father, my grandfather and his father probably all shared a clumsy gait which resulted in tables being knocked and coffee sploshing out into saucers. The coffee that the male generations of my family has spilled through the ages in ye olde Costa Coffee houses is nobody's business.

'Oops, we've had a spillage' A young girl wearing a bright red Costa Coffee top said as she approached. 'I'll get you another saucer'.

We looked at each other, a youngster with some initiative. 'That's nice' my wife said. 'Someone with a bit of savvy.' I agreed.

To my left a rather large lady moaned about her knees. 'Ma knees' she whined. 'Aye' her friend replied as if they shared some esoteric secret language. 'I told them' the first lady started up again, I wondered who 'them' were. 'I need bionic knees'. The second lady nodded knowingly. 'Them', the thought occurred to me, might have been a group of Frankenstein worshipping scientists who were developing bionic body parts for overweight ladies. 'And ma Bill's right knee' she shook her head and pursed her lips while her friend nodded sympathetically. I found the experience frustrating, for goodness sake stop talking so cryptically, what about Bill's right knee? As if by some mysterious psychic power she appeared to know what I was thinking, she frowned leaned forward toward her friend shaking her head and said : 'Bad'.

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