My kids are loud and I’m not sorry.
Dear Man in the Café with previously-very-shiny-shoes,
I know that boiling point for many of us is different. For me it could be from waiting on hold to a phone company or from supermarket shopping with a three-year old. For you it was simply your shoes.
Read more: The one day of the week kids always manage to ruin.
There’s a temptation for me to say sorry again but I did that and it didn’t seem to work.
Yes, those shoes were very black and polished; the result, I am sure, of lots of scrunched up-newspaper and brushes and silver tubs of waxy black paste. There was work there sir, and effort and I appreciate that due to my children it was spoiled.
I can see that they were specially shined perhaps there was a meeting with your boss for a promotion, or a lawyers appointment, you and your shoes were going to make an impression. They were your aces.
But my daughter is three and three-year olds are busy and careless and messy. And three-year olds drop things. And one thing they drop consistently is full-to-the-brim-chocolate milkshakes.
It was difficult to discern who was the most upset between your howls and her cries. It was almost like having twins. Except sir, you had passed your 40th birthday many, many years ago.