Dragon woman

Computer problems and a queue of people are not a good mix.

As the supervisor uttered her daily words: “I’m just going to do a stock-take, will you be ok for a bit,” my immediate nod of the head was short-lived.

Ten minutes later and we really weren’t ok. The queue was starting to resemble a pile up on the M25, the supervisor was AWOL and I had to break the news to parents that although we could take their children’s photos with Santa, we wouldn’t be able to print them.

I started taking abuse form left right and centre. It was a sad day as I started to feel that the human race was really quite nasty.

One woman with glassy blue eyes was particularly unpleasant. Upon hearing the photo news, she argued with me about taking her own photo in the grotto, her thoughts being if the printer didn’t work, surely she should be allowed to take her own.

But unfortunately life and work are never that clear-cut and whilst I could understand her point, as she continuingly threatened to come back and take her own photos in the grotto (which isn’t allowed) if the problem wasn’t rectified, I wanted to hit her over the head with Santa’s sleigh.

As it turned out, she was all mouth and no trousers, as her sheepish husband later turned up without her to see if he could get the pictures printed which weren’t really that great anyway.
He was polite as punch and very grateful, probably because it meant he wouldn’t have to deal with his dragon of a wife.

This set a trend for the day. Why was it always the women who wanted to pick a fight and the men who were as nice as pie, just wanting a quiet life, and, wherever possible to stop their wives making a scene.

Luckily during the stress levels I managed to hold my nerve and not blubber, and after we closed the grotto for a while, turned the computers on and off a few times, things were back on track. Hunky dory… for a while anyway…