Aggressive customer service

Okay so we might say ‘yoghurt’ slightly differently but that’s really no reason to pounce on us. Which reminds me…since when did Australians start spelling things like the Americans? Is this some sort of appeasement thing? Do Australians now feel the need to suck up to the Yanks? Where I come from, ‘yoghurt’ was always spelled with an ‘h’ and I was from Penrith, New South Wales…where we hadn’t even heard of yoghurt!

Even so, it came as a bit of a surprise when an elderly chap, who seems to be the trolley collector at the IGA up the road from mum, suddenly asked what we were after. Mirinda said ‘yog-hurt’ to which he said, with a completely undisguised snarl ‘yoe-gurt? With the flavouring? It’s over there with the diary.’ Mum tried to suppress a giggle and Mirinda was startled.

All three of us were, quite frankly, surprised at his disregard for customer service…which was an even bigger surprise because everywhere else today, people had been lovely. Even the security guy at Sydney domestic airport. We had an interesting chat about t-shirts. He asked what mine meant and then proceeded to tell me about the one his mother bought him one Christmas when he was five. On the front it said ‘Ho, ho, hoe…’ and, apparently, she didn’t know what it meant. I guess she wasn’t a gardener…

And Mel who drove us from Maroochydore airport to mum’s place in her minibus, was the epitome of charm and South African bonhomie.

Actually the day was mostly spent in travelling to Queensland. Although we only spent an hour and fifteen minutes in the air, most of the rest of the day was spent in the bits in between. Mirinda was on drugs so most of her day just swam by like so much flotsam. Today marked her first economy class plane trip since…I have no idea but it was a very long time ago. She managed very well. Or should I say that the drugs managed very well.

So we left Dural at 9am and arrived at mums by about 3pm. We had a cup of tea/coffee then we went to the shops. It was then back to mums where we sat around chatting about stuff before Mirinda had a very important work call to make.

Then dinner and a short walk (though not mum: who went to bed…possibly because she started drinking the wine from the bottle rather than dirty another glass) to Bulcock Beach. During dinner, we heard all about the awful ‘Alan’ who feels he’s ‘one of the girls’ to the extent that he goes to the ‘girls dinner’ every week. His wife, on the other hand, is unable to do anything without him. What a funny little world this is in Caloundra.

And, sorry to say, I didn’t really take any photos today. Hopefully there’ll be some tomorrow and we’ll be back on track.

Oh and it’s bloody hot up here in Queensland!