I’ll get my coat

Through the window on the left is a building site.  There are, apparently, three digging machines.  What follows, is an account of Anniemay’s fascination - bordering on obsession - with the comings and goings of these machines.  It’s what passes for excitement in our lives these days.

She spends about 15 minutes trying to interest me in what’s happening.  It seems that one particular digger is moving a pile of dirt from one spot to another. And then moving it back again.  “Now he’s putting back…. Why’s he doing that?”.  A truck arrives with more dirt:   “Now a truck’s arrived with more dirt”.  And so it goes.

She’s convinced that this is some elaborate game on their part.  And it’s starting to make her a bit frustrated as there’s no apparent logic to what they’re doing.  She keeps asking “why are they doing this?”.  Her voice starts to get louder.

Her attempts to engage me in all this fail, for a number of reasons; (i) I’m trying to drink my coffee (ii) the action takes place over my left shoulder, so I have to turn my chair to look and (iii) there’s a bar across the window at eye-level so I have to raise myself up, or peer under, to see what’s she’s on about.  

Other people are starting to wonder what she’s on about too.

When she realises people are looking, she ducks down behind her coffee cup.  Like we used to do when we were kids - if we can’t see them, then they can’t see us.

The action moves inside.  A waitress bringing a couple of plates of toasted cheese and ham sandwiches, drops one.  It breaks up leaving a cheesy mess on the floor.  Everyone turns to look.  No longer the only game in town, we finish our coffee and go.