Noisy eaters? Go home!

Let's face it. Noisy eaters are either a) ignorant, b) stupid or c) couldn't give a shit. Either way I'm seeing, sorry... hearing, a rise in it. What used to be a random txt every now and again, now sees my inbox full (usually with the name 'Char' or 'Ser' above it). This mornings? "Someone eating a donut really noisily on the train". Public transport has to be where you find the main culprits. Or maybe it's just because you have nothing else to do but sit there and listen to them. Quite frankly, I'd rather pull off my own ears and throw them on the tracks. Coincidentally, after receiving the donut txt from Charlotte, I myself was treated to the nauseating melody of someone's eating habits. Now usually when I get on the bus, I'm safe within my headphones, happily protected from any outside noise. You can imagine the horror, after sitting in front of today's noisy eater, when I looked into my bag and realised that due to rushing out of the flat to Uni, I had forgotten said headphones and therefore had to endure the entire journey listening to Little Miss Disgusting eating what I can only imagine was blu-tack. I was almost as horrified as David Platt when Gail didn't tell him she was selling the house! Maybe more! (Charlotte will most definately understand the severity of the situation, as will many other Corra fans).

Anyway, there I was, lost without my music, absent mindedly reading the adverts on the bus over and over again (did you know day riders have gone up by 20 pence? Extortion), when on she gets. I didn't even have 30 seconds peace before the sloppy chomping began. God knows what she was eating. It took her long enough. Just as I thought it had ended, she began again. I could physically feel my blood boiling up inside me. Unless noisy eaters get to you too, you cannot understand the monumental feeling of anger and irritation at such a tiny reverberation. To make matters worse, every time the bus turned a corner, the woman seemed to lean with it, bringing her closer to my ear. It may have been my imagination, but that alone was conjuring up visions of me turning around and punching her square in the face. As the bus turned to the left it gave me the chance to get a glimpse of the audible eater. She was big. Not Michelle McManus big. Big Momma's House big. There'd be no throwing punches. As she finished a bag of crisps (shouldn't have been eating them in the first place if you ask me) she even took the time to lick each finger. No. Not even lick. Suck! It was like listening to an elephant down at the watering hole. It didn't stop at four fingers. BOTH HANDS. Who eats crisps with two hands!? I swear she'd noticed my repulsion and was finding ways to aggravate me and my gag reflex. By this point I was bordering suicide. I began contemplating where to jump off the bus to get the cleanest death. Just as I settled on a high action dive out of the bus doors and over the bridge onto the dual carriageway (okay so maybe not the cleanest death but sure would be the quickest, not to mention how stupid I'd look if I chanced it at the traffic lights and simply rolled onto the grass) the sickening soundtrack to my journey home stopped. I thought I'd gone deaf. Was she finally full?

Was she hell. OUT CAME THE STARBURST! Could any other choice have been more disastrous? I found myself continually checking my shopping on the seat next to me in the fear that tiny flecks of spit or at the very least, invisible germs were being sprayed onto my bottle of wine. I began willing the crying baby in front of me not to stop. Anything to drown out the slushy, reckless scoffing of Big Momma. I even considered kicking the pushchair once or twice just to keep her going! As my stop neared I collected my things together faster (but more grateful) than a naughty kid leaving the headmaster's office. I thanked the bus driver for the worst 10 minute trip home I'd ever endured and glanced back at Big Momma. The knowing smirk on her face may have been a figment of my imagination. The empty crisps packets scattered around her were not. Thank God it was sunny as I stepped off the bus, (I had to disguise my expression as 'dazzled') because the permanent look of disgust that was plastered across my face didn't disappear for a loooooong time.