Gosh, I can be gauche!

A lot can happen over coffee. Hell, yes. Like horrific self-realisations about how gauche I can be, even if only fleetingly so.

KO and I seated ourselves down for coffee and a quick bite in the middle of our mammoth shopping trip. We cooed with delight, noticing the bottles of hand sanitizer on each table. Since we’re both rather finicky about it - we carry our own sanitizers everywhere (KO sometimes showers with it) - we thought it was one of the best things to happen to coffee chains since umm… well, since the introduction of those tasteless chocolate doughnuts.

We placed our orders. Two energy drinks, rather dubiously named “XXX”, a samosa for KO and a chilli puff pastry for yours truly. Not so difficult to remember now, is it? However, it appeared that both the staff and I had left our brains back home that afternoon. Our waitress came over twice to reconfirm our order - and that proved once too many times for a feeble-minded flake like me apparently. I completely forgot about what I had ordered.

Our drinks and a plate with two samosas were placed on the table. The dubious drinks had nothing else on them except for “XXX” - we had to figure out for ourselves which one was grape and which was wild berry. KO’s tasted suspiciously like tobacco. We were right. The fineprint said the drink was a substitute for nicotine. The irony? Both KO and I are non-smokers. One sip and I felt like I was sucking on an empty carton of Gold Flake Lights. Sick.

“Mmm-hmm”, said KO, gesturing toward the plate of samosas. “How strange”, I thought while helping myself to one, “Why can’t these people place the samosas on individual plates for each of us?” Yes, I was having one of my blonde moments and had begun to believe that I had ordered a samosa as well.

I wolfed it down, still blissfully unaware that it wasn’t my order in the first place. I was too busy swapping tales of dodgy dreams. After I’d gulped down the last crumb, KO very matter-of-factly asks, “Hey, hasn’t your order come as yet?”

The horror of what I had done descended upon me. I had just gobbled up KO’s food. Without batting an eyelid. Unapologetically. Unthinkingly. “Oh, my God! KO, I ate your samosa!” I howled loudly, oblivious to the attention the rather dramatic response was drawing from other patrons. “No, no, it is quite all right. I was not going to eat the second samosa anyway”, KO said magnanimously.

I felt my cheeks burning with shame. “I am so sorry!” I lapsed into silence mulling my terrible social faux pas. How could I have been so obtuse and unaware? Then the second wave of horror struck - as KO chuckled at my beetroot-red face.

-KO?
-Yes, child?
-What if this had been a date?

O.M.G. It could happen. I am now watching myself...very, very carefully.