- Hello, how can I help? - You can help by dropping the patronising tone and listening.
- Excuse me?
- You're excused. Now get a tissue and stop snivelling, you odious creature.
- Can I get your name, please?
- It's Síle Wagon. Enough stupid questions. I am not a happy woman.
- Oh. Is there something wrong?
- Is there something wrong? Of course there is. You don't think I rang you for a chat, do you? Ohmigod, you totally are an oik aren't you?
- Madam . . .
- Don't you dare 'Madam' me, you wretch. I'll tell you what's wrong. Traffic these days. It's ridiculous. All these peasants in my way. I preferred the days before this Riverdancing leopard thing when all the filthy poor people were standing at bus stops where they belonged, rather than driving their vile little Toyotas on the same roads as me. The nerve of them. For God's sake, can't they see I have a Range Rover? I even got stuck in Dalkey because some proles in Fords were trying to get into the church for a funeral. A Ford? In Dalkey? Who let him in? There needs to be some law against it.
- Ehh . . .
- What's more, Derek, my cretin of a husband, wanted me to bring the Range Rover to the Barbra Streisand do. "But it's in the country, dear. There'll be mud. It's what the thing is designed for," he whimpered. I told him to stop being such a chinless wonder. If it was supposed to get mud on it, they would have painted it brown, now wouldn't they?
- Madam . . .
- What did I tell you? When I want you to speak, I'll ask you a question. Do you understand? I'm far from finished. The Range Rover got clamped this afternoon. Seriously. I'd nipped into Avoca to get some focaccia because I was bringing my daughter Awwwnyah to the park to feed the ducks when some weasel of a parking attendant pounced. I was only gone half an hour. Didn't he see I had the hazards on? Anyway, the double yellow lines were in a ridiculous place. Who drives up Suffolk Street anymore other than buses full of dole scum and useless pensioners? So what if I was blocking traffic? Where are they off to in such a hurry? To the post office to get free money to blow on cider and lottery tickets?
- Please . . .
- And then there was the attack in Blackrock Shopping Centre. This halfwit in a wheelchair rolled over to me when I got back to the Range Rover, spouting some nonsense about parking in his spot. I told him to clear off, I was there first. He went puce. It was so funny. If it hadn't been for the botox, I would've cracked up laughing. Honestly, some people have no get up and go about them. Then he started wittering about me using two disabled spaces. I soon shut him up. I handed him the keys and told him to hop in and show me how, exactly, I am supposed to fit the Range Rover in just one of those tiddly spaces. "Don't be ridiculous, you know I can't do that," he said. "Ha," said I. "My point exactly. It's impossible. Tootle along now, and stop annoying me."
- Madam, please, I must insist. I've really enjoyed listening to you, really I have, and I sympathise with you whole-heartedly. But I have a job to do. So, if you don't mind, could you please order your pizza?
- Pizza? I thought this was the new stressed motorists' helpline?
- No, Madam, it's Tony Soprano's Memorial Pizza Parlour. I've been trying to tell you that for 20 minutes.
- Oh. Right. Better make it a big cheese, I suppose.
- Collection or delivery?
- What do you think, you useless oaf? Have you not been listening to me?
