FaceTime follies

I was at the coffee shop (yes, again) when my phone began to ring. 

This doesn't happen often; most of my messages come by text or email, so I scrambled to get my phone out of my pocket. It turned out to be a FaceTime call from elder daughter in London. 

Elder daughter doesn't usually phone or FaceTime me unless it's urgent, so I fumbled for the buttons, and succeeded in hanging up on her. 

I called back. It took a couple of tries, but when I got her image, it became evident that we weren't getting a clear signal. I still didn't know what this call was about, and intent upon my phone screen, I took a couple of seconds to register that someone was standing by my table. 

It was an older lady. She didn't look pleased.

"Would you put in earbuds?" she snapped.

I've taken FaceTime calls in the coffee shop with no problems before - after all, people do converse in person and on the phone in coffee shops, but I focussed back on my daughter, keep my voice light and level.

"Darling, I'm getting a complaint about the noise.  Shall I call you?"

Elder daughter quickly retreated, and suggested texts, to keep me out of trouble with "other patrons".

Elder coffeehouse patron had returned to her table, calling out a stiff "Thank you".  I ignored this.

It turned out to not be an emergency at all, but a source of excitement.

If I were looking up a genealogical event online, she asked, would I look it up under "family" or "hobby"?

"Well, neither," I replied, somewhat baffled.  

I don't look up events; I usually get notified about them via blogs I follow, or the social media pertaining to groups to which I belong.

The reason she was asking is because she works in a 410-year-old building in Greenwich called Charlton House, and the archivist is being featured on an upcoming episode of Who Do You Think You Are? - featuring singer/songwriter Pixie Lott.  

I own the seasons of WDYTYA (the original British version, that is) up until 2019, but current episodes won't be available on DVD for several months.  John Reid has been alerting his faithful readers of episodes that appear briefly on YouTube before the BBC yanks them down.  I can only hope.

As I packed up my journals, the elder coffeehouse patron strolled off to the washroom, and to my surprise, the coffeehouse proprietor came swiftly to my table and, putting her arm around my shoulder, asked if I were all right.  

"We always want you to feel welcome here."

I hastily explained that it hadn't been a fight, although I don't see a warm friendship springing up from that quarter.

I was touched and, in an odd way, healed, feeling a bit like I'd been in the right.

Probably not quite. As I explained to the proprietor, it drives me nuts when people watch sports or listen to music without earbuds in cafés, mainly because it fights with the piped-in music, so I wasn't entirely unsympathetic to the elderly coffee-house patron.  

But no, we won't be friends.