though a glass, darkly

This afternoon, after hideous complications during the morning had frazzled my nerves, I waited for what felt like an eternity behind a teenage girl at a cash dispenser only for her to be joined by another teenage girl who promptly got out her own card. I snapped at them both in terms which would be familiar to a sailor and stomped off without even waiting for her to finish. Then, in an area of my local library which is intended for under-5s, I was trying to control my various tiny and rather noisy offspring when a child of about eight years old approached me in a superior manner and asked if I could possibly keep my children quiet. I asked, in return, if she would like a poke in the eye. She went off without pressing the point any further, but watched me cautiously for the next half hour as though I were mad. Which I probably was, at that moment. And then I had to come home and continue writing the novel which I had so magnificently failed to write during the day. Happy times ...