A single strand of hair drooped from Katherine’s thumb and forefinger as she held it in front of the waitress’s face, a tiny droplet of sauce or grease still hanging from the end where she’d plucked it from her plate.
“I’m really sorry, I can get you a fresh plate,” said the waitress, backing away.
Katherine stepped forward. “No point, I’ve almost finished. I’m not going to eat another meal, am I?! You can’t bribe me with free food! Are you saying I’m fat or something?!”
“No, sorry. I was just saying that–”
“I want to speak to your manager right now!”
Silence fell across the restaurant as the other diners turned to look at Katherine while the waitress shuffled away to speak to her manager. Katherine looked down at her children, who lowered their eyes to their plates.
The manager, a portly, balding man, made his way towards Katherine. The waitress followed in his slipstream, her arms tucked inside her bodyline and her eyes dodging Katherine’s glare. “Hello Miss, what seems to be the issue here?” asked the manager.
Katherine’s body twitched. “Excuse me! Miss?! Don’t assume that I’m not married. My name is Mrs Aaron, thank you very much!”
“Sorry, Mrs Aaron. How can I help?”
“Well, here I am trying to enjoy my meal with my children, I’m more than halfway through and I find this staring me in the face. It’s disgusting!” Katherine raised the hair again. “This is the first meal out I’ve had in weeks. I’ve not been well and I had to build myself up to this all day just to get here, and this is what I get. Then, when I say something to this waitress, she calls me fat. What are you going to do about it?”
“Ok. I’m sorry that you’ve found a hair in your food, Mrs Aaron. My colleague here was not calling you fat, it’s standard procedure to offer a replacement dish for things like this.”
“Standard procedure?! So this happens a lot does it?! Disgraceful! I’m going to call environmental health and tell them that your cooks aren’t following safe food preparation guidelines.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not true, our cooks are–”
“So, you’re calling me a liar, are you? How dare you!”
The manager pushed his fingers across his forehead. He squeezed his eyelids together. “I’ve had enough of this.” He turned to the waitress. “Go and fetch the lads from the kitchen, will you?”
Katherine scooped up her phone from the table. She pointed it at the manager. “I’m recording this as evidence. I’m a vulnerable adult, you know. I have mental health.”
The manager looked behind him as two men dressed in chef’s whites and black baseball caps approached him. “Thanks gents. Now, if you wouldn’t mind taking off your hats for a moment.”
The two cooks looked at each other and shrugged before taking their hats off. They looked at Katherine, grinning as their bald scalps reflected the lights above them. “As you can see, there’s no way that hair belongs to either of my cooks.” The manager’s eyes moved towards Katherine’s head. “Is it possible that it’s one of yours?”
Katherine swept a lock of her straight, black hair behind an ear. “Are you accusing me of putting my own hair in my food?! This is unbelievable!” She moved her phone in front of her face and tapped the screen. “Hi everyone, I’m back and coming to you live from this dirty little restaurant in town where I’m being accused of putting my own hair in my food. Yeah, you heard that right. This place is literally gaslighting me in front of my own children, and I won’t stand for it.” Katherine angled the phone towards her children, who stuffed their heads into their shoulders. She tapped the screen again, pointing it at the manager and the two cooks. “These are the people responsible. Yeah, that’s it everyone, get a good look at these crooks! They are taking advantage of a vulnerable woman. You all know my journey! I’m launching a full boycott of this place. Who’s with me?!”
The manager stepped in front of his cooks. “Please stop filming us.”
“Ha! You don’t like it when someone stands up to you, do you? I won’t be silenced!” She bundled up her handbag and coat. “Come on kids, we’re leaving!”
The manager stepped in front of the table. “Sorry, there’s still the matter of your bill, Mrs Aaron.”
“You think I’m paying for that? You’ll be hearing from my solicitor and you’ll be lucky if this place isn’t shut down by the end of the month. I’ve got all the evidence I need.”
“Then we’ll have to call the police, Mrs Aaron.”
“Call them, I’ll be happy to tell them what you’ve done and show them everything.”
***
Katherine was curled up on her sofa with only her phone screen for light when her husband came in. He perched on the edge of a nearby armchair and flicked on a table lamp by his side. “Kay, you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m just a bit busy. Got so many comments from today, I can’t keep up.”
“Do you need to respond to them all?”
“Well, if I want to keep my followers engaged, then yes.”
“I just need five minutes.”
“Yeah, go on, I can multitask.”
Katherine’s husband leaned forwards. “You’re all over social media, you know. Like, everywhere.”
“That’s great. People need to know about those pigs.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. People are laughing at you.”
“That’s not what I’m seeing. I’ve had loads of people backing me up.”
“The girls are upset as well.”
“No they’re not.”
“I paid your bill at the restaurant.”
Katherine looked up from her phone. “What?! Why did you do that?! I can’t believe you went behind my back like that!”
“Well I was trying to make sure that you didn’t get arrested for theft. Luckily the restaurant didn’t want to take it any further, but the police still want to speak to you about the video.”
“Great! About time they heard my side of the story.”
“No, Kay, they’re not interested in that.”
“Typical police, trying to silence people all the time.”
Katherine’s husband sighed. “You promised that last time was the last time. For the two weeks you were off it, it was like I had my wife back again. But I can’t go on like this. I’ve packed a few bags. We’ll be at my mum’s. Maybe give me a call if you’ve got any battery left on that thing.”
Katherine sat speechless as her husband got up and walked out of the room. She heard the front door clunk shut. Her eyes went to the living room window as the car engine ignited and its headlights strafed across the back of the curtains. She listened as the sound of the engine faded away. After a second, she picked up her phone again, opened an app and began typing a new post: SNAKES EVERYWHERE.
Alex Kellett
Image: coloured bubbles showingsocial media icons by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
literally stories 
This is absolutely great – love this one! A superb tale about the perils of social media and it’s influence on people. I started the story, and for most of it, found Katherine (a true ‘Karen’) completely detestable, but then the end, with her clear addiction to ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ gives the story a real sadness. I thought this whole story; plot, character, pace, description were all done brilliantly.
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Thanks Pau. Such kind words have really lifted my spirit. I went for a bit of Martin Amiss nominism with the character so I’m glad you spotted it 🙂
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Hi Alex,
I have no problem with the husband and I don’t think the wife had any mental health issues, I just think she was an attention seeking, over-bearing cunt.
Maybe I’m being a bit harsh and the whole social media situation caused her to be like this but for the life of me, I can’t accept that as a complete reason.
I would love to know what age I was when I came to the human realisation that folks like the MC never get…Things happen. Too many folks want impossible standards when they are involved but are not willing to practise those standards themselves towards others.
This was a cracking piece of writing as I found myself hating the MC and wishing her dead!!!!
All the very best my fine friend.
Hugh
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Great feedback as always, Hugh, especially with that perfectly timed c-bomb!
I agree that it seems nobody is ever happy these days and it seems to bring down the rest of us.
I have recently left a job where I had to deal with a lot of social media comments and the vitriol was unbearable at times. That was the inspiration for this one.
Thanks for those kind words.
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Hi Alex
There was a time not long ago when this would make no sense or be called futuristic.
You nailed the idiocy of the downside of the internet age. Many have been driven to madness and suicide. It also amplifies terrible personalities, such as here.
Sadly relevant and sharp.
Leila
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Thanks so much Leila. I agree that so much of the mental ill health epidemic/crisis is largely down to digital technology and social media. Great observation about how weird this would all seem 25 years ago.
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Greed, anger, insecurity, vanity and out and out lying. It’s all there and so very believable. I think you have done this so well that every reader will have a mental image of the main character and, oh dear, it won’t be flattering. It is sad that what should have been a great force for good and for mutual communication has actually turned, in so many cases, to be a weapon and a tool for self aggrandisement. What a poor example of life humans can be. Thank you for this, which seems at first to be a fairly light piece of prose but is actually very thought provoking. dd
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Thanks so much for such thoughtful and well constructed feedback, Diane. As I mentioned to Hugh, a career in comms has given me plenty of experience with social media and I have seen this kind of behaviour time and time again. I was at a restaurant a couple of years ago and a woman complained (quietly, I must add), and when she didn’t like the response she went straight online to tell everyone about it. Very odd.
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Right on the knuckle. So pertinent as to be required reading for all! Brilliantly done.
Geraint
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Thanks Geraint. I had major doubts over this one so this has given me a real boost.
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The tension was building. I found myself siding with Katherine. Then I felt the embarrassment of the children, “who lowered their eyes to their plates.” Like they had seen this all before. A good move to show what was about to happen. There’s a kind of insanity under it, which I liked!
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Thanks so much for your feedback. Tension is what I always have to work very hard to create so I’m very pleased to have done so
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A stone-in-the-shoe yarn that is also a template applicable to a range of social circumstances. Accusation, or—in the hands of a skilled and specious individual—the subtle but clear threat of it can be an effective tool.
At the same time, “Forgive the weak for they are always fighting…” (a line from a story called “Tony Nappo Ruined My Life” by Canadian author Layne Coleman) must have a voice too.
A dilemma.
In “Snakes, everywhere” it’s obvious the antagonist had corrupt intent and was abusing her advantage or, at the least, was looking for a fight to publicize and punish. She is an addict, high on power, unable to see her folly; unable to stop.
We know blame and consequences, like shit, always flows downhill. So when someone employs this law of social physics to intentionally distort the true victim and villain, we must make them pay.
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Thanks for this Mitchell. Very erudite observations and arguments. I appreciate you lending your mind to this.
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I pondered “I have mental health”.
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Great spot, Doug. Having spent years dealing with keyboard warriors, this is a stock argument for some people, even though it’s essentially vapid when we all have mental health, whether it’s good or bad is another matter. It’s like saying somebody is “ethnic” when we all have ethnicity, for example.
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An entertaining satire. Do people make social media jerky or vice versa?
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I’m from Britain, where our grasp of jerky is vague at best, so I have no idea!
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Ol Katherine’s a bit of a Karen, if it wasn’t social media it would be something else she’d be using for drama. Funny story! And you know, despite its absurdity it seems quite plausible in these crazy times!
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Totally agree. Having worked in social media, this is not that far fetched
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Meant to comment on this before, but I’ve had i.t. issues. The writing is wonderful. I was struck by one line in the last paragraph: ‘her eyes went to the living room window as the car engine ignited and its headlights strafed across the back of the curtains.’ As I was reading it, I thought ‘the engine IGNITED… no, that’s wrong, ‘ but then I read on ‘it’s headlights STRAFED the back of the curtains.’ And I realised I was quite wrong ‘ignited’ is brilliant! Great story, thanks, Mick
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Thanks Mick, appreciate you coming back around for that feedback.
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