Best Served Cold

Revenge is sweet. And it is a dish best served cold. Deliciously so. Some of you may recall the episode (in my "Snub" blog) where I was made to feel like nothing, simply because I had the gall to call an Ambassador's office to ask about the status of a visa. I had mistakenly assumed I knew the ambassador as he had been over to my house several times and had stayed at the Retreat. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that the Ambassador had never heard of me. Licking my wounds, I withdrew, distressed and embarassed.

"They'll be there" said Lady M, raising an arched eyebrow. "Who?" "The Ambassador and his wife. At dinner. You sure you want to see them?" Hmmmm. "Ofcourse I do" I said defiantly " I have nothing to hide. I'm not the one who was rude." "Ok. Just remember I warned you." The hell with them. I would ensure that I got my message across. And a genteel Islamabad dinner party was just the occasion to do this. I rehearsed about a dozen scripts in my head, but then decided to let my instincts lead me. I just hoped they wouldn't let me down.

I breezed into the dinner party fashionably late. The key players had arrived, about a dozen guests. Perfect. Enough people for everyone to listen in onto a conversation. In another quick judgement call I decided that Mrs Ambassador would have to be tackled first. Women are generally more socially refined and prone to remembering social slights. (Does that make me a woman? An honorary one, maybe.) Men (especially after a few drinks) forget it all the morning after. "A strange thing happened to me. I was trying to call your husband all of last week." She looked up. "Really. He's been kind of busy." "Who is the gestapo woman he's hired to take his calls?" I asked. "Gestapo? What did she say to you?" The "gestapo" word had several bystanders look up, including a rival ambassador. "Well, she told me that he'd never heard of me and implied that I was an imposter of some kind." By this time I had the undivided attention of most of the room. "I'm amazed," I sad, borrowing a line from my blog, "that with people like her in the world of diplomacy,World War lll hasn't broken out as yet." Bullseye. "Darling" she called out to her husband across the room, as red as a tomato in a sauna. "Have you heard what happened? Your assistant has been awfully rude."

I smiled. Lady M sidled up to me. "That was brilliant." "Well. It wasn't the man, it was his assistant after all" I said. "Assistant" huffed Lady M. "You mean secretary" she sneered pronouncing every syllable of the word. Shouldn't the Gestapette have received proper secretarial training I thought.? Later on the ambassador himself shuffled over as I was waiting for my turn at the dessert table. "Now. What exactly happened?" I instinctively knew that repeating the whole story would ruin it. "Ask your wife. She knows it all. Would you like some trifle?" The rival ambassador shuffled up as well with a twinkle in his eye and whispered "They're all the same you know." "The same what?" I enquired. "Racists" he whispered and plodded on. I decided to skip dessert. I'd had sweet revenge already.