to slap my awful awful gossip thirsty colleague round the chops?

[MadreInglese]

As I was going in to the gym at lunchtime yesterday some poor chap had a seizure in there and was taken off in an ambulance

Today I got stuck at the toilet sinks with my awful fishwife colleague (I avoid her as much as possible) who with glee announced loudly that I had "missed all the excitement at the gym yesterday"

(she was at a fitness class in a studio there that I sometimes attend but I had just gone to the gym instead)

She went on to recount how when they arrived they "saw the guy being put in the ambulance and oh he didn't look very well and oh well they had to cart him down in the lift and bring him out through reception and everyone saw him and oooh he didn't look that old and we don't know what happened" (without taking a breath)

When she had stopped wittering I just calmly replied "Yes, I know. I was in the gym."

Oh my god I was stunned at her reaction, she looked delighted and was practically drooling at the thought that I had been there and could give her first hand details. She composed herself and asked me what had happened (in a most put-on calm manner).

I did see what happened but I just said that the gym had been cleared and closed for a short time for the poor man's PRIVACY and that I hoped he was ok. She stared me out for a while but then gave up when I wasn't revealing any details.

I am horrified and sickened by her. She is usually like this with mundane gossip (ie she will drive past my mother's house and comment to me on her new hair cut - they have never met!!) but this was such an awful situation I can't believe she was so gossip-giddy about it!

Stupid horrid woman.

ugh I HATE people like that.

like when my schoolfriend (well she WAS a friend) was attention seeking in a very big way when her friend's mum had died of cancer. she'd never even met her FGS.

one word - Schadenfreude

some people have really boring lives & get cheap thrills from all manner of 'curtain twitching' - she needs to get out more. Oh she does - driving past your Mum's house

She sounds ghastly. I'd squirm in her presence if she started on at me like that. Hope the chap is OK.

I hope he's ok too

Yes ghastly is the exact right word for her

I'm usually only irritated at her witterings (I tend to make a sport out of giving her as few details as possible) but today I was just gobsmacked

She is a sad sad person and actually her whole life just revolves around everyone else's news and gossip

schadenfreude

I have worked with her for almost ten years BeerTricks and sadly even with my (and others) Wall of Silence she seems to have worsened with time

We have one at work and I tell her big lies. I told her I was a member of the Cornish royal family, that I sold my soul to the devil and that I have only one kidney because clarkes shoes had the other.

She just doesn't get it and I'm running out of outrageous things to tell her.

Faerifruitcake - tell her you have a helicopter flying licence, perform as a fire-eater at the Edinburgh Fringe, are a licensed taxidermist and can stuff anything she likes.

lol faerie

That is almost as bad as talking about people behind their backs

laugh at taxidermist.

My MIL is exactly like this. Everytime I see her she tells me awful stories with such relish. It makes me feel so horrible, cheap and dirty listening to someone taking pleasure from discussing other peoples misfortune. A man across the road from her tried to kill himself last week (not someone she knew he had only moved in recently) and she rang DH to tell him about it. She told me when she saw me 'Did DH tell you........'. She was beside herself with it. The poor man and his family, her and her old biddy mates discussing them the way they are.

Its all fake empathy with people like that. They have no real compassion its just the story they are interested in.