Don't Feed the Animals

Yesterday I watched a more than grown man lick his plate clean in the cafeteria of a first class London yoga studio – let’s call it Triyoga, Primrose Hill.  He actually put his knife and fork down, out of the way, picked up his plate and licked from diameter to diameter, circumference to circumference and for good measure gave a few quick tongue darts around the radius.  At first I thought it was his playful way of giving compliments to the chef (beats farting and burping as is the custom is some parts) and that he was play licking but soon it was clear that he was not pretending at all – that he was in fact honest to goodness slurping every last morsel.  30 seconds passed before the sucking stopped.  Time it.  That is a long time licking.  He also had a beard which made it all the more repulsive.  Now, yogis tend to put the 'less' into “laissez-faire” at the worst of times and that’s all well and far out man, but I draw the line at a middle-aged gent with money enough to do yoga at one of London’s most elite yoga studios licking food off a plate.  If that wasn't irksome enough he then said to no-one in particular: “Less washing-up.”  I was not so much tempted to give a knowing (if tired) smile acknowledging the playfulness (?) of his actions/words as I was to shove that plate up his bum and invite him to wait a few moments for seconds.  As a devoted yogi, I should practice non-judgement, however in the event that this plate ever makes it under any food I order I wish to say for the record: the man is a cock.   It’s an interesting place, ‘the yoga studio’ -  in many ways it’s actually the meeting place for the world’s least laid back and most precious which I've always found amusingly contradictory but then again people who have a “healthy” obsession with yoga tend to come with tonnes of baggage they need to check in.  In fact far from surprising me, yoga studios should come with a warning:  Beware of the dogs.