an invaluable pasty?

C has settled in quite nicely at work. She goes out for cigarette breaks every half an hour and potters around leaving coffee cups everywhere in my office. She makes me feel like a hundred year old moaning granny:

Is this your cup? Do you mind not leaving it on my reports? It’s stained the originals that I worked on for a week. Do you mind putting things back where you took them? I can’t seem to find my stapler.

And so it goes. She just shrugs it off with a smile and pats me on the head. Oh darling, she says, it’s an age thing. I can’t remember everything, can I?

Strangely enough she seems to really like me. She suggests going out for walks together during the lunch break. Or window shopping. Or having lunch together. I’ve managed to avoid her suggestions with the excuse that I have things to do and always bring a lunch box with me. When I run out of my office pretending I’m in a hurry, she reminds me to put a hat on if it’s cold outside, and makes sure my scarf is wrapped tightly around my neck.

Of course (I should’ve seen it coming) she’s now figured out how to be my shadow even at lunch break: lunch box. As soon as I walk in to the staff room she’s there putting her lunch box into the micro wave next to the one I’m using.

You’re eating now too? She asks happily, stating the obvious.

Yesterday I’d brought a pasty with me.

Oh, what is THAT? She shrieked with excitement.

A pasty, I said, thinking surely she’d seen one of those before.

Oh, love, have you MADE that yourself? She asked, as if I’d made an invaluable masterpiece. All by yourself? God, aren’t you a clever girl?! She added as I nodded a yes for an answer.

No offence, I said as calmly as I could, but it’s just a pasty. You’re acting like I was a three year old who’d just made her first poo poo in the potty.

Oh bless you, she laughed and stroked my cheek. Aren’t you a funny sweet girl.

Is it me? Is this normal? Or have I got the right to wanting to punch her lights out?