Tick tock

One of the interesting side effects of long term insomnia is a certain shortness of temper. Now, it has to be pointed out that I wasn't exactly the most equable person to start off with. I'd love to be one of those serenely placid people who glide through life full of smiles; patting small children on the head, handing out sage advice and comforting platitudes as if they were sweeties. Unfortunately this is no very accurate self-portrait of my character. Instead I range from the fretful, nervy peevishness of a Victorian woman who needs her corsets loosening a bit, to the hysterical, frustratedly sobbing rage of......well.......a slightly more expressive Victorian woman, whose husband will probably have her packed off to an asylum very shortly, there to spend the rest of her life in a white flannel nightgown and a drug-addled haze. This being the case on a day to day basis, you can imagine my current state of instability, given that I'm able to count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've slept through the night in the last two months. My fuse is shorter than Ronnie Corbett's inside leg measurement. Mustering up enough self-control and civility to last me through each day is getting harder and harder, and I'm sure it's not just my present state of mind that makes people seem so much more ill-mannered and demanding lately. Fortunately I'm still clinging to enough rationality to summon up reserves of politeness for the woman who turned up half an hour late for her appointment to view the house this evening. If she decides to buy the house all will be forgiven. And if she doesn't? Well, they do say that the best indication of good manners is in refraining from commenting on other people's bad ones, so I'm actually proving myself the better person. Except I just did comment on her bad manners, which makes me as bad as her. Does it count as moderately self-restrained to be pleasant at the time, and refrain until after the event from pointing out either her tardiness or the fact that she failed to apologise for it, or does it just make me mannerless and two-faced? Be warned that answering this question incorrectly will put you at risk of my wrath.