Red faces all round

A couple of weeks ago, I was queuing up to get a cup of tea from one of those big metal urns, and a lady in her 50s who'd already got her tea was walking back in the other direction, squeezing past the rest of us who were still queuing. As she walked past, she stopped to talk to the young woman standing behind me in the queue. It was obvious that they didn't really know each other, due to the tone of voice that the older woman used, but she seemed to feel compelled to congratulate the younger woman. "How long is it now?", she said. "Pardon?" replied the younger woman, obviously confused. She clarified her inquiry: "How long is it until the baby's due?" she repeated, pointing at the younger woman's protruding belly. "No, that's just my figure", said the younger woman. The older woman, obviously mortified at having offended someone with whom she was not fully familiar, tried to extricate herself from the situation very quickly, but was briefly halted by the young woman, who pointed out that this was the second time that this had happened that very day. Even I was pretty embarrassed.