What You Say Can and Will Be Used

From the time they were small, my kids knew. We'd be in a public setting, usually a restaurant, and they would take one look at me and say, "Mom, you're doing it, aren't you?" I always was. I am a shameless eavesdropper. No, not to my kids' phone conversations, not standing with my ear to a cup against a wall. But I am a writer in my soul, and the reality is, people talking in public are telling stories.

I possess the ability to sit in an eating establishment, listen to every conversation at every table around me, and still manage to converse with my family. It's an art, really. You just have to keep your ears pricked for interesting words, then hone in on that particular exchange until it ceases to be useful and/or engrossing. My husband will sometimes even nod to people across the room, whose dialogue can't be detected, and ask "What's their story?" Then I will have to resort to lip reading and body language to figure it out. If I can't decipher, I'll make up something. My powers are not limiting to dining. I am also quite adept at malls.

Sometimes it's easy. People will speak loudly and you can't avoid hearing. I was checking out at a video store. A cell phone rang at the back, then a woman was yelling, apparently at a soon to be ex-somebody. She strode to the front of the store during this time. When she was near the exit, I (and everyone else, including my young daughter) heard: "What the (bad word) did you expect? What the (bad word) would you do if you (worse word) walked in on me (unmentionable word) your best friend?" She slammed out the door. The woman who was checking me out never missed a beat, kept scanning movies, didn't look or even raise her eyebrows. As soon as the betrayed girlfriend left, the clerk said, deadpan, "That's why those things should be stuck to the wall."

We were sitting at IHOP after Florida got hit with three hurricanes. Four college age kids were in the booth next to us. One of them asked if Orlando was on the Atlantic or Pacific side of the state. Well, let's see, Orlando isn't on a coast. If you are in Florida, there is the Atlantic Ocean, Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, a couple thousand miles of land, and THEN the Pacific Ocean. Not much you can do with that discourse, other than use it in a blog post or write a dissertation on the abject inadequacy of our education system.

In closing, the inspiration for this post came tonight when we were dining at our favorite Mexican eatery. To paraphrase Lewis Black, if you think about this very long, your head will explode. Okay, ready? "Do you want your cat's ashes back in the box?" Don't say I didn't warn you.