Soliloquy

Recently, Allie and I were invited to dinner with her friend's family. When we were nestled around the table, it became uncomfortably obvious that the responsibility for all conversation would be placed upon my doorstep - and loaded onto my back and shoveled into my grave. So, I began asking questions. Since the responses were monosyllabic, I was forced to ask all the more questions.

I asked so many questions, a spot light and pair of pliers materialized above my head. But the great inquisitor was to extract nothing from her prisoners that night. And I began to wonder just who exactly was the prisoner - and who the torturer.

From false smiling and feigned interest, my teeth began to dry. In my mind, I fashioned a noose and hung myself a hundred times. I dared not look at my daughter - the daughter who normally surprises herself by making others laugh - because she sat quietly, staring into space, recovering from an after-nap headache. A headache I would have killed for if only someone else hadn't stolen all the excuses.

The mother of my daughter's friend has earned herself a master's degree, yet had not a single conversational offering worth offering, while I teased her daughter; lied about major illnesses; made up ghost stories; and tossed around verbal hand grenades. I grew so desperate, I almost shouted, "Oh, come on!"  I dug so long at that doomed conversation, I almost burst out laughing at the absurdity. When I was dangerously close, I realized everyone had finished eating.

Then they ordered dessert. But I feel it is impolite to eat dessert when a dinner companion's anal sphincter is so cringingly tight. I wiped my sweating brow and waded through pie and cobbler - with no help from my wan child, did I mention?

At the close of our meal, it was talk of the sinking economy that finally roused the husband, and I was never so glad (Never!) of such an economic slump. By then, I could have wished for an outright depression on hyper-inflation on gold-confiscatory on burning-barrels-of-cash on piece-of-bread-would-buy-a-bag-of-gold on wish-we'd-all-been-ready economy.

You think I'm bad? You go ahead.

But, really, I begin to see situations like this as simply part of the deal. I am certainly not owed sparkling, scintillating conversations where 'ere I go. I am not owed entertainment. I am not too good to sit through a boring (i.e. brutally brutal) evening - as all humanity must at times. There are situations where you just have to give what you've got, expecting nothing in return. Maybe somewhere, someone has done the same for me.