Papaya Mom

It’s not that Adventure Dad and I don’t like each other’s company - it is just that we’ve been married for a while now and sometimes we run out of things to talk about. How many times can we tell each other what a fun kid we had, how well I cook or that one of us better clean that damn bathroom before…..

So sometimes when there are nearby tables at dinner with one of those oh-so-charming people (often college-age women I’ve found) who talk at decibels far too loud for public - we listen. Not only do we listen though, we add our own endings to the sentences and make our own little version of Mad Libs but often with a lot of sarcasm about the intelligence of the person who seems to have been born without volume control.

Tonight we had quite the dichotomy - behind Adventure Dad a couple breaking up right there at the table with comments like “but where am I going to go now?” Very sad and mostly quiet so we kept our low-decibel conversation out of theirs.

But behind me - a humor jackpot. What seemed like possibly a first date with the young woman who we learned was “already” in her Junior year at George Mason (this should be in no way seen as an indictment of this institution of learning - everyone has a few bright stars like this - even Yale).

A few moments that stuck out (and not only because of my vain attempt to keep from spewing out my chips and queso dip out of my nose);

Girl: Like, my Dad like teaches the like soldiers before like they get deployed

Us: to my bedroom.

Girl: I don’t really have a home church here yet, I have not been here longer enough

Us: longer enough to learn English, they don’t like teach that in like my classes until like Senior year, I think.

Girl: So this guy like came all the way up for me to show him around DC…

Us: and my dorm room.

Girl: No way, I would like never like go out with like a guy who like lives so far away, I’d like never see

Us: him naked.

Girl: I really get along with like everyone, but after like two months when I know people I just like know better and I don’t like 95% of them anymore because like they don’t

Us: want to spend all their like time talking about me.

This guy, who was actually sitting closer to us, never spoke - the poor guy was trying to agree with her with what we assumed was the intention to get into her pants (as she admitted to him - shh “don’t tell anyone I told you”) as did the Richmond guy and a few others (because it’s “like…what’s that word? Gossip.”). Dude - we listened to it for the thirty minutes it took us to eat and pay the check - I sure hope that guy got something for his time listening to a shrill diatribe about her all night long.

Well you all now know I’m really a sarcastic and mean person, but not to people’s faces so that makes it a bit better. However, I was working on what to say to them as we left. We considered; “Don’t worry - I won’t blog about this with your names” or (to the guy) “can I get the address of your blog? because I really want to read about this from your perspective” to my favorite “hey, do you have hearing trouble? no? then I suggest you get that checked out since that couple, over there in the far corner, she knows what you did behind the Jefferson Memorial with that guy from Richmond who is not your boyfriend.” Of course because I’m only a Mean Girl in my own sarcastic head and under my breath to my husband (and on my blog) so I walked out without a word feeling slightly less negative about my evening’s entertainment than I ought to.

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