CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

I'd gone to the grocery store and I guess I was running a bit late because Steven met me at the door.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

“I got a little side-tracked by a phone call.” I replied. I handed him a few bags to put on the counter.

“Who called you?” he asked.

“No one.”

Steven looked confused so I went on to explain. “I was in the store when a woman behind me was on her cell phone and she was a cell yeller.”

We'd both had experiences with cell yellers. Those annoying people who don't seem to know how loud they're talking.

“This woman says, 'I usually never do that on a first date, but I couldn't help myself this time.' I looked at Steven and shrugged my shoulders. “What was I supposed to do after she said that?” I asked.

Steven looked at me. “What doesn’t she do on the first date?”

“That's what I mean! There's no way I could walk away from that opening. So I had to follow her for three aisles before I found out it was eating spaghetti.”

“She doesn't eat spaghetti on the first date?”

“Nope, it turns out that she thinks it's too messy. She also can't figure out how much to put on her fork or if she should twirl it with a spoon or shove it against a piece of bread. But for some reason she decided to go for it on this date and gave it a try.”

Steven started to laugh. “But I still don't see how that would make you so late.”

“Are you kidding?” I opened the freezer to put the frozen food away. “By the time she got the whole story out I'd done all of her shopping with her. I was so busy pretending to shop for things I didn't need that I didn't get any real shopping done.

I put the oranges in the fruit bowl. “When I found out she wasn't going to have a very interesting conversation I had to put away all of my pretend shopping and start all over again!”

I began stacking the canned goods in the pantry. “You can see how time consuming that can be.”

“So what you're telling me is that you're late because you were too busy pretend shopping so you could eavesdrop on someone's conversation?”

“I was not eavesdropping!” I was insulted that he would even think that about me.

“So what do you call listening in on someone's personal call?”

“We've had this discussion before. “I reminded him. I was beginning to get annoyed. “It's not a personal call when you're shouting for everyone to hear.”

Steven didn't look convinced.

“Well, I wasn't the only one following her to listen to her conversation.” I reasoned.

“How do you know that?”

“Because when I got bored and started putting back my pretend shopping there were a few other people doing the same thing.”

“But how do you know they were listening to her conversation too?” he asked.

“Because I could hear them muttering about spaghetti and first dates.”

“You could hear them muttering?”

I shrugged my shoulders, “What can I say, Steven? I have excellent hearing.”