My friend Abigail and I were having coffee at Starbucks and talking about everything from birthday cakes to chick flicks. We were right in the middle of a personal discussion concerning Abigail's treatment by a rude and obnoxious guest at a recent barbeque picnic, when a man began browsing the newspaper shelf near our table.
The man was standing so close to us we could have combed his hair.While we were talking, we kept looking at him from the corners of our eyes. We were aware that he could hear every word we said. I signaled to Abigail to stop talking so we just sat there in silence waiting for the guy to leave. He didn't. At least not right away.
The silence was so great that Abigail couldn't stand it and asked me, "So, have you been playing the piano lately?"I launched into "piano mode" and rattled off my repertoire, all the while hoping this guy would go away. Finally, he did and we were able to finish our discussion about the boorish behavior of the oaf at the picnic.
Later on, we laughed about the newspaper guy. We thought we should have pulled that stunt in the Seinfeld episode where Elaine, Jerry and George are sitting in the restaurant and a woman is eavesdropping on their conversation. They find out someone's listening to them so Elaine says to George and Jerry: "So you're gay. Who cares? Come out of the closet already."I should have said to Abigail, "So tell me all about your sex change operation."
