SSCHPLATT. I heard and saw the
gristle fly from Schloem ("everybody calls me '
Sammy'")'s fork to land on Rebecca ("everybody calls me 'Becky'")'s plate.
It's a very expensive restaurant. They're paying. They are (or were) my in-laws (or ex-in-laws).
On meeting Sammy and Becky I noticed the cross-talking. The ignoring of each other. The "I hate you, you whose very presence has cursed me and all my generations until the End of Days" kind of way they had with listening to each other.
Sammy drove. My husband (their son I was so very lucky to have married before they had the good fortune to meet me and look me over but what can you do with this shiksa anyway) sat looking out the window looking bored but actually engaged in a meditative higher state than I could ever attain centering on the tatas I did not have but which the neighbour had. I stopped thinking about which lane we were in. The traffic flowing by the windows almost flowed over the windshield a few times. I just stopped thinking. (I hadn't been thinking too much lately, just having a lot of thoughts.)
SCHPLANPT Another piece of gristle. So these people had been married for forty years now? Nice.
I also have a story about Chinese takeout that might be too dark for E2.
Update: By request, I put it up.