Category: Other Shit NEC

On the eve of Christmas Eve, many years ago, my mom and I took a short trip to Charleston, South Carolina. While in town, my mom asked to visit a local antique shop. 

While inside, casually perusing, I came across an expensive, but otherwise nondescript wooden coffee table. Is that really the price? Why so expensive?

Granted, I didn’t know anything about the maker, wood, style, vintage, or history of the table. Did The Honorable John C. Calhoun stack his “gentlemen’s magazines” on it? I don’t know. All I saw, directly in front of me, was an old coffee table. 

“Hey Mom, did you see the price on this coffee table?”

“No. What is it?”

“Eight.”

“Hundred?”

I gave a quick head shake, to imply the presence of another zero.

My mom quickly reevaluated our presence in the shop: “We need to leave. We don’t belong in here.”

No, we don’t, and that we did–we left. No discussion, no hesitation, just legs moving. We didn’t need to buy anything in that shop and we sure as hell didn’t need to break anything.

One of my simple pleasures in life: honesty. I love honesty. Thankfully, my mom and I both understand and speak honesty fluently.

After graduating college, I worked briefly as a low-level filing clerk at a law firm. During my exit interview, my supervisor (a very professional, conservatively-dressed, 50-year-old woman) and I were discussing my experience working there, feedback from co-workers, my future plans, etc. At some point during the conversation, in this professional work setting, she asks me in all seriousness and with a straight face, “Are you a playboy?”

WHAAAAAAAAAT? 

Where did that come from? Look at me. What would even make you think that I have that option? There is absolutely nothing to indicate that. If anything, quite the opposite.

A few weeks later, I was relaying this interaction to my sister while she was driving us somewhere on the freeway. Her historic knowledge of me and the sheer absurdity of the question made her laugh hysterically and for a prolonged time. So much so that she almost had to pull over to maintain bodily control and vehicular control.

After the continuous laughter had gone on for quite some time, it became a little embarrassing.

Is it really THAT funny? Am I that much of a nerd that it is that ridiculous to even fathom? Actually, come to think of it, I am and it is. I see your point. Thank you for not crashing. Explaining the incident and the backstory to the cops and to the insurance company would have introduced additional rounds of laughter and humiliation.

“She asked what? To that guy? BAHAHAHAHA!!”