Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Bra Shopping with Rumplestilskin

So I'm out bra shopping with my wife, which isn't nearly as exciting as it sounds. Pretty much means baby sitting two younger daughters while an overweight angry store clerk shuffles off to a dressing room with the wife reappearing, neither terribly happy, after a month or two to get another size bra. So anyway, I'm on this plastic sofa outside the fitting room as Dhara, aged 8, is describing to Mina, aged 12, how someone in some story she heard in school wakes up older each day. After a few days, this fictitious character is, "as old as dad!", Dhara exclaims. I continue reading from my iPhone, minding my own business but still aware of what is being said. It's sort of like being in two places at once, a skill developed during years of parenting. The trick is to catch important phrases in a conversation then zero in with peak efficiency when appropriate, like the CIA listening to thousands of conversations that they're not suppose to and picking up the occasional hot phrase at which point they focus and record the whole thing, like they're not suppose to. So, like I said, I'm reading and skimming the conversation when I catch the catch phrase from Mina, "Look Dhara, that makes no sense", a sure sign of Dhara suggesting something dangerous or expensive to fix. I zeroed in, Mina continued, "You can't go from you to that" motioning from her to me, "in a few days!" "But he was asleep a long time", Dhara protested. "Dhara, you can't get those wrinkles, that bald and tired in a few days", Mina insisted. Dhara thought a minute as she examined THAT, as in me, and conceded, "Maybe he was asleep for 71 years". Mina glanced at me and also conceded, "Yeah maybe you could get that in 71 years".

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