Conversation Hostage

Have you ever known someone who uses the phrase “how was your weekend?” as an opening to bore you with every minute detail of their own weekend? This self-absorbed pig really doesn't give a crap about your weekend – she’s just sucking you in!

How was your weekend?

Great. Relaxing. How was your weekend?

And you brace yourself ….

Well, I went with my sister and daughter to a spa upstate ...   I swear my father's spirit was with us this weekend because ... And then ... well my father grew up in Pennsylvania ... blah blah blah blah 

Because you are polite, you sit there nodding your head, saying

Wow, really?

That sounds nice

Rural Pennsylvania in the 1930's sounds interesting

While a nasty voice in your head says

Shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!

For the love of GOD, shut the hell up!

I don't give a rat's ass where your f*cking father grew up!

You’ve become a Conversation Hostage 

HELP ME!!!

And these people don't take a breath. They ramble on and on

Last week I went to the Laundromat …

I’m washing clothes, minding my own business, when a complete stranger starts talking at me. She’s an unattractive woman wearing stained sweatpants, black socks and sneakers. She holds a pocketbook on her arm like Sophia Petrillo from The Golden Girls.

I’m using six machines.

Sometimes I let the laundry go too long and it gets very heavy.

I think I have enough quarters for the dryers.

From her looks and idiotic blathering I assume she’s slow. I usually have a little more patience for people with diminished mental capacities.
Yeah, yeah, I know -- I’m a friggin saint. So I offer up a silent prayer and figure what the hell, it’ll be good karma. She went from one subject to another. I’m half-listening, not really looking at her, doing my well rehearsed conversation hostage routine.

Wow, really?

That sounds nice

Nodules on a dog anus? Sounds interesting

Sophia is now following me from washer to dryer to dryer (still with pocketbook on arm) talking about a new local catering hall.

"...and all the beer, wine and soda you want for only $35.00 a plate.”

And then "mentally challenged Sophia Petrillo said something that made something inside me snap:

The whole wedding is costing us only $4000.

My first wedding was so expensive.

We’re going to Disney World for our honeymoon.

 I’m taking my 9 year old daughter because the first time I took her she was only little ...

Wait .... What? 

Let me explain something – at this point in my life I don’t want go get married. I’m 53. Picking out a man now is like shopping in a thrift store – you have to sift through another woman’s old, used rejects or the irregulars. 

And don't be fooled by the Family Stores -- they have no families for sale! 

When I was in my 30's it would have been nice to have married.  By now I could have been divorced with a nice alimony settlement or widowed with a nice pension and life insurance policy dividends.  I'd have a nice little place on the beach, drinking martinis served to me by Carlos the Cabana Boy.

Mucho Bonito

The only cabana boy you get at the thrift stores:

Mucho Creepo

But in any event, I never married.  I used to do a bit on stage about being over 40 and never married and how men now look at me like I’m a bowl of Life cereal.

“I’m not gonna try it, you try it.”
“I’m not gonna try it, you try it.”
“Hey let’s get Mikey to try it.”
"He won't like it.  Mikey hates everything."

“Where’s that Mikey when you need him.”      Laugh laugh laugh.

I stopped doing that bit because younger audiences never saw the commercial and had no idea what I was talking about.

Anyway, men have asked Sophia Petrillo for her hand in marriage– not once, but twice! Well, that’s how many times she’s said yes.  Perhaps she’s been asked many more times, who the hell knows!

Hey, I'm cool with the mentally challenged getting married. Remember Benny from L.A. Law?  He got married.

Probably the most famous mentally challenged person to marry was Corky from that show Life Goes On.

Yes!  Corky got married! I was happy for Benny and Corky and their respective mentally challenged wives.  Okay, so they’re all fictional characters, but still .... they got married!

So forgive me for being a little BITTER, but when Sophia starts talking about being a bride -- FOR THE SECOND TIME -- I'm kind of pissed!  I finally take a good hard look at Sophia and realize -- she's not retarded!

She’s just really ugly, dresses funny and talks too much!

For over an hour I allowed myself to be a Conversation Hostage!

I'm moving to Cozumel

I can say "no habla Espanol"