A crowded seafood joint. Everyone is eating. The sound of George Jones is blasting over the speakers.
The elderly couple next to me is shouting with such strong voices that I can hardly keep my mind on my own thoughts. Both of these people are wearing hearing aids and using voices loud enough to register on the Richter Scale.
The waitress brings their food then leaves. The old man looks at his food and hollers to his wife. The conversation goes like this:
OLD MAN: Honey, I asked for this burger to be cooked WELL DONE, this is rare.
OLD WOMAN: Just eat it. It won’t kill you. Besides, you used to like it rare.
HIM: I also used to like spicy food and raw oysters, but you don’t see me eating them anymore.
HER: When did you quit eating oysters?
HIM: Ever since Roger Collins ate them and came down with the gingivitis.
HER: That’s not how you say it. It’s not gingivitis.
HIM: Whatever, I don’t eat raw oysters. They’re gross. Gingivitis kills people. His doctor said he and Shirley can’t have kids anymore.
HER: Shirley is almost eighty.
HIM: Still.
HER: And it’s not gingivitis you get from oysters, you dummy. It’s MENINGITIS. Don’t you know anything?
HIM: It’s been thirty years since I had an oyster. My dad always said never to eat them in months that begin with “R.”
—LONG PAUSE—
HER: There are no months that begin with “R. And the expression is about months that END in “R.”
HIM: So then I can eat all I want in August and July?
HER: Yes.
HIM: And May and June?
HER: And March. Now eat your hamburger.
HIM: What about April?
HER: What about it?
HIM: Roger ate his oysters in April and got his conjunctivitis.
HER: It’s not conjunctivitis, how many times do I have to tell you? It’s GINGIVITIS. Our food’s getting cold.
…