Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Eavesdroppings

These are two of my favorite conversations from the past few days.

First one takes place while I’m violating my cholesterol probation at the lunch counter of Hunter House, a venerable, must-get-acquainted-with, landmark burger stand near my new home.

Woman just off my shoulder, after struggling to order: “I am sorry. I do not speak this language well.”
Late teen, early-20s guy working the grill: “What language do you speak?”
Woman: “Russian.”
Grill guy: “So do I.” And a short unintelligible-to-me transaction later, one more happy customer has her burgers.
Second one is between me and a neighbor with daughters on the swim team that practices at the city pool where I’ve been wondering for about eight weeks now why my splits are a tick slower than I think they ought to be.
Me: “Is that pool 25 yards or 25 meters?”
Neighbor: “Meters.”
Okay, that second one neither sounds interesting nor makes me look especially bright, but I very much liked the information it yielded.

The first one just made me happy once I could believe it was actually taking place.

Life is good, and once in a while the pleasures really are that simple.

5 comments:

veloben said...

It's fun living in the big city.

Sam said...

funny how 2.3 yards can make you think that doing a duathlon would be a better plan.

Unknown said...

Ah, the joy of realizing what you thought were slow splits were indeed fast splits. Congratulations!

Noel said...

Train in a meter pool... race in a yard pool. It's like swinging two bats in the on deck circle.

Daniel said...

I didn't know you moved out of Lansing :) -- good thing I started reading your blog!

I just moved myself, but to downtown Lansing. I like being able to walk to work and the City Market.