an overheard conversation - in three acts

I was at the supermarket yesterday, waiting in line at one of those self-scanning stations. The guy ahead of me was scanning his groceries when his cell phone started ringing. He answered the phone and, unlike the hushed tones that some people use to speak on their cells, this man was an extremely loud cell phoner, speaking in a booming voice as if he was alone in his house rather than standing in the grocery store at 8:30 pm on a Monday night.

As he continued to scan, it became clear that the entire store would be audience to the call.

Act I: The Meeting

“Phil, how are you? I’m fine. Yeah, the flight back was great, but I just gotta tell you about what happened. You won’t believe it. I was sitting in the airport bar since I had about two hours to kill, and this lady comes up and sits next to me. We start talking, I buy her a drink, and before you know it, we’re both sitting there doing shots of tequila. So I slip off my wedding ring..."

Act II: The Deception

"...one thing leads to another, and soon this woman is all over me. We're both pretty trashed by this time and I really have to pee, so I ask her to watch my briefcase and carry-on bags while I go to the bathroom. So she looks me straight in the eye and tells me to hurry because she's got a room at the airport hotel and maybe we could slip upstairs before my flight...no, I'm not shitting you! I'm dead serious man! So I take the fastest pee of my life and head back out to the bar, but when I get there she’s gone, and so are all of my bags..."

Act III: The Mess

"...so I throw some money down on the bar and go running out after her. And not 50 feet from the bar, I find her standing in the middle of the terminal puking all over my luggage! The stupid bitch barfed on my bags! I grabbed them and headed back to the john to rinse off as much of the puke as I could. It’s a good thing I bought her all those drinks, otherwise she would have made off with all my stuff."

As he finished up his story and began talking about the football scores from the day before, I looked down and studied my choice of grocery purchases; a box of granola bars, coffee, and a package of Winterfresh mints. I stood there thinking, ‘Boy, what a boring life I lead.’

I put the mints back on the shelf and replaced them with a pack of the ‘Hot & Fiery’ variety instead. Satisfied that life had become more exciting, I thought, ‘there, that’s better.’