Conversation Overdrive

“Conversation Overdrive”

Have you ever stood around gabbing with a group of people at some function, and have the conversation go off in a weird direction?

That happened to me just last night. I was invited to a little after hours business mixer type deal, and found myself standing around with a group of four other people, two men and two women. As we stood there gabbing, one of the men made the comment that it was summer, and because of the heat that he slept with just his white briefs on. Or, as my son Will calls them, “whitey tidies.”

Instead of all of us glaring at him like he was insane, the other guy mentioned that he mostly slept in the buff. He was touched with a little more than a casual degree of haintness, and I can remember the first thought out of my mind being, “God, those poor sheets.” (I was definitely glad he had mentioned this after I’d eaten dinner). Funny thing was, instead of letting the whole topic drop, one of the ladies chimed in and said that she mostly slept in gym shorts and a t-shirt. My interest picked up a little at that, as she was curvier than Dames Ferry Road, but my interest skidded sharply downwards when the other woman said that she slept with “just some sheets and a smile.” I took that to mean that she slept naked as a jaybird as well, which, in her particular case, was something I could have gone without knowing. She was a PhD level haint, if the truth be told, and really should wear lots of clothes at all times.

After these assorted revelations, they all looked over at me, and finally the naked sleeping lady haint asked,

“Well Ed, what about you?”

“What about me, what?”

“What do you sleep in? The rest of us have volunteered our nightly wardrobes.”

“But I didn’t really want to know what ya’ll all sleep in to begin with.”

“Oh c’mon, this is fun. Tell us.”

I thought about it for a second, and then figured what I slept in was none of their business. I decided instead to use some diversionary tactics. Going with this strategy, I said, “Look, I’ll tell ya’ll, but there’s something I‘ve never understood about sleeping apparel.”

One of them took the bait, and asked what I meant.

“Well, some of it just doesn’t make sense. First off, let’s consider what men sleep in. Typically, we men either sleep naked, in our drawers, or, worst yet, we wear pajamas. Think about those choices a second. Sleeping naked might sound sexy and all, but the reality is that the sexiness goes away the first time you get up during the night to use the bathroom and the air conditioner happens to be blowing - the word “chilled” takes on a whole new meaning. If you sleep in your drawers, that’s not good, cause most times you wake up with elastic band marks cut into your waist. And, if you decide to go with pajamas, they can cost a lot, and most of the time you look like a dork.”

“Contrast that with women. With women, they pay more to wear less. Women love to wear lingerie, which basically is a garment full of holes held together with lace and see-through material. The less cloth and the more holes it has in it, the more it costs. Really, when you get down to it, why bother? The woman may as well be naked, which she basically already is if she’s wearing lingerie, and save herself some serious money.”

My strategy actually worked. The ladies got into an intense discussion regarding lingerie, and why my perception of it was all wrong. I feigned interest in the topic, throwing in some more comments to get the pot really stirred, and then one of the guys got me totally off the hook when he posed this tender question to the group,

“Do ya’ll think Chelsea Clinton has passed Amy Carter as the worst looking Presidential daughter of the modern era?”

Like I said, sometimes you can be talking with a small group and have the conversation go off into some really, really, really weird directions....