What's That You Say?
Learned a lesson a few weeks back, and that lesson was, ‘What I hear isn’t necessarily what you said.’
Why do I need that lesson? Read on…
I was on the phone with a friend one night, when out of the blue, she asked me, “Have you ever watched Hardcore Porn?”
Well, that took an unfortunate turn.
If we were face to face, she would have literally seen my jaw drop. This was not a conversation I ever expected to have with a person, let alone a woman.
"I, um, I, well," I stumbled over my words, then pulled myself together enough to say "uh, why would you ask me that?"
She paused, then repeated, "Did you ever watch Hardcore Porn?"
Before I continue, let me give a little back story on how this friendship began.
Almost every day, I walk in a park just one town over. One day, I crossed paths with a woman and her dog. As she passed me, she asked if there were any dogs up ahead. There are a lot of dogs in the park, and its somewhat of a social community.
I told her I didn’t see any, and continued on my way.
After that, almost every day, we crossed paths. Eventually, we joined those paths and walked together most days (based on the weather, I’m no hero).
Although she and I are not dating, we both have been divorced, and every once in a while one of us will start sharing a history that the other one may not want to hear.
For those situations, we came up with a conversational safe word, which I immediately invoked here.
"Abercrombie," I pleaded into the phone, "Abercrombie!"
There was a pause in the conversation, but she finally understood my use of the conversational safe word.
She laughed, then said, "Oh My God!! Hardcore Pawn, P-A-W-N! It's a reality show - I just saw a clip of the show and wondered if you ever saw it."
Well, that was close.
At least we had a good laugh about it afterwards.
However, this would not be the last time I misheard something that she said.
For example, don’t even ask me what I think I heard when she said ‘boiled peanuts’.
Abercrombie!
