Polite Dinner Conversation

I think one of life's greatest pleasures is listening to conversations you aren't necessarily supposed to hear. It's always great for a little bit of amusement. I'm not talking about planting bugs in somebody's bedroom. Rather, I am talking about those people who love to have conversations in public and don't care what people think or who might hear them.

Public cell phone conversations are really funny.. A lot of people think that with only one half of the conversation public, nobody will be smart enough to catch on to what is really going on. Those people are wrong, and while they are annoying, they can be funny as well. There are a few times when I have been on the humorous end of a public cell-phone conversation. For example, I was returning a phone call to a friend of mine while at the supermarket after she said "Hello", I said "Hey baby!". A woman who was picking out some apples in the produce department turned around, thinking I was talking to her (she was cute, but married, and I am no home wrekcer). The look on her face said she wanted to smack me like I had just pinched her ass, but when she saw that I was on the phone, her look turned to one that was slightly perturbed, as if she was upset her husband doesn't answer the phone like I did.

However, the best conversations in public happen at a restaurant. I've mentioned Genghis Cohen, my favorite Chinese place in LA before, and the combination of their layout and the eclectic clientele always make for some good eavesdropping.

Case 1: There were two older couples eating at a table about halfway across the restaurant. I couldn't really hear their conversation, but you could hear the laughter at the table. I am not sure what was so funny, or if there was just a few more extra martinis at the table, but one person in particular was really enjoying themselves. the laugh sort of wound up from a chuckle into an all-out wail. The people at my table started laughing immediately, and every single time it happened, we would laugh a little louder. Then we started noticing other tables were all laughing at these other people laughing, and it got a little crazy. Eventually, the original offenders got their garlic chicken, and things calmed down, but it was funny.

Case 2: Sometimes, there are things that you just don't want to hear about at dinner. One of those would be a person describing in detail their escapades with prostitutes in Asia. On a different day at Genghis Cohen, that is exactly what happened. Somebody was telling his friends about his time taking advantage of the rampant poverty in some southeast Asian nation where he had a hooker or two. After getting the gist of the story, I didn't really want to hear anymore, but I did here the guy talk about the nickname one of the girls gave him - Mikey Strong Cock. Yes, Mikey Strong Cock. Hearing that was bad enough, but this guy also imitated the accent his concubine had, and that made it even worse. I couldn't have been the only person who heard him, and I wonder how many people he tells that story to thinking that it will make him look impressive.