Just you wait.

“So what’s it like?” I asked.

“You know what they say about working at a foundation,” Juliet replied.

“I do not,” I responded, “do tell.”

“You’ll never have a bad meal or a true friend again,” Juliet explained.

“You know I’ll always be a true friend,” I said.

“I know that, David,” Juliet confirmed.

“As long as you come up with a juicy grant for me,” I added.

The conversation ended well; I easily ducked the glass Juliet hurled at me.

“How are you?” The cashier asked cheerfully.

Even though I knew she’d been programmed by her employers to say that, I nevertheless decided to give her an honest answer.

“I’m fine,” I replied, “except for a powerful thirst for cheap wine.”

“You know what they say,” the clerk said, “never shop when you’re sober.”

Damn; I’ve never had better advice! Why didn’t anyone tell me that before?

“Where’d you get the botched experiment?” I asked.

“For your information,” Stephanie replied, “Señor Merde is a pedigreed Chihuahua.”

“My mistake,” I said, “up for a cheap and cheerful Chinese lunch? There’s a new place, Best of Show, on Grant that sounds interesting. They’ll fry up a little mongrel like that in twenty minutes.”

“You’re disgusting!” Stephanie shot back.

“That smells a little hypocritical coming from a carnivore,” I responded.

Not surprisingly, I enjoyed a burrito for lunch. I ate alone, and that was fine; I really didn’t feel like Chinese food anyway.

“Does that mean your memory is better or worse?” I asked.

“I should know that, shouldn’t I?” Deirdre replied.

A ringing phone interrupted the uncomfortable silence.

On one hand, those are all great words that deserve to live. On the other hand, there are all sorts of unthreatened words like esquipedalian, philter, nepenthe, meconium, imprecation, impecunious, eruct, dipsomania, contemn, contumacious, claque, choler, caitiff, calumniate, canthus, carminative, asymptote, epigone, melisma, et cetera, that are rarely used.

I lament that my brain is too small for such a large language; I’m such a jobernowl.

“What a great body,” Brett enthused in his lame opening gambit, “tell me you spend hours at the gym every day.”

“I’m afraid I don’t need to,” she said brushing him off.

“Then how did you get so slim?” Brett persisted.

“If you really want to know, I have an untreatable chronic disease,” she replied.

“I hope it’s a good chronic disease,” Brett quickly replied.

And then his face turned crimson as he realized the depth of his idiocy. After seeing Brett’s painful distress, I decided not to ask her, “If it’s a really good chronic disease, could you please give it to me?”

I failed to note the locale, the country, or the source of the quote in the story that captured my attention. I’m useless.

Since the dogs of the rich always eat better than the children of the poor everywhere, it looks like I have no news to report today. I blame it on the damned canines; they’re one of the myriad banes of my life.