Lugging in to a conversation does nobody any good….Discuss !!!

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On the way to the dreaded “Dentist” to get my troublesome tooth sorted out, I began to vaguely be aware of a conversation going on two rows back on the back seat of the car.

To begin with, I started to be slightly bemused as two upper primary school children talked about who fancied who in school and who wanted to go out with who, and why it wasn’t safe to go to the loo alone to save you getting strangled (eek ###@@@)”

Slowly I became aware of the conversation taking a little turn for the worse.

“Mr X is gay” eldest announces with much enthusiasm, animation and effort in his tone of voice.

“Really, how you do you know?” pipes up the much interested littlest.

I interrupted the flow with the general ineffective statement “you can’t just go around calling everyone gay.” I carried on watching the road, conscious that my interruption was half hearted and not nearly good enough to stop this conversation from deteriorating much further.

“And he fancies Miss A and Mrs B,” eldest announces triumphantly.

“So he can’t be gay then?” I struggle to understand where this conversation is going.

“He flirts with them all the time.”

“What do you mean by flirt?” watches traffic lights closely with frowning brows to make sure I don’t miss the elusive green light with the enthralling turn of conversation.

“Well.”

“What, what, what, what did he do?” littlest screams at the pitch of his voice as his impatience for the answer makes him drown out the sound of the radio.

“He kind of says to Miss A and Mrs B to come and see him because he has something to show them.”

“And, how do think that means he fancies them?”

“Mum, it’s obvious, it’s the way he SAYS it.”

“Um, how did he say it then?”

“I can’t put my finger on it mum, it’s just HOW he said it. It’s just one of those things that when someone says something, you KNOW they mean something else.”

I try to change the subject by being sensible. “Well, maybe he really did just have something to show them. It doesn’t mean he fancies them.”

“Oh mum, you’re so old, you just don’t get it, and anyway, they won’t fancy him, as Mrs B has got a husband already so she shouldn’t be flirting, and mum….”

“Yes”

“Well, he sits in the lunch hall when we have our lunch, and he picks huge boogers out of his nose and rolls them up into a ball.”

Littlest joins in “He does, he does, and he flicks them across the floor when he’s finished.”

I feel my stomach protesting slightly at the thought of watching Mr X picking his nose and flicking it in the dinner hall.

“And guess what?” Eldest is determined to get the whole story out.

“Go on then, what.”

“Well, he picked a huge booger yesterday, it was really long, and he rolled it up and pinged it. It landed in a Primary 1’s dinner beside her peas and she picked it up on her spoon and ate it.”

I was almost at the dentist at this point and with the mental visual along with the toothache pain, my stomach began to heave, and I thought I was going to truly be sick. One thing is for sure, I am never going to be able to look Mr X in the face again without feeling the need to open up a sick bag.

Remind me that the next time I hear a conversation taking a turn for the worse TO STAY OUT OF IT and TURN UP THE RADIO.