Smile! You're Being Insulted!

Last night I was driving back from a meeting I attended with Bob. It was one of those great meetings where, even though they are asking you for money, you leave feeling like you want to give as much as you can. It's for the new school for our kids and the future kids in our town, so we're pretty excited about it.

Before the meeting I took a little extra special care in getting ready. It was kind of like a date - Bob and I would get to have dinner out without the kids - and so I wanted to take advantage. Instead of my all black attire, which is an easy fallback for me this time of year, I wore a pink camisole underneath a nubby sweater/blazer that had greens and pale blues in it. My enormous cheek zit, thanks to a poultice of Windex, Visine and other salves recommended last week, had faded to a smooth red spot, easily concealed with a little powder.

The meeting was uplifting and inspirational, and I left daydreaming about the new school campus for my children in just a few short years.

I called my close friend, another mom at the school, on my drive home to let her know how great the meeting was when a caller beeped in. "Oh, my. It's _________." It was a woman we both know. That's all I can say about that on this blog, along with the fact that we both rarely speak to this particular woman, though when we do, it is with a distant and civil courtesy. The story behind this is huge, but unfortunately, I can't go into it since other parents at the school may read this blog. And though I'm pretty sure they do not know this woman, you just never know.

"Hello?" (I said this even though my caller ID told me who she was)

"Hi, Jen. It was great to see you at the meeting tonight."

"Oh. Okay. It was great to see you, too." Before I could ask her why she was calling, she continued.

"Like I said, it was really great to see you. But I had to call you and ask you something. You looked really tired tonight. Are you alright?"

Without thinking, I laughed. Here this woman never calls me, rarely talks to me, and then she phones to tell me I looked tired?! So after I finished laughing I told her that no, I wasn't tired, I was still a little hung over from a party, but certainly not tired. She laughed, too, albeit a little nervously, and then said how great it was to talk to me and hung up.

What if I had just said that I wasn't tired? What would she have said, I wonder? Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, but I thought that entire call was bullshit. Who calls and says that to someone they barely know? Ugh....sometimes I really wonder about women...and I say this because I can't think of an instance where a guy would do this to another guy.

Next time I see her I just know I'll be silently ticking off all the things I would like to ask her...though I'll smile and nod and keep walking.