Small talk
I went to get some pictures copied for a gift that Wife is putting together for her parents’ anniversary. As I dropped the photos in, the woman made small talk. Small talk’s great, except I’m terrible at it. I wish I could do, it but I always revert to the male thing of:
10 Find out if everything is OK
20 Ask “Is everything OK?”
30 Get answer
40 Variables include no, yes
50 If answer = no then go to 70
60 If answer = yes then go to 90
70 Fix it
80 Go to 20
90 Say “Good”
100 End
So she spoke about the weather while I filled my name on the receipts and confirmed that it might rain, although they said it would brighten up by the weekend, and quietly wonder how long it this thread of conversation is going to last. “It’ll be about an hour,” she says.
“Oh, God,” I think, and them I realise she’s talking about the pictures.
I come back in an hour, armed with small talk topics ranging from PIN Numbers to people who squeeze the toothpaste in the middle of the tube (especially on the Hammersmith and City line). I am primed. I can do trivia, I think. I can chew the fat. I offer the breeze a customary blindfold and cigarette and put the whistle to my lips.
“Here you go,” she says, “is it for an anniversary?”
Immediately disarmed, and not prepared to talk about myself, I feel a little uncomfortable. I don’t like it when photo shop people discuss your prints with you. It’s just too personal. You know the kind of comments: “That’s gotta hurt.” Or “Moving house?” Or “Cold that day, was it?”
“Anniversary, yes,” I say. Confidence boosted slightly, I go on. “They are celebrating their 40th anniversary the same week they become grandparents.” Beat that. Continuity, interest, flow, sentimentality.
“Hey wow,” she says, “how ironic.”
Setback. “Um…. no.” I think. I am desperate to ask her what is ironic is about a happy coincidence. It’s not even ironic in the loosest Alanis Morissette sense of the word, where ironic seems to mean “a pisser”. “Rain on your wedding day”? That’s not ironic, that’s just shit. Winning an election on the pledge of anarchy, gangsta rap being the salvation of rich kids living in the suburbs, the set of Waterworld burning down. That’s irony. A birth the same week as an anniversary ain’t.