The Dropping of the Eaves

I’m sitting at dinner, eating what the dining hall has labeled “Sweet & Sour Chicken” and which I would use an entirely different S-word to describe. The hall is crowded; I’m alone and that can only mean one thing: eavesdropping.

Call it childish. Call it inconsiderate. Call it what you will. It’s entertaining. Eating alone can be incredibly pressuring. There may be people there you know but not well enough to invite yourself to eat with. So then you have to deal with those people you slightly know seeing you eat by yourself.

Suppose there are people there you could sit with but you don’t see them and sit alone. Then they think you chose not to sit with them on purpose. This gets blown way out of proportion, with boycotts and demonstrations, so that before you know it, you’ve lost a friend on thefacebook.

And for those of you out there who think eavesdropping is an invasion of privacy, you’re right, it is. It absolutely is. But if you’re going to talk openly – not to mention loudly – in public about your crush on turquoise warthogs, I deserve to have that extra information when you make a pass at me during a party in the distant future.

So I’m at dinner, facing the wall, enjoying the solitude, when someone else’s conversation starts to drift in.

“I’m so sick. I sound like a 13 year-old boy.”

Now, I apologize if this was you. I just overheard it. It’s not like I can put it back. There’s no undo on hearing. It’s like giving a bum your sandal, realizing that was a bad move, and then trying to take it back. It can’t be done.

I’m not going to turn around and stare right at this person after they said they sound like a 13 year-old boy. I play it cool and wait for the appropriate moment to sneak a glance at this gender-bending diner.

I’ve gotten rather good at this. You nonchalantly drop your napkin and take a peek. Or even better, pretend you’re looking for someone who’s supposed to join you. Once I even pretended to crack my back. There’s a million ways to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. My knowledge of at least forty doesn’t seem so bad in the great scheme of things now, does it?

The best part about eavesdropping is not picking up interesting gossip and information to blackmail people with. That actually gets old after about the 4^th person you blackmail and the authorities start getting involved, forcing you to spend a few months down in Nicaragua with the geckos while avoiding Interpol agents with Nerf guns.

No, the best part is that you can make up histories and faces from these characters and the snippets of their life you’ve picked up. I’ve given this girl jet black hair, glasses, and a music collection centered around the shoegaze movement of the late 80’s and early 90’s. She wears clothing that’s not too revealing, but flattering nonetheless. Her father is a stock broker and her mother runs the arts and crafts camp for the local park district back home in Maine. This cold came on suddenly, almost as if someone wanted her to lose her voice so that she couldn’t audition for the part of Belle in an up-and-coming production of Beauty and the Beast. Foul play is afoot. I’ll figure out who sabotaged your stage career, Audrey, if it’s the last thing I do.

But my chance never came with the sex-changing, age-defying cold sufferer. Before I knew it, that gravely voice had disappeared, and when I turned to look, the table was empty. My vocally challenged friend was gone. Never will I know whose face spoke with that voice of a 13 year-old boy named Gene. Such is life in the eavesdropping movement sweeping dining halls all over New England. Wait, what’s this I hear?

“Apple Cinnamon Cheerios should be put on a pedestal and worshipped.”

Really? That’s interesting, Sadie….