When a young man, I had a roommate temperamentally my exact opposite. Gregarious, effortlessly cheerful, unrelentingly outgoing, gifted with a nearly superhuman ability to expatiate eloquently and endlessly on the topic of his own daily existence. The telephone rarely left his hand.

Some of his anecdotes lost a little of their immediacy after the thirtieth retelling. I wanted to run screaming from the room: "I am not eavesdropping! I am not listening! I don't want to hear! Again!".

My wife wafted a thin smile across the coffee table as I (how many times now?) waxed eloquent on the evanescence of subtle flavors in best quality chocolate. Turning away, I thought I heard her run screaming from the room.

5/19/2021