The Hot Goss

 “The key to good eavesdropping is not getting caught.” ― Lemony Snicket

Aunt Bev arrives. She has a new haircut. Points in her conversation with Mom:

They have a new cat. David is very excited. Cindy has a smoking problem and is up to two packs a day. Mom says she thinks Laurie was deliberately being mean when Nana was there yesterday. She says she fought terribly and acted blase. Bob and Carol are getting along better, although Bob did try to run his sock up Mom's leg at dinner. Lou's wife took almost everything he had. He lives in a little beach house with HIS DAUGHTER and the wife wanted alimony. But Lou wouldn't do it and the judge agreed. Mom is looking for another job, but with shorter hours. 

Kerrie returns home without her friends and an angry face. Kerrie says she isn't mad at them, but came home to eat (but why the angry face?)

I think this is the worst part of my journal back then. I was an intensely curious kid, and I had an innate interest, intrepid reporter that I was, to listen in on other people's lives, since there wasn't very much going on in mine. That means that I clearly spent the entire afternoon this day eavesdropping on my mother's conversation with her sister, and then writing down in my journal everything they talked about. What a little shit I was! 

And then, I gloss over the most interesting part of the exchange. Uncle Bob (not really my uncle) was trying to run his socked foot up and down Mom's leg during a dinner? With dad right next to her? I mean, what a creep he really was! I remember that man well--he was a gym coach, with one of those 70s moustaches that porn stars wore, with black hair thinning at the top. Thin and angular, as he was a runner. And a big old whorebag, I would always be overhearing stories my mom told about him. He eventually did divorce his wife later in life--one of those gray divorces you hear tell about, don't you know? It was not pretty. He ended up not speaking to my parents. 

And then! The way I end the whole entry, with my sister entering the room, and me trying to create drama out of nothing whatsoever. I am just manufacturing drama everywhere I go, child. 

Sometimes a face is just a face is just a face.