you must be joking (or how to draw a slightly offended look)

"well, it's good for the drought," he said as she unplugged her laptop and gathered her notebooks from the table. the previous night's storm had dropped rain at a rate of four inches per hour. traffic had stopped, power had gone out, and lightning had struck everything that stood more than twelve feet off the ground. "i'm sure it's nice to live in an apartment and not worry about the lawn!"

her right eyebrow raised. "oh?" she asked, knowing his kids were older than her. "do you live in an apartment?"

he said, "no." but his eyes said, "i think i've just done something wrong."

"i have a lawn ... it came with the house." progress from the tiny meeting room stopped for a second so he could ask if she rented.

"no," she said, not having to resort to one of those fake customer service smiles that she'd almost gotten used to. "i bought it a few years ago."

as soon as the "B" word came out of her mouth he looked at her hands ... rather, he looked at her left hand. "it's just me and the dog," she said, innocently shrugging her shoulders as if she couldn't believe it either.

with a nervous chuckle he said, "i'm going to have to talk to your boss. you must be making too much money! hmmmmmm ... how old was i before i could afford my first house?"

she smiled politely as he avoided eye contact.

as they reached the end of the aisle, they said their good-byes and have-a-nice-afternoons and went their separate ways home.



... and the moral of the story is: don't be like that.