Smile and Nod

When I was young, my parents had friends who used to visit them quite often. The husband, a salesman, not only had "the gift of the gab," he was a veritable raconteur. The only problem was that his stories would take the form of non-stop stream-of-consciousness blow-by-blow commentaries. Here's an example where he narrates his meeting with a fellow salesman. Particulars have been slightly altered to protect the identity of the guilty:

"So I met Frank, and I said, 'Hi, how are you?' and he said, 'Fine, and how are you?' and then we sat down and talked pants..."

My dad had the habit of assuming a poker-face at moments like this, so as not to be rude. Smile and nod, smile and nod. But later, when the visitors were gone, he amused himself and us mightily by lampooning his friend. He had a highly developed sense of the ridiculous.

But I've noticed that many people, otherwise delightful individuals, have this character flaw which annoys or amuses me depending on my mood. I've had taxi-drivers tell me in great detail about the vicissitudes of their daily schedules or what they were going to do once their shift ended, or what they had done the previous weekend during an outing with their grandchildren--complete with an exhaustive inventory of what games were played, what foods were consumed, what cute things the holy terrors said to grand-dad. Et cetera. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseam.

Meanwhile, as one such narrative meanders sluggishly onward to its undramatic conclusion, I am in the passenger's seat praying that the driver keeps his eyes on the road and does not catch me rolling my eyes. I'm also praying that traffic runs smoothly. Smile and nod, smile and nod.

Or I am stuck in a restaurant with another raconteur whose conversation flows from one topic to another. I excuse myself to use the men's room. On my return, my friend remarks that I have taken quite a while. I don't dare tell him that I was looking at the window in the cubicle, trying to figure out if I could fashion a rope out of toilet paper, climb through the window, leap down the outside wall and make a clean getaway down a back alley.

But there are several reasons why this plan would not have worked. First, the one-ply stuff they use in these places is notoriously flimsy, so it wouldn't have made a serviceable rope. Second, I am not in the least athletic. Third, my friend drove us down here, which means that to get home I would have had to hail a cab. And with my luck...

So I apologize and sit back down. Smile and nod, smile and nod.