Not enough of Too Much Information

We were invited to a barbecue. My contribution was to be a pasta salad, and since I was sick of my usual pasta salads, I selected a recipe I hadn't used before. This wasn't your boiled rotini with bottled Italian dressing sort of pasta salad. This one called for tortellini, dijon mustard, sun-dried tomatoes and prosciutto, among other things. Still, I headed to my local Aldi's because they carry prosciutto both chopped and sliced, and I had other groceries to buy.

While I was pulling yogurt and butter from the dairy case, the woman next to me was yakking on her cell phone. Like most folks, I usually tune out those sort of people, trying to preserve the privacy of both of us. But something she said just jumped out at me.

"Well, I told her she shouldn't go live with Papa after she got out of the penitentiary! Now look, she's right back in jail!"

I couldn't help listening after that, but I didn't hear anything else of interest. It made me feel sort of cheated. I mean, if you're going to broadcast that sort of personal information in the grocery store, don't you have an obligation to finish the story? Who's in the penitentiary? Her sister? Her mother? Her daughter? What did she do that put her there? And why was it a bad idea to go live with Papa? "Papa" is such a warm, cuddly name and yet apparently there's something sinister about him.

While I was pondering all this, I heard a noise behind me. Actually, it was less a noise and more of a vibration, barely audible to the human ear, but probably picked up by seismographs.

The deep, low, nearly out of range noise said "We need a loaf of bread." Okay, that's a pretty boring thing to say, but wow! the way he said it. I turned around to see just a dad shopping with his two little girls. A very tall, very black dad with a beyond-Barry-White voice.

The girls didn't seem impressed. I guess they're used to it.