“WHAT DO YOU THINK of our fellow diners?” he asks when the waiter has gone.
“I don’t know. I’m afraid to look. I don’t want to get caught.”
“Oh! You have to know how. Here, turn a little so that you’re facing toward me more. Okay. Now we’ll pick up our glasses and clink and lean in a little toward each other and take a sip and set the glasses down and lean in toward each other again, and now you look into my eyes and put an expression on your face as if you’re listening to me say romantic things to you.”
She makes a burlesque of it. They laugh.
“Be serious. At least look as if you’re paying close attention to me. Okay, now, while I’m still talking, keep your face turned just as it is, and let your eyes wander around the room. Riiiight. Now tell me a little something about what you see.”
“Well, right behind you there’s a man who’s about, oh, sixty, I guess, very fat, with big cheeks hanging down — ”
“Jowls.”
“Jowls?”
“Those big cheeks that hang down. They’re jowls. Or — no — they’re wattles. Wattles because that’s what they are on a turkey.”
Is that right? No, it’s not right. Wattles isn’t right. Wattles are nearer the neck, not like jowls.
He thinks he ought to correct himself, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to appear uncertain. He decides to let it stand.
Oh, good, says BW. You’ve taken an important step here. You are now officially leading the girl astray. She’s going to go around calling jowls wattles. I hope it’s not on the college boards.
“Wattles is perfect,” she says. “He has these big wattles. And he’s eating, I don’t know what he’s eating, but he like doesn’t seem to like it? He looks like a guy who doesn’t like much of anything. And he has a teeny little wife with him who just sits there and eats but doesn’t say anything. Oops, I take that back. She’s saying something now. And he’s shaking his wattles.”
She goes on, making comments about the diners she can see, and Matthew begins to feel blessed.
It’s as if I’ve been given a chance to go out on my first date all over again. But this time I know how to behave. I know what to do. Somehow I even know what to say.
[to be continued]
In Topical Guide 510, Mark Dorset considers Words: Meaning; Word Choice: Accuracy, Le Mot Juste; and Misinformation from this episode.
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🎧 510: “What do you . . .”