Live and Learn

Flash Fiction

Live and Learn

“What did she mean when she said ‘me too’, if it wasn’t me too?” Jeff asked David.

“How naïve are you?” David said, laughing.

“I’m not naïve, that’s what she said!”

“I believe you; it sounds exactly like something she would say. It just doesn’t mean what you’re thinking it means.”

“I didn’t understand a word of that. How can it not mean what it means?”

“You’re a guy, we guys speak guy talk. She’s a girl and she speaks girl talk…”

“What are you talking about? We all speak English!”

“Ah, but there’s a lot of sneaky parts of English. Like when we tell my mother her brownies are yummy. We happen to know they’re terrible. My mother can’t bake her way out of a paper bag. She makes the worst brownies in the world! But my brother and I always take one to make her feel better. And, we always say something nice like, ‘You are such a good cook!” which is kinda true, but only if you are talking about cooking on the grill when we’re camping…”

“Are you kidding?”

“No, my father gave us the info when we were young so that Mom wouldn’t feel bad. She rarely cooks on purpose, she hates cooking, but when she does, we want her to know we appreciate the try.

“And this relates to Susan, how?”

“You said you liked bike riding in the park, right?

“Yes…”

“And she said “Me too,” right?”

“Yes…”

“Well… you took it as a plan to go bike riding in the park together, but she obviously took it as casual chatting, until you started asking her when she wanted to go…”

“So, when she said she was too busy…”

“Yeah, that was a ‘but not with you’.”

“Crap’”

“Live and learn.”