#27 Keep Our Voices Down
May 12th, 2008 by doing better
This weekend we were eating at a casual outdoor restaurant when I recognized a young guy at a nearby table: he is a college student in town and also happens to be the grandson of a notorious billionaire. One of my friends knows him, but I have never been introduced to him. He was with a woman and two girls, all of whom shared with him certain prominent facial features. I presumed they were his mother and sisters. Also at their table were a scruffy-looking man with a ponytail and a rugged face, who might have been a bodyguard or a hippie, and some other elaborately-dressed people, whom I overheard saying they had just come from “a fancy dress barbecue”.
I said to my boyfriend, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we kidnapped the billionaires in the corner? We could write a ransom note on the back of the restaurant check.”
He replied, “How would we do it? Would we bundle the little girl into the back of a car?”
I glanced at their table and saw that they were all staring at us and laughing. I had never been so embarrassed in my life. I had not thought I was speaking loud enough for them to hear. It was very strange that they would take such a jovial view of kidnapping conspiracies, but perhaps they were billionaires with a sense of humor. I immediately began to tell my boyfriend a loud, boring story about a friend who had taught English in Italy, but they kept staring at us and laughing. They seemed to be in a very good humor.
Then the scruffy bodyguard-type rose from the table. He approached us and took out a pocket knife.
“Oh God!” I thought. “He is going to slit our throats for threatening his billionaires.”
He opened the blade and said, “I just can’t watch you do this any longer.” He took a packet of ketchup from my boyfriend’s fumbling hands and pierced it with his knife. The ketchup sprayed all over my boyfriend’s jacket and shopping bag. The billionaires laughed merrily.
We thanked the bodyguard for rescuing my boyfriend from his ketchup packet impasse. Although his struggles to open the packet had escaped my notice, it was this which had drawn their attention. We smiled and nodded. My boyfriend went off to wash his jacket. I tried to eat the rest of my mushroom pie, but I was so traumatized by what had nearly happened that I could hardly taste the food. We left soon afterwards, and I resolved never again to make any kind of inappropriate remarks about anything whatsoever. Somebody must hold me to that.