Huh?

How would you react when a coworker asks you if you knew he and his wife were separated and are getting a divorce? Keep in mind that you don't know this coworker and he's actually in a totally different class than you; you work in a different area than he does (he has his own office and secretary); you don't hang out with him, ever; Oh, he also makes about four times as much money as you do. How would you react?

My reaction this morning (He told me as we were walking to work. He spotted me and hurried to catch up with me. I had changed the way I walk to work once so I wouldn't walk with him. I guess I'll have to do it again.) was just a blank look. I didn't know what to say.

I didn't want to say that it was horrible new. What if it's good for him and his wife and his kids?

I didn't want to be sarcastic and say that it was lovely news. What if he didn't catch the sarcasm?

I he had been paying attention to me, he may have realized that the look on my face was all about trying to figure out what to say.

"Did you know my wife and I are separated?" he asked.

"No," I said.

And I didn't know. I tried my best to stay out of the non-work-related gossip while I worked at 'Bucks. It was hard, there, because there are so many younger employees who like to shout their relationship woes from the Frap bar. Here, there's no effort involved in staying out of it. I see a group of whispering women; I turn around and scoot out in a hurry. The less I know about these people, the better.

"Oh," he said, sounding surprised, which struck me as odd because why would he expect me to know such a thing. "Well, we're separated and getting divorced." Then he went on about... well... I don't know what. I was still trying to figure out what my reaction should have been.

Maybe it'll help you to know what we were talking about before the divorce came up.

I was walking down the street, listening to music, when I heard my name from behind me. I, foolishly, turned around and saw... I'll call him JWSC. He smiled at me and asked me what I was listening to.

I pulled my usual dodge and said, "Anything, really: music, comedy, poetry, radio shows, whatever." (I was listening to the trailer for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Tertiary Phase at that moment. Because it's funny, people.)

"Oh, do you have Sirius?" he asked, smiling again.

"No," I said, "just my 'Pod."

"Ah," he said, still smiling. "Do you use iTunes?"

"No," I said, "it all comes from my CDs, CDs I scammed from my dad, and music I pulled from my old roommate's computer."

"Oh," he said, frowning quickly and then smiling again.

"Besides," I said, "I don't have the internet at my apartment."

"Yeah," he said, his smile sagging a bit, "I know what you mean." That's when he said, "Did you know my wife and I are separated?"

How's that for a seeming non-sequitur? (I say seeming because he eventually found a way to connect the internet to his impending divorce.)

And that's why I didn't know how I should have reacted. I still don't know, for that matter.

On a different note, here's a cropping of a picture one of my brothers sent to our mother for Mother's Day:

I'll be back tomorrow somewhere between the beginning of work and the end.

'Night.