B1006-2 The Words We Use

I stood next to that rack of gift cards in the supermarket and pondered the many choices I had before me. When a woman came by and stood next to me, I showed her a gift card from Ruby Tuesday restaurant. I asked her if you could use that card on a Wednesday. She looked genuinely puzzled and muttered a tentative “I guess so” in response. Later, when I went to the check-out counter, I asked that chirpy check-out girl the same question. She, too, looked pensive and unsure when I asked her that question. She did seem a bit more certain that I could use a Ruby Tuesday gift card on a Wednesday, however. She told me that she had gone to T.G.I. Friday’s restaurant recently with her boyfriend. As they sat in the booth waiting for their order to arrive, she looked around the restaurant and then she told her boyfriend that it was funny that “this place is only open on Fridays.” Indeed it was! But then funny things always seem to happen to chirpy blondes. Meanwhile, the woman standing next to the gift card rack couldn’t take her eyes off the Ruby Tuesday cards as she stood there frowning.

I had thought to ask her: If two planes flying side by side is called a formation, what do you call four planes flying side by side? An eight-mation? But that might have been unfair. I suspect that she would be the sort of woman who would be surprised to learn that she had calculus on her teeth when she never took any math courses beyond Algebra One. Ah, sweet, imponderable mysteries.