OVERHEARD IN THE CAR ON VALENTINE'S DAY

We were in the car. Phil glanced over at a woman shoveling yesterday's record-breaking snow off her driveway.

"Look at that," he said. "That woman's old."

"The poor thing," I said. "Her husband left her for a hottie. He should be ashamed of himself."

"Her husband died," he said. "She wore him out. No, that's not it. He doesn't even have the strength to leave because he is so emaciated and weak because she quit cooking."

We laughed because it's a well-known fact around here that I don't cook as often as I used to.

Later we were following a red Mini Cooper down University Ave. It was going slow and weaving over the line.

"I'll bet he's on the phone," Mr. Can't-Stand-To-Drive-Behind-Irratic-Drivers-Who-Are-Usually-on-Cell-Phones said. "Can you see?"

"No, the seat back is too high."

Finally Phil changed lanes, gunned the motor and we zipped past. I looked at the driver. It was a well-kept, blond woman, her make-up was perfect, she had on darling silver earrings and I could see she was well dressed.

"It's a woman," I said, "and she's not on a cell phone."

"Not on a cell phone?" he said, glancing at her.

"No, and she's pretty too."

She's old," he said.

"She's not old."

"She's sixty," he said.

I laughed, we both laughed but the fact is that I was born in 1946. You do the math.