"I said you shouldn't feel that way. Grapefruit is healthy."
"No, that isn't either what you said. You said something that sounded like 'Grapefruit is good for hales.'"
"Well, I don't remember exactly what I said, but that's what I meant. Grapefruit is healthy."
"I knew what you meant; what I wanted to know was, what did you say?"
Grant sighed. I know my curiosity exasperates him, but it annoys me for hours if I can't discover exactly what a word was that I didn't quite get.
"Why do you always have to change the wording of what you say when I say 'What?' instead of actually repeating what you say, which is what I want you to do?" I railed at him.
This argument of ours, which has come up over and over again, grows very involved if we don't drop it in its earliest stages--and sad experience has taught me that Grant can't, or won't, recall and tell me the exact word he used, anyway.
I was clearing away the remains of the sugar-sprinkled grapefruit slices we had had for dessert one evening, and Grant was in the office assuring some man that we hadn't found his toupee in the cabin he had occupied the previous night, when a lanky, thin-faced, big-eyed boy opened the living room door and walked into the living room.
"Oh, I guess I musta got the wrong door," he said, twisting his dirty handkerchief nervously between skinny fingers. "I'm sorry, maam, but I thought I oughta tell you--I guess my ma is gonna have a baby."
I remembered renting a double cabin, number 3, earlier in the day, to an extremely pregnant woman and her son.