I just got back from grabbing a sandwich at the Potbelly’s down on Madison with Mark. During a pause in the midst of our idle chatter, Mark suddenly asked.

“Is that Kelly chick still married to that one guy?”

I swallowed wrong, started coughing and had to take a prolonged sip of banana milkshake to clear the debris from my throat so that I could speak.

“You mean Ray? Of course. They just got married like eight months ago.”

“She’s hot.”

I shrugged and answered nonchalantly, “I agree. She’s gorgeous.”

“I like her boobs.”

“They’re nice,” I said then took another oversized bite of my italian sub.

We both chewed for several seconds in contemplative silence. I assume that Mark was busy thinking about Kelly’s boobs.

“What are you up to this weekend? Wanna go out for drinks after work tonight?” he finally asked tossing the rejected end piece of his turkey sub down into the red plastic basket.

“Where at?”

“What do you mean where at? You’ve still gotta ask where? The place. The place we’ve established as THE place we always meet for after work happy hours.”

“We’ve only gone there once.”

“I thought we all agreed that it’s the place we’ve been searching for.”

“I don’t know why we’re arguing,” I responded in a faux-weary voice, “I can’t go anyways. I have a date tonight.”

Mark picked up my bag of chips and demanded, “With who?”

“Dave the Pharmaceutical Salesman.”

“Should I know who that is?”

“He’s this friend of a friend at work. It’s a blind date.”

“That sounds terrible.”

I smiled.

“We should go out on Saturday,” I offered, “I think my sister and her friends are going to Hye Bar. We could get a big group together.”

“You could invite Kelly.”

I considered this.

“It’s weird, but things have been awkward between me and her since Jim and I broke up.”

Mark rolled his eyes.

“Girls are so bad at being friends.”

“That’s true,” I mused, “just like men are so bad about being pedophiles.”

“That isn’t an apt comparison.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re talking about a very small subset of men, which means you can’t classify that as a gender stereotype.”

“So you’re saying that women are predominantly bad at being friends.”

“Not predominantly. The entire female population. I think it might have something to do with hormones.”

“You’re an idiot,” I retorted.

Mark reached over the table and picked up my milkshake. He shook the cup’s base back and forth to determine whether or not there was any left and then took a sip.

“You should invite Kelly out to Hye Bar on Saturday,” he reiterated, “I like her boobs.”