Dobrindts dot com...again

My wife belongs to a book club here in town. Every month, the ladies in the book club (why aren’t there any men?) get together at someone’s house. Tonight it was our house so right now I am holed up in the basement while her “book club” meeting is going on. I am writing this in a whisper kind of tone so they don't detect me down here. Kind of like a bunker.

A few minutes ago I went up to the second floor and Emily was still awake. She is 6 and her bedroom is right above the living room. I sat down next to her.

Me: “It’s kind of loud”

Emily: “Yeah, and they are all talking at the same time”

Then I realized that in the two times I have been home during book club, I don’t think I’ve ever heard them talk about a book. They might be, but with the dozen or so women all talking what seems like at the same time, they could be plotting a takeover of the state government and I would never know because I can’t understand anything. I went out tonight and got home during the meeting, but last time I was home from the beginning and it goes something like this.

Ladies arrive around 8. Each one brings a bottle of wine. They munch on food Patti puts out in the dining room and kitchen. Conversation is very eclectic. Nothing mentioned about a book.

With each passing glass of wine, conversation gets louder and more laughter. All ladies treat me, a foreigner in their band, like family. Very nice. I quietly drop from view and hope they don’t take offense.

After about an hour of standing around talking, they proceed into the living room and sit down in a circle kind of format. If this were a Discovery Channel show, there would be a camera set up in a blind to capture the members of the group as they establish their positions and discuss the “book”.

The next couple of hours are rare periods of quiet single person talking with mostly loud chatter and even more laughter. The Discovery Channel film crew would have a hard time figuring out what the conversations were about. When I got home tonight from a meeting for parents of first time swim team members, I walked in and said hello. One comment, a single harmless comment by me about swimming teams increasing because of the Olympics, resulted in 4 different conversations going on among the ladies at the same time about what I have no idea. Fascinating and something someone should write a thesis about.

At some point the ladies realize their kids will still get up the following morning so they all say goodbye, leave their unopened bottles of wine, and depart. They are all very nice and engaging and educated enough to devote time to reading a book and making a meeting once a month.

I am not saying they don’t actually talk about a book, but in the rare times I have been here, even from my post in the basement, I don’t think I have ever heard a thing about a character or plot or metaphors.

Anyway, I am going to hide down here for another 30 minutes then venture up to bed. I might go out the back door, climb up the gutter and go in through the second floor window to avoid this group of fun loving book fans.

PS. Barack Obama might be a great speaker, but he is terrible at delivering a punch line. He thought he was being funny with Lipstick on a Pig, and it went over like a fart in church.

PSS. What could I do with my guy friends in town that is similar to a book club. I was thinking about a TV show club, where we get together and discuss a show we all agreed to watch. Or a movie club, where we agreed to rent a movie and watch it before the meeting, then discuss. But both are kind of weak. So then I thought about a news topic club, where each month we discuss something that is relevant in the world. Instead of one topic, we each take a turn throwing something out there and we discuss.

Dave: Should we back Georgia even though Russia is fast becoming a global super power, or forget about a tiny country that means nothing if they didn’t have a gas pipeline.

We discuss and argue for 20 minutes.

Mark: What do you think about Sarah Palin?

We discuss, throw out some adolescent jokes, turn that into a broader political discussion.

If I thought it would work, I would do that in a second and call it the Madmen of Milton, or Milton Men’s Club, or something similarly catching. The men in this town are all pretty educated and most have an opinion, so this would be an excuse to get together once a month, drink beer or scotch, have a cigar, and speak out about a topic.