Greg Stevens

Today is the day before Jon’s birthday.

The following conversation happened an hour ago.

Greg: I’m going to run some errands this afternoon.

Jon: Oh, cool. What do you need to do?

Greg: Just stuff.

Jon: Are you going to the grocery store? We need mouthwash.

Greg: Oh… uh, sure, I can go to the grocery store.

Jon: Oh! I mean, I can go later if you aren’t…

Greg: No, I can.

Jon: So what other stuff?

[pause]

Greg: It’s really tough to do surprises, when we spend the whole weekend together!

Jon: Oh!  Oh, ok! Never mind, you don’t need to tell me.

Greg: Cool.

[pause]

Jon: Don’t get anything big, though.

Greg: What?

Jon: I mean, I was thinking we could just buy some new household stuff for each others’ birthdays.

Greg: Oh, I figured… I mean, you’re pretty picky, so I wasn’t going to just buy you something without you knowing. I was just going to get a card and some flowers. Then for presents, we can pick stuff out together later.

Jon: Perfect.

Greg: Cool.

[pause]

Jon: If you get flowers, don’t get a vase.

Greg: Ok?

Jon: We have so many vases already. We should just use a pre-existing vase.

Greg: Ok. No vase.

Jon: Plus, we don’t really have someplace to store another vase after the flowers die, there’s not really any room room in the back closet…

Greg: Yep. Got it. No vase.

The ironic twist at the end: After getting Listerine, shaving razors, and flowers (no vase) from the grocery store, I actually broke one of our pre-existing vases while I was trying to wash it… so now we have one fewer vases than we started with!