Whatever happened to...

We stopped seeing some people because of their circle of friends. There didn't seem any point in spending an evening keeping company with boors and bores, listening to their inanities.

But friends being friends, they continue to invite us over and we cannot just never see them again. Having steered clear of them for several months now, we were feeling more or less recovered from past violations to the soul and spirit. We braved going to one such dinner over the weekend.

Yes the boors and bores were all there. Yes, they talked too loudly and guffawed long, hard and frequently at their unfunny jokes. I did my best to tune them out.

Until.

The hostess turned to me and gaily flapped her hands, "Oh, oh, I mean to tell you but keep forgetting. Good thing I remember now. Have you heard what happened?"

You know this is going to be neither boring or inane. This is going to be unadulterated malicious gossip of someone we all detest.

Me: "No...who? what?"
She: "The sao loh (skinny man) is divorcing the feh por (fat woman)!"
Me: "No!"
She: "Yes, I tell you! I just saw the sao loh. He not so quiet and not so stressed anymore."

She went on to speculate on the reasons for the breakup - can't stand it anymore, can't stand her anymore, his son can't stand her anymore, who can stand her anyway...

Call me mean. Call me bitchy. Call me anything. But I must confess that the bit of rancid unhappy news made the evening actually, hmmm, worthwhile. Heh.