i'll learn by going

Marilyn and Elliott are my in-laws. I stayed with them for a week while Charlie was in Oklahoma for work. Elliott needed some screens for his pipe and decided it would be an interesting cultural thing to take me to a head shop. He broached the topic over dinner.

“They have sex toys in there,” Marilyn said.

Elliott dropped his fork. “Marilyn. I’m not going to the head shop to look at sex toys.”

Marilyn said, “I realize that, I just don’t think that it’s the kind of thing that any woman likes to be surprised by when she walks into a store with her father-in-law.”

For the next few days, every time Elliott mentioned going to the head shop, he’d add, “You know, they have sex toys there, but I don’t look at them. That isn’t why I go there.”