The $8 Conversation

"Tell me your best poop story," she said. 

I had just finished lunch, and was still sitting in the office cafeteria. It was a hip place. An ad agency. Where they catered lunch every day and had ping pong and shuffle board tournaments. There was even a slide and always two kegs in the kitchen.

The woman sitting across from me was a middle-aged mom. Darker hair with fresh streaks of blonde highlight. She was spunky and off-beat. Her kids' friends probably referred to her as "the fun mom." When I moved, she gave me a card that said, "Don't forget to call your mom." even though she had never met mine.

Her inquiry about poop didn't surprise me. Not because she talked about poop all the time. But because that's just how she rolled. She was never interested in "how your day was going." She would just launch into something strange and entertaining. 

After swapping our best shit stories, we talked about talk itself. 

"How do we always have such great conversations?" I asked. "I was out last night and left after one drink because the crowd was such a bore. Then, I come to work and have wonderfully amusing conversations. Why is that?"   

Turns out, she had experienced the same conversational let-down the previous weekend.

"The getting ready. The baby sitter. The Uber downtown," she complained, raising a finger for each step of the process. "And then the conversation wasn't even worth the eight-dollar cocktail."

And so, the Eight Dollar Conversation was born.

Now, when I’m on the way to drinks with people I don’t want to drink with, I think to myself, “How can I connect on a level that’s worth the eight-dollar drink?”

It works. Try it tonight.

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