Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

Kevin just left with his friend, C.R. I like C.R., I really do, but I'm so glad they left without me. They asked me to go, but I can tell when I'm not really wanted, so I begged out using the potatoes I was working on as an excuse. C.R. is the more clever of Kevin's childhood friends. He is actually very, very smart. For our first years together, I felt uncomfortable around C.R. We were always meeting him at bars, which immediately puts me out of my comfort zone, where he was already sitting a whole group of fraternity guys (now I'm WAY out of my comfort zone!). As soon as Kevin leaves the table, C.R. butters me up by telling me that I'm so smart and how did Kevin manage to get someone so smart and blah blah blah. Flattered, I let myself be eased into a conversation, usually about literature. It's not long, though, before I'm completely out of my league, my face growing redder and redder as I shake me head to his Russian authors and Chinese poets.

No, I haven't heard of him. No, haven't read that book. No, I didn't read that, either. No, I'm not familiar with her work.

It's so humiliating! I know it shouldn't be, but it is and I always leave feeling much smaller than when I arrived. Today when C.R. showed up on our doorstep, I was not in the mood to be belittled. I busied myself with starting dinner, but he wasn't deterred. As soon as Kevin went into the bathroom, C.R. started picking books up off of our shelves and asking me about them. I turned the water up and said I couldn't hear him.