I'm No Good at Small Talk

I can act, though. And I've acted my way through many a painful small-talk situation:

• Flagstaff BBQ circa 2000 (with a close-talker who caused me to circumvent an entire park ramada)
  
• Unexpected encounter with someone from high school circa last month
  
• North Scottsdale MOM's Club drop-in mixer at the library circa last month (I wanted to see what it was like, and now I know, you're all out of my league)
  

All that is to say that I do not enjoy small talk, but I can endure it. But when you've stared down the double barrel of death like I have you realize there's little time for pithy conversations.

All this is to say to the fellow mom at book club who works at Sprouts and introduced herself to me and was met with a somewhat cold, yet polite, response, "It's not you, it's me. It's not your son either. And it's not that you work at a grocery store. It's just that I didn't have anything to say."