You get a day. At least.

I always try to eavesdrop on interesting conversations, mostly because I'm unimaginative and hoping to hear something that I can steal. Two exchanges I overheard recently have stuck in my mind - not because they were particularly clever or funny, but because they were so similar.

The first, I overheard while perusing the shops in Hampden, a little neighborhood where blue-collar locals mix uneasily with their new artsy hipster neighbors. I was walking past a townie bar, the kind that appears to be open and in full-swing by 10am, wondering if I would get the shit beat out of me if I went in and ordered a Hendrick's martini, when a very thin, very pregnant woman stormed out of the bar, dragging a toddler. She was wearing tight jeans, a white tank top, and a little plastic crown with a veil attached. Her friend, let's call her Tammie, was close on her heels. While our bride, whose name really was Kim, smoked a cigarette, Tammie shouted at a man who refused to exit the dim safety of the bar.

"It's not Randy's day! It is not motherf*ckin' Randy's day! It's Kim's day. It is motherf*ckin' Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiuuuuum's day!"

The second, I overheard while double parked outside the library, waiting for n.o.c. to return our towering stack of Great Courses CDs. (Note: It is perfectly permissible to double park in Baltimore. You may also park in the right lane at will, and you may run red lights for up to five seconds after they have turned red. Just know that everyone else is at similar liberty and plan accordingly.) I noticed a gorgeous woman who looked just like Lisa Bonet walking toward the library, two small children in tow. She was having a very intense cellphone conversation with someone, we'll call him Tim.

"It was my motherf*ckin' birthday. MY. BIRTH. DAY. That shit hurts. It was my motherf*ckin' birthday, you know?"

She paced back and forth, enumerating the ways in which Tim was an irresponsible asshole and a poor steward of her feelings, but she always came back to her main point - it had been her motherf*ckin' birthday, and he had shit all over it. Meanwhile, her children, gripping supersized dunkin' donuts iced coffees in their chubby little hands, followed her back and forth like magnets, staring down at their football-sized beverages while their beautiful mother eviscerated some douchebag named Tim. Eventually she snapped her phone shut (oh, for the days of big, heavy phones that you could really slam down!), and shepherded her children into the library.

Now, I am not one to give relationship advice - seriously, before n.o.c., all of my relationships were the pits. But I do know this - if he/she/it is not willing to give you one motherf*ckin' day, then you should probably move on. Just saying.