Soo-Jean

Or, more specifically, a sharmouta.

My memory fails me; I’m not sure how we came to the subject, but my mother and I were talking about the owner of the men’s clothing store next door. My mother owns an alterations shop inside a mall, and since they work in such close proximity, the owner or the store clerk send their customers over to my mother if a suit needed mending, or if a pair of pants required hemming.

“That crazy man! You know what he says? He says that I’m his girlfriend!”

I looked at her blankly, trying to process what I had just heard. “You’re his what?”

“Girlfriend! And I told him, ‘I’m married! I have children! How can I be your girlfriend?’ But he just replied that he’s never seen my husband at the store, where is he?”