Word: imponderable

    

imponderable

\ im-PON-der-uh-buhl \  , noun;

1. A thing that cannot be precisely determined or measured.

adjective:

1. Not ponderable; that cannot be precisely determined, measured, or evaluated.

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    “I just don’t get it.”  Jack said, poking at his plate of soggy, overcooked spaghetti with a plastic fork.
    “What’s not to get,”  Paul said between large, wet mouthfuls of the pasta, “take her out to some sorta fancy place, give her some flowers and you're golden.”
    “Don’t forget to apologize.  They seem to feed off the word sorry.”  Allan piped in, less interested in his dinner than in the cup of his latest ‘experiment’ in mixed drinks.
    “Yeah ok, I get that, but that’s not the problem.  The problem is I don’t even know why I should be apologizing in the first place.  It’s not like I did anything wrong.”
    “Is it her ‘time of month’?”  Allan asked, adding in air quotes around the last phrase, “Cause if it is, it doesn’t really matter much.  Everything you do at that time is wrong, no matter what it is.”  Paul couldn’t help but laugh at, with the unfortunate side effect of throwing partially chewed spaghetti from his mouth, invading the plates of the other two.  Jack looked at his plate, and suddenly found his appetite gone.  Allan didn’t seem to notice, or at the very least, not to care.  “You can laugh, you’ve never had to live through that horror.”  Allan was the younger brother of three children.  Both his older siblings being girls, it was safe to assume he knew more about that situation than the other two, Paul being an only child and Jack having nothing but brothers.
    “Well, it doesn’t matter much, she’s already been through...that this month so it can’t be because of hormones, or whatever it is.”  
    “Well, when did she start getting angry?”  Paul said, his mouth now unoccupied by food.  Jack thought back a bit to remember when Cassey, his girlfriend of three months had first started giving him the cold shoulder.
    “I think i was a week ago.  You know, after that celebration I had for finishing that big project I’d been working on.”
    “Oh yeah.  That was great.”  Allan said, clearly not fully remembering the events behind a veil of alcohol.

“Yeah well, she had gone to the bathroom, and she saw me talking to--”

“Hold it right there,”  Paul said, “The next name out of your mouth had better not be a girl’s.”

“Well, yeah.  I was talking to Lisa.”  Both the other two looked at each other, he same look of sudden understanding of their faces.  Jack looked between his two roommates, with the sudden feeling that he was missing out on some kind of conversation between them.  “What?  What’s the problem?”

“You never, ever talk to another girl without your girlfriend present.”  Allan said.

“Seriously man, doing that is like handing a blowtorch to a pyromaniac.”  Paul sad.

“But, Lisa’s just a co-worker.  And they know each other.  Hell, they’re even friends with each other.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Allan said, “All Cassey saw was you talking to another, decently hot girl.  In their world, that means you're putting the moves on her.”

“What?  But Lisa only dates other Asians.”

“Again, it doesn’t matter.”

“Think about how you’d think if you say Cassey talking me.”  Said Paul, just before shoving more spaghetti into his mouth.

“To you?”  Said Jack, smiling, “Yeah, I don’t think I’d have any problems with that.  She has good taste.”  Allan snickered as Paul gave Jack a light punch to the arm in retaliation.

“Think about if she was talking to Ed.”  Allan said.  Ed was one of Cassey’s coworkers.  He was a reasonably good looking man, but Jack fancied himself the better pick.  Still, the point was made.  Even so, Jack still didn’t see much of a correlation between the hypothetical situation and what actually happened.

“I don’t think I’d care all that much.  I mean, I know Ed, and I know Cassey, and I also know they wouldn’t be into each other.”  

“Yeah, and so does she, but to her, it’s still you going behind her back with another girl.”  Allan said.  

“But that doesn’t make any sense.”  Jack said

“Neither to girls.”  Paul said.  

Just then, the phone started to ring.  Both Allan and Paul looked and Jack, as if they knew who would be on the other end.  Jack sighed, and answered the phone.  The conversation didn’t last long before he went into his room to finish the call.  The remaining two looked at each other knowingly, already having guessed what the call would be about.  The call lasted for the next ten minutes, allowing Jack to reenter the room that was currently serving as a dining room.

“Cassey just decided to forgive me for what I did.  I still don’t know what it was though.”  He put the phone back, and slumped back into his chair.

“To women,”  Paul said, raising his cup of cheap beer, “The real great unknown.”  Jack and Allan followed suit, raising their glasses of respective liquids.

“Amen to that.”  Jack said, as the three of them clinked their glasses together, and drank their respective drinks.  

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Not my favorite word (or story for that matter), but hey, whatever works, right?