To my left

I get to deal with lots and lots of different people at Smith and Weisskopf. What a great place to work! Of course there's the challenge of working for a Philadelphia architectural firm in the middle of the Depression.

Absolutely no one is building these days, you know. And there's the ever-present fear that the firm will go under. But old Mr. Smith and old Mr. Weisskopf are really sweet old-school gentlemen and they'd rather lose their own shirts than let any of their employees go. Why, they're so generous that they still take all of us secretaries to lunch every Friday.

I have lots of fun at these lunches. Granted, we typically go to cheap $1.15 Jewish delis down on Fifth Street, but I absolutely adore the cuisine and the people couldn't be nicer. Mrs. Weisskopf usually joins us, too. She's a dear, sweet, little old Jewish lady who does nothing but fuss over the young girls -- me included. She wants all of us to get married. "And when are you getting married, Miss Limerick?"

"Ida, you leave Agnes be," her husband, my titular boss Mr. Weisskopf, would admonish. "She'll marry when she's good and ready. Besides which, I see her with that Balmoral man all the time."

"He's such a handsome one, that Mr. Balmoral," Mrs. Weisskopf replied, ignoring her husband. "What's stopping you, Miss Limerick?

I loved Mrs. Weisskopf, but she did put one on the spot all the time. So I redirected her attentions. "Well, Mrs. Weisskopf, I'm just waiting for him to propose. Perhaps you could put in a good word for me? Oh, wait a minute, Mrs. Collingwood, what is the matter over there?" I looked at my neighbor to the left, the matronly Mrs. Collingwood, who was chattering away with Mr. Smith. They were having some sort of argument I couldn't hear. But I secretly blessed them for the diversion from Mrs. Weisskopf's beloved topic of matrimony.

I turned my head to Mrs. Collingwood. "You simply won't believe it, Agnes, but Mr. Smith thinks that Mr. Roosevelt should be elected president! I told him that my husband thinks he's a socialist and should never be allowed a hundred miles from the White House. He replied that Mr. Hoover should never have been elected in the first place."

"Well, after all, Mrs. Collingwood," Mr. Smith interjected, "Hoover's campaign slogan back in '28 was 'A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.' With the sorry state of things now, you can count yourself lucky if you've even got a chicken in the garage." A hearty guffaw made its way round the table.

"Oh, poo!" cried Mrs. Collingwood and off they went, bickering again.

Somehow, Mrs. Collingwood never put two and two together. She knew perfectly well that I was deaf in my left ear. And if she paid attention, she would realize that whenever our group went to lunch, somehow ... just somehow ... she always ended up sitting on my left side. I returned to the discussion of matrimony with Mrs. Weisskopf.