On top of things

A friend called home on Saturday morning.

"We need to change our plans for today evening.", she said.

"Okay", I said, waiting for her to continue. But I must have sounded very doubtful about the whole thing.

"Well, you may not know any of this, but A- (the wife) and I talked it over the other day, and we are supposed to meet at a restaurant today at 6.30pm. But B-'s friends are having a party, and we've convinced him to come eat dinner with us before going there. So, can we do it at 6.00pm?"

This assumption of ignorance on my part would normally have been bang-on. On this occasion, though, I did have a general idea that we were going to a restaurant. And there is nothing that gets my gander up than being accused unfairly of something that I normally would do.

"No problem," I said, happy to demonstrate that I could make a decision too and was so on top of things, "6pm it is." Luckily, the wife didn't object.

P.S. How small a town is Norman? In the 2 hours that we were in the restaurant, we saw: the wife's doctor, a couple who are members of our food co-op and a group of graduate students currently working at NSSL.