These are the things I said during the lunch with the boy's mom:
"Redding." (The question: "Where are you from?")
"Why not?" (The comment: "There are no real men besides marines." Did I mention the boy was a marine?)
"Yes, I went to England this year." (The question: "Have you traveled much?" I was going to expand upon that--I mean, this is why I travel, to have things to talk about with people to whom I would otherwise have nothing to say--but was interrupted. For the rest of the lunch.)
Apparently, the boy's mom's comment about me to him was, "She was quiet." My comment about her to him, upon being queried, was, "She has a lot of interesting stories to tell."
Here's how I read her comment: "She's boring." Here's how my comment should have been heard: "She won't shut the fuck up."