"You want to know the trouble with women?"

There I was. Enjoying a delightful breakfast with my soon-to-be married sister and my little grandma at a diner in South Plainfield.We sat in a booth near the counter where several elderly people enjoyed their cream-filled pastries and cups of coffee. To out surprise, an older man wearing a newsboy cap and a plaid button down spun around and invaded our conversation about the wedding.

"Would you like to see my new postcards?" He asked, with a hopeful smile on his wrinkled face.

When my sister nor my grandmother answered, I burst out with a friendly "sure!" and the ship was launched. Why did I burst? I have the tendency of being over-friendly in uncomfortable situations which is the complete opposite of how I want to appear when an invasive old man interrupts my cozy breakfast.

"I just got these in the mail yesterday," the old man said, as he handed the postcards to my sister who reluctantly took them. "Don't get anything on them," he added.

"Wow," my sister sighed. She flipped through the small stack of obviously new postcards. I watched over her shoulder as scenes from 1950s TV shows flashed before us then disappeared behind the stack. I only recognized a few: The Honeymooners, Perry Mason, Bonanza, and then we came to I Love Lucy. It was my favorite show when I was younger. It was often played during a segment of Nickelodeon called "Nick at Nite" before the segment became flooded with unrealistic 90s sitcoms. I would snuggle up in my bed and watch I Love Lucy for hours, or until I fell asleep. I collected memorabilia and even dressed up as Lucy for one, now embarrassing, Halloween.

"I Love Lucy," I said, "that was my favorite show." I took the card in my hand and admired it.

The old man rambled on about all the postcards and stamps he collected. He even had us guess how much postcards cost in the 1950s.

"Two cents," I guessed.

The old man boasted, "one cent."

Trying to sound surprised I said, "wow, that is inexpensive."

My sister pretended to get a phone call from her fiancé, handed the postcards back to the man, and rushed off to the ladies room and I was left with an old man stuck in the 1950s and my poor grandmother who was not too sure what was going on.

And then he said it: "You want to know the trouble with women?"

Had this not been an older gentlemen who clearly lost his marbles long ago, I would have said in response, "Do you want to know the trouble with misogynists?" But seeing as the old man was much older than I, I  simply laughed and asked, "what?"

And so he started.

"A buddy of mine back in the 50s was a stamp collector too. One day, his wife was mailing some bills and was one stamp short. While my buddy was in the bathroom, she took one of the stamps out of his books and used it."

I hoped this was the end of the story.

"The police were called later because he had beat her up pretty bad. But you know what I would have done  if a woman had done that to me?"

Oh, Jesus.

"I would have took her in the bedroom and made her watch as I urinated all over her shoes."

I stared as this man for a long while, trying to decide what to say. Thankfully, my sister returned and I looked away from the man. I would not usually have done this because I was obviously being rude but I could not take anymore of this old man's nonsense. He finally got the idea and turned to the couple sitting next to him. "You want to see my new postcards?" He asked.

For the rest of the breakfast, we tried to look at the window as much as possible.