Sam, in a nutshell

Sam and I went to look at a house in Fairfield, Connecticut- a fancier town than Hamden, where we live. The listing agent, a gladhanded prepster named Chris, was trying to determine our status through casual but pointed conversational tidbits, because our Subaru Outback didn’t bode well. He was not curious about me, because in true old boy fashion, he had me pegged as grandma. But somewhere in the course of talking about commuting, Sam mentioned he still works full-time in New Haven.

“What do you do in New Haven?” Jim asked.

“I’m a lawyer,” Sam said. He only refers to himself as an attorney as a joke.

Chris saw an angle and kept digging. “New Haven! I know it well from my college days. I’m a Yale man. Are you a Yale man, Sam?”

And Sam said, “No.”