My favorite overheard piece of conversation this week: The problem was I couldn’t get past his nostrils.

I’m not making this up. That’s what person one said to person two. The two people in question probably didn’t know I was eavesdropping. If they did, I doubt they would have cared. What kind of nostrils did he have, you ask?

The better question is who said this anyway?

What if it was a doctor trying to explain to a parent why he couldn’t get past the nostril to get at the piece of Lego jammed into their son’s nasal passage? Or a zoo maintenance guy explaining to his boss why he hadn’t treated the giraffe’s ear infection yet? Or a casting director telling the producer why he passed on the guy who nailed the reading but chose the guy having a bad hair day instead?

But no. It wasn’t anything quite so dramatic. It was – you guessed it – two women rehashing the details of last night’s date over a cup of coffee. She couldn’t get past his nostrils. She wasn’t going out with him again, end of story.

I guess they were . . . you know . . . seriously bad nostrils. Or else she’s seriously picky. But as her friend told her, “you can’t judge all guys by their noses.” And then she suggested, “You need to get out there and try harder.”

She might want to get on that. Good men can be hard to find. Especially when you’re eighty-five.