It's early Saturday afternoon, when my phone rings.

Joan says, "Jim, it's Joan. Do you have a few minutes to talk to me?"

I sigh and ask, "It's just a wild guess on my part, but you want to talk to me about my leaving Nanci."

Joan says, "Well, yes."

I lecture Joan, "I can see the discussion lasting longer than a few minutes. Why don't you come over and bring the other girls listening in at your end, along with you?"

Joan pauses and then says, "Okay, we'll be there in maybe 15 minutes."

I ask, "How many?"

Joan says, "Oh, four, if it matters."

"I'll make up some drinks."

Joan says, "Okay, we're on our way."

I make up five drinks and get things set up.

The doorbell rings and I let four girls into my place.

I dispense drinks, we get settled in and Joan starts off, "You dumped Nanci."

I sigh, "Let me guess, you wonder why I just walked away from a girl who looks like Nanci."

Joan says, "Well, she's pretty shocked by the whole thing. Jim, you know that she's one of the best looking girls in San Diego. She can't understand why you just left her."

I lecture, "You girls all know that I work as a computer programmer, what they call a systems analyst. I'm pretty good at what I do and I can see things that others might not see. I saw enough to tell me that Nanci and I would never work out and so I just walked away from her."

Melissa jumps in, "Okay, just what did you see?"

"Nanci got thrown out of her apartment, by her landlady. She then told me a few lies about what happened and why. I saw that what she told me was lies and I also saw that she definitely wasn't a lady for me."

Betty says, "You were completely sure that what Nanci told you was lies?"

I lecture, "Nanci told me that she had just got off work, from her airline stewardess job, three guys just happened by and they sat and talked for a few minutes, then suddenly her landlady was at the door, accusing her of all sorts of nastiness and then the landlady terminated her lease. I asked Nanci when it happened and I was told, oh, it was late, maybe two or three in the morning. I then knew that what I had been told was a lie and that there was indeed some nastiness going on."

Joan jumps back in, "Just from that? How in the world?"

I sigh and lecture, "This is San Diego. Airplanes aren't permitted to land, after midnight, at Lindbergh Field. There's no way that it took Nanci a couple of hours to get home, after work. If Nanci had got off work at midnight, she would have come home and gone to bed, because it would have been a late flight and a lot of extra work for her. Thus, Nanci and the boys were hanging out for a while, before the landlady caught them."

Aubrey asks, "Caught them at what?'