Lesson 6 Honey, There’s Something on My Mind . . .
Al: Hi, sweetie! How are you? Don’t you normally work on Fridays?
Beth: Yeah, but I had to talk to you. It couldn’t wait.
Al: Oh, sure . . . Um,what’s up?
Beth: Well, I need to get something off my chest.
Al: That’s good, because there’s been something on my mind, too.
Beth: Let me go first; this is important.
Al: Okay.
Beth: I’m sorry to spring this on you, but I think we should break up.
Al: Wow . . . That’s big news.Well, how . . . Imean . . .Well, why do you want to dump me?
Beth: I suppose it would be fair ofme to give you a reason.
Al: Well, yeah! This comes out of nowhere. A reason would be nice.
Beth: I’m breaking up with you because you’ve become a real couch potato. All you do is watch TV. And the only thing you like to watch on TV is cartoons.
Al: But I thought you were crazy about cartoons!
Remember that time we saw themovie “A Bug’s Life”?
You were smiling during the whole thing . . . And you were in seventh heaven for the rest of the night. Didn’t you enjoy it?
Beth: I thought it was cute, but I then I moved on! You’re still obsessed with cartoons.
Al: Well,what else?
Beth: You’ve really let yourself go, too!We used to go biking and play tennis, and now you just sit around eating cereal,watching your cartoons!
Al: So, I don’t turn you on any more? Isn’t it a bit shallow to break up with someone just over looks?
Beth: But that’s not all. You never want to go out and do anything.We stay here all the time, and your apartment is a pigsty. You never do the dishes or the laundry. There are empty pizza boxes from two weeks ago on your kitchen table. It really drives me up the wall!
Al: Mmmm. . . But we’ve been going out for two years now, and I’ve never exactly been tidy . . .Why didn’t you bring this up sooner?
Beth: I thought it was cute at first . . . I thought I would get used to it. Later, I thought you would grow out of it.
Anyway . . . that’s not the point. I just don’t want to see you anymore.
(Silence)
Beth: So . . . you said you had something you wanted to tell me? I suppose how you hate that I try to control your life and change you . . .
Al: No—actually, I wanted to ask you if you knew where I left the remote control for the TV—I haven’t been able to find it for weeks.
Beth: It figures.
1. To get something off your chest. To say something important that you’ve been thinking about a lot.
2. To be on your mind. To be something you think a lot about.
3. To spring something on someone. To give someone unexpected news with no preparation or warning.
4. To break up with someone. To end a romantic relationship.
5. To dump someone. To stop being in a romantic relationship with someone.
6. To come out of nowhere. To seem to happen without any logical explanation or warning.
7. Couch potato. A person who sits around and does very little physical activity, often just watching TV.
8. To be crazy about something. To like something a lot.
9. To be in seventh heaven. To feel wonderful, to be very happy.
10. Tomove on. To begin something else, to stop focusing on one person or thing and to start to think about someone or something else.
11. To let yourself go. To allow yourself to be in bad physical condition because of diet or lack of exercise.
12. To turn someone on. To be a turn-on. To cause an attraction, usually physical.
13. To drive someone up the wall. To annoy someone verymuch.
14. To bring something up. To start to talk about something, to introduce a topic in conversation.
15. To get used to something. To become accustomed to or familiar with something.Notice that this expression is similar to “to be used to something,”meaning to be accustomed to or familiar with something.
16. To grow out of something. To become too old for something, to stop having an interest in something that used to be interesting.
17. To be the point. To be themost important fact or consideration about a topic.
18. It figures. This expression is used, often ironically, tomean that some outcome is logical, expected, or unavoidable.
