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My middle name in Yiddish is Yenta. The name suits me.

I sometimes wonder how my parents could have foreseen that I would become a writer/yenta, a person who minds everyone's business. I don't meddle or get involved but I eavesdrop, which often gives me material to write about. Even though I cannot remember three numbers in a row, I have the uncanny ability to remember whole conversations word for word.

My father used to eavesdrop on the subway during his daily commute to the city. At dinner, he amused us by telling about conversations he overheard. I guess that's how I formed the eavesdropping habit.

When I was in college, on my very first day at my part-time job as a legal secretary, the attorney for whom I worked gave me some advice.

"Never, never discuss anything you hear in this office outside the office," he said. "You never know who's listening."

I did as I was told, but one day on the subway I learned how important that advice really could be. I was sitting on the train at the window seat of two benches at right angles to each other. The man on my right and the woman across the aisle to my left were discussing the settlement of a legal case. It sounded familiar. Then I was certain. I told my boss what I'd heard.

"Did you catch the names of the two people on the train?" he asked.

"The woman called him Marshall," I said.

His eyebrows went up.

"And the names of the parties they discussed?"

I told him the names I'd heard in the conversation. My boss checked the case file and I was right. It was a case my office was involved in and the two stupid people on the train were the attorneys for the other side!

My boss jumped up and kissed me on the cheek.

"You've just made our case," he said.

What I overheard affected the outcome of the case. For this, I got a bonus. Years later, when I taught a course for legal secretaries, I included a written description of this incident, together with caveats on the importance of client confidentiality when I handed out course material to my students.

In restaurants, too, I am often more fascinated by the conversation in the adjoining booth than I am by the food on my plate. I have been known to "shush" my husband when eating out if something juicy transpires at the next table. He knows me already and he laughs.

Late one evening at a nice restaurant, two guys sat down at the table to my right. They were in their 50s, well-dressed, both wearing wedding rings. They had a big dinner with several beers apiece. I thought this might be a business dinner, but I was wrong. They began to talk and it became clear that the dark-haired one, whom I will call Jake, was using the dinner to confide in the blond guy, whom I will call Marty. The problem was Jake's son.

"Thirty-five thousand dollars," Jake said. "I just forked it over." He held his head in his hands, clearly not a happy camper. The money was his contribution to his son's forthcoming wedding.

Marty asked questions.

Jake's son was graduating from college. He was not very smart and got into school on a football scholarship. It had taken him five years to get a bachelor's degree in communications. His ambition: sportscaster. He was a well-built, exceptionally good-looking kid. Girls had been sniffing around him since he was 12. For one college elective, he took Jazz dancing, the only boy in the class, and appeared bare-chested and barefooted in tight sweatpants with tattooed biceps so he could meet girls.

Marty laughed. "So how did he meet his fiancée?"

Jake scratched his head and had a swig of beer. "She found him at a Boston bar. And you should see her! She looks like Britney Spears."

"That's nice," Marty said. "Is she Jewish?"

"No, but that's the least of my problems."

Marty burped, loud and clear. "So what did she major in?"

"That's the problem," Jake said. "She's a genius. Skipped grades, doubled-up on everything in sight. She'll have a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard when they both graduate in June."

Marty's eyes popped. "No kidding."

They both attacked their steaks and the waiter brought more beer.

"Your son doesn't have a job lined up yet, does he?" Marty asked.

Jake shook his head. "But she does. She's gonna be an assistant to somebody who works in the White House."

Marty's beer spurted out of his mouth, all over his shirt.

"It's not funny," Jake snapped. "They can't keep their hands off each other and neither of them can come up for air long enough to see that they aren't suited to each other. My son's a sweet guy but hasn't got a brain in his head and she's so smart that my head hurts when I talk to her."

Marty laughed some more. "I'm sorry for laughing, but what's your problem? You paid the wedding money. Now butt out and let the chips fall where they may."

"I can't," Jake moaned. "I'm thinking ahead. To the divorce and the bills from the divorce lawyer. To child support if they have a kid. And to the next 10 years of supporting my son. He won't have to pay any alimony. She'll always make more than he will."

"Have another beer," I heard Marty say as my husband dragged me from the table after three cups of coffee used to prolong our dinner.

"Wait," I said. "I want to hear the rest."

"That's enough, Yenta," he said. "Let's go home so you can write it up before you have a senior moment and forget it all."

Toby Rosenstrauch, an award-winning columnist, lives in Boynton Beach, Fla.