During a recent dinner with friends, Ann Arbor resident Claire Goldman weighed in on a discussion of Jeff Bezos’ Climate Pledge by remarking “I read about that,” by which she meant she saw a headline possibly about that topic while reading the Times Ben Affleck profile.

“Everyone was sharing their opinions on Bezos’ Climate Pledge when I suddenly realized I had something to contribute. I was like, wait, I read about that,” says Goldman, who didn’t.

“I was reading about Ben’s perilous journey to rock bottom and subsequent sobriety, in which his divorce from Jennifer Garner featured prominently,” Goldman continues. “And that’s when I saw that headline that said, like, you know, that whole thing with Bezos and what he’s doing. Something in space? Is that part of it?”

Goldman reports that when she first claimed to have read about the topic at hand, she actually believed she had expressed the sentiment with no intended deceit.

“I mean, technically I did read about it,” says Goldman. “I may have sought out and read about why Ben Affleck lied about his back tattoo in a more traditional sense, but I still read the headline about the Bezos climate stuff. Or was it about Amazon warehouse employees? Or was it Elon Musk?”

“I definitely read some headline about a billionaire and his plan or his company or one of the series on his streaming platform or his self-driving cars,” adds Goldman, who could tell you Ben Affleck’s feelings about his Batman performance verbatim.

While Goldman’s attempts during dinner to pivot the conversation from Climate Pledge to the Affleck profile were unsuccessful, she does feel she picked up all the necessary information just by trying to stay afloat in the discussion.

“I guess one could say that the way Bezos is using this Climate Pledge donation as a way to grow his company and invest in himself is kind of similar to how Ben is using his new film, The Way Back, to re-establish himself as a serious actor,” points out Goldman, incoherently.

“Maybe I retained some of that headline after all!”