I'm not yet full of knowledge

It is funny that no matter how old and gray I get, I can still learn new things. For example, what the word "full" means.

For my entire life I thought "full" meant something that contains as much as possible. I have been told I'm wrong.

It happened one night while out to dinner with my girlfriend. As the dinner wound down she still had some food on her plate and offered some to me.

"I'm full," she said.

To me that means time to pay the check and go. So I looked down for a split second to grab my jacket and when I look up my girlfriend is getting up.

"I'm going to get an ice cream cone," and off she goes.

I was stumped. If she was full, it means she can't eat anymore. She left half her meal on the plate. How could she eat more?

Then she returned with an ice cream cone that could be a meal in itself. She claims it was only one scoop, but that was if they scooped it with an extra-large snow shovel.

I tried to explain to her that "full" meant you can't eat anymore. In between bites of ice cream she told me that there are different levels of "full" -- like you are never too full for ice cream.

I tried to explain to her that when you fill a gas tank to "full" you can't fit in anymore gas. She informed me if it was ice cream you could.

The discussion continued while she devoured the ice cream and cone. Somehow, every time I brought up an example of something being "full" she countered with the same argument that it doesn't apply to ice cream. By her logic even when the carton of ice cream cannot contain any more it isn't "full," there is room for more.

So I mentioned that she might be "full" of -- ice cream of course. Without missing a beat she responded that I might be "starving" for a while.

See, it is never to late to learn new things. Now when my girlfriend says she is "full," I know to get her some ice cream.