The holidays as sport

You know when you go to a Holiday Party where you don't know a lot of people, maybe it's your brother's coworkers, or your wife's bridge club, and you end up talking to a lot of interesting people, because you alone didn't know to avoid them? And on the one hand, it's kind of annoying to see people snicker next to the punch bowl while you listen to the most lengthy stories about cat sweaters and why Lithuania deserves induction into the EU Hall of Fame, but on the other, you get to monopolize the talk in the car ride home, for a change.
If you go to enough of these parties, or you don't have any stable friends so you're always meeting new people, you get to where you can sort and file everyone into types within minutes. Not that it's hard; people certainly aren't trying to trick you.

See if you can finish these opening sentences:
A. "My friends, Bob and Jean, they're just over there, do you know them? They said, Marge, you'll never get that cat to wear..."
B. "I've done a lot of traveling in my time. I've gone up and down the pyramids a couple times, and I owned a postcard shop on the Eiffel Tower, or Tour de France, as they call it. Man, I love Europe. The one problem I got is, they won't let...."

How'd you do? Are you party-ready? Or just a party-hearty?

The one type I left out, as astute readers probably guessed, is the new-age/health-food/crystals person. They are usually classifiable within this broad category, unless you're at a new age party, and then you may have to pull out the old Kingdom Phylum Division Class Order etc. etc.

Personally, I enjoy hearing stories of miraculous recoveries with simple regimens from the heart. Massage is a good way to do this, I hear. Massage is reported to release not only aching, trapped muscles, but the torment and joy of aching, trapped emotions. I've heard of people laughing, crying, and singing while they receive massages, especially if it's on an area that doesn't get touched often, like your cranial sacrum or your duodenum. . I met one couple who told me that during a dual-massage on their calf, they quite unconsciously proposed and accepted each other's hand in marriage! Figuring out what had happened when they came to in a small drive-thru chapel was the easy part, they told me. Explaining it to their spouses took more imagination.

One time after such a party where I had met not one but four massage adherents, I was so moved by the testimony that I immediately went home and vigorously massaged my solar plexus. I lay quietly in the darkened room and opened myself up to whatever visions or feelings my subconscious might send me. What happened is the following:
Two women stand around a wooden table. They look unhappy, and their dress is 19th century. Cut to a tall man, like a Mafioso, talking to a smaller man, perhaps Danny DeVito? The taller man says, "We didn't come here to Liverpool."

Obviously understanding this sending was far beyond me, so I wrote it down carefully on a piece of paper, folded it up, and put in my wallet. My wallet was soon after stolen, so I wrote it down again and put it in my new wallet. Now, when I go to parties and meet new people, I make sure to pull out my wrinkled, badly faded paper and read from it as from a tablet of stone. Then I ask my listener if they have any advice? Any insight? But I don't pause for them to answer, of course, because this really isn't about them.

Answers: A. a sweater B. Lithuania into the EU Hall of Fame