Two from my son
It’s World Book Day today* so fancy dress for school “Who are you dressing up as?” (To me, err a slightly downtrodden experimental officer?)
And (eating breakfast) “I need more milk, it’s only 5% milk”
‘* May not actually be worldwide
Him: so don’t get worried or nervous…
Me: that’s a great start to a conversation!
“I thought it might be tasteless to ask whether your brother’s wife is a legitimate military target. I feel marginally less bad about that now.”
Important management expectation there - my boss at work starts emails with “It’s nothing serious” when scheduling meetings about performance, because she knows half her staff will start having anxiety attacks the moment they receive a meeting invitation with the word “performance” in the title.
“No, I have to. You are the dog in this story, after all, you are older so you’ll die first”
(In response to “so we should say how much we love you every day”, in the context of reading a story about a boy’s dog growing old and dying, but in which the loss was ameliorated because the boy told the dog he loved him every day)
“He should give away the basket, so he can forget about Elf”
(The dog’s name was Elf)
In this case it was my husband on the phone and he followed it up by telling me he had an encounter at work with a piece of equipment that is very similar to one that I know has previously killed people. He assured me he wasn’t injured in any way but now has to fill out a bunch of “near incident” paperwork so they can investigate what went wrong this time to further improve their safety to try to prevent future injuries/ fatalities.
Leading with the most important part is helpful.
My partner once received a phone call from a nurse in which they explained that I had had “a bit of a turn” at work, and had lost consciousness. Questions like “has he had seizures before?” were asked.
Meanwhile I was listening to all this from the floor, having been fully awake for some little while prior to the call, wondering why the hell the nurse hadn’t led the call with that fact, and correctly imagining the level of panic that was being caused by omitting it.
This of course is balanced by the meeting titled “catch up” where the punchline is “you’re fired.”
That took me off guard.
My wife decided to use a bit of Welsh when looking at my lateral flow test. “Dim line” means “no line” (ish).
Very amusing once I’d got back up off the floor
I have certainly opened phone calls to my wife with “all is well, everybody’s fine, (pause), but there was this incident…”
Oh dear. Yeah, definitely start with current status there. I’ve begun a conversation or two with “I’m ok… but… “
I’ve done some amount of work in the past on business phone systems. This typically involves testing that emergency services (911, in my case) is working and the physical address is registered properly. Strangely, even with e911, the only way to do this is to just dial 911 using one of the phones; in which case, I quickly open with “This is not an emergency.” in response to the operator’s canned “911, what is your emergency?”
“Don’t shout at me… but…” is I think worse. You know they’re ok but you are in for goodness knows what. Yeah, I do have the maternal instincts of lichen. And?
My dad once called me and opened with “I just wanted to let you know that I’m ok” and I was extremely confused… I was in Canada at the time (8 hours behind the UK), he worked in London, and it was 07/07/2005.
I collected actual quotes from friends on 07/07/2005.
(Blurred because technically it’s about a day bombs happened in London and folks might not need that right now, but they’re all lighthearted quotes!)
“When the news reporter said “Shopkeepers are opening their doors bringing out blankets and cups of tea” I just smiled. It’s like yes. That’s Britain for you. Tea solves everything.
You’re a bit cold?
Tea.
Your boyfriend has just left you?
Tea.
You’ve just had bad medical news?
Tea.
Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt?
TEA DAMMIT!
(And if it’s really serious, they may bring out the coffee. The Americans have their alert raised to red, we break out the coffee. That’s for situations more serious than this of course. Like another England penalty shoot-out).”
“I called in sick with a migraine today. My psychic powers are awesome!
(I told him my girlfriend also called in sick.)
She and I should form a psychic taskforce! Anywhere we don’t want to go, THERE BE BOMBS!”
“It’s hard to panic the British. They’ve dealt with the Blitz, the IRA, the Silurians, the Zarbi, the Daleks, the Cybermen…”
“On days like this, the music radio stations play sad music - if they play any music at all. I turned on the radio in the bathroom when I was taking my shower just now, and they were playing “One” by U2. HAVEN’T WE SUFFERED ENOUGH?”
To quote an old Londoner who lived through the blitz and got caught up in the Canary Wharf explosion: “I’ve been blown up by a better class of bastard than this!”
“Why didn’t you go to the party?”
“Cause London was blown up”
“Oh… yeah.”
“They did their worst, and they managed to disrupt our transport network and get fatalities in the low double figures. That happens on a fairly regular basis anyway, you twits. What’s your next trick - a fiendish weather control device which makes it rain on a bank holiday weekend?”
You should get Elon Musk to name your duck
“The only rope they sell here isn’t very good”
“I’d skip that, then”
“Dad, everyone hates nouns!”
“Thank you for making that remembering.”
“I am welcome for making that remembering.”
…
“We’re not doing well, are we?”
This was all uttered in an earnest effort to speak actual English. Two sick toddlers do have an impact after a couple of days.
My partner yesterday : “Darling, we had 1111 cases in Hawke’s Bay today, you made that one possible”
My answer 'It is nice to see that after 15 years together, you still consider me The One"