Dear dimwit on the phone

Twice lately, in serious and substantive discussions with callers, I have used words with which they were not familiar.

"Outlier" was one, "rote" was the other.

The first is a bit of a term of art, I guess, but I thought it odd that the soccer guy I was talking to didn't know the word "rote," if only because I imagine he's old enough to remember Kyle Rote Jr.

 

Dear Swim Mom,

Your kid is in college now. You're lucky he gets mentioned in the paper at all anymore. Please stop e-mailing me about how much more I should say about him.

And thanks for reading!

PaperDoll :-*

 

Yeah, but instead of costing him a scholarship...now you are squashing his Olympic dream!!!!

 

Nothing worse than setting the best time at the Olympic qualifying but having the coach tell you he needs someone who has seen more ink.

 

How'd you know he's going to the U.S. Olympic Trials in a few months? He'll get a few sentences in a group preview for it, while the guy from Great Britain and the Canadian girl got their own stories.

Swim Mom will not be pleased.

Edit to add that I just got e-mail from the corresponding Swim Dad, who was much more complimentary. I'm a little curious why they didn't coordinate efforts... but then again, I'm also not sure I've ever seen them together.

 

OK, I didn't read it that way. Must be working too hard.

 

Dear frustrated baseball parent,

I am sorry you feel I wrote a negative article about Podunk. I understand they won their pool play games and all their games in the regular season last week, but they lost the county championship game to Big County School. The news is who won first, not how hard they worked to get the championship game. There were only three teams in the tournament.

Sincerely,
YG11

 

Women called me at 12:30 this afternoon. For purposes of confidentiality, I will refer to her as Whiny Shrew.

Whiny Shrew: There's a benefit a 1 o'clock today for a young boy with a specific illness, and there will be a bunch of racecar drivers there. I was wondering if you could get someone there to cover this wonderful event.

Me (wondering why a specific illness is more newsworthy than a general one): Well, no. For events like this, we really need more than a half-hour notice if we're going to be there.

Whiny Shrew: I don't understand. If this was breaking news, you would have someone there.

Me: That's true.

Whiny Shrew: Then why can't someone be there to get this really good story in the paper?

Me: Because this isn't breaking news. I can't call someone in on their day off to cover a benefit that is happening 30 minutes from now. *PAUSE* OK?

Whiny Shrew: I guess. But I really don't understand.

Me: Well, I'm sorry about that, but the bottom line is I don't have anyone to send to this. In the future, we really need more than a half-hour's notice.

She hung up, and called back 5 minutes later to speak to whoever is in charge. That was me. She had a disappointing day.

 

Dear mumbly old grandfather:
I'm sorry I don't have a list of local recreation baseball leagues in front of me. Yes, your best bet is to contact your local recreation department and ask them what is available for your grandson. Here's the number. No, I wouldn't try calling them on a Sunday afternoon; you might want to wait until Monday. Yes, where he can play does depend on where he lives. Yes, I'm sure. No, it doesn't matter where he goes to school. You're welcome.

 

Just got this voicemail:
"I opened up my paper today, and I see the Yankees schedule, the Mets schedule and the Red Sox schedule. You guys have some balls printing that Red Sox schedule in your paper. You think any papers in Boston are printing the Yankees schedule?! I'm seriously considering canceling my subscription."

I called him back and left a message on his machine. I'm really hoping he gets back to me.

 

My wife's 13-year-old cousin lives with us (long, unpleasant story) and her mother has for years insisted that her middle name was spelled Ashly. She even brings it up randomly in conversation, and since she named her you'd think she'd know. We got a copy of the birth certificate and, lo and behold, it's spelled Ashley.

As a teacher I come across all sorts of, um, interesting spellings of names. I once had a class with Kali, Kaylee, Kaya and Kayla. Fortunately, K'La was in a different class.

My favorite name, though, was a kid named Marsellus Wallace, who would have been born about the time "Pulp Fiction" came out.

 

Dear blowhard parent: You son's baseball team is 16-1? That's nice. Too bad they hasn't been calling in results so we could do more stories except when they play Podunk and Podunk North in league.

Yes, I know Smalltown Christian's games always get in ... that's because their coach has mastered the mystery of using unlimited night and weekend minutes and invests them wisely, even though they're unlikely to win a lot of games this year.

Yes, I know your school's softball games always get in ... that's because the coach's mom (a wonderful seasoned citizen who really knows the game, btw) enters all the games on an iPad and sends us full stats, including electronic scoresheets and sabermetrics (resisting temptation to mention high school girls and WHIPs).

You say your coach says he's been calling them in? If he is, he must not be using the number on the several cards members of our department have given him.

(Anyone noticing a pattern here?)