Adventures in Skype

[aadler]

 
My son (I’ll start calling him Kevin; I think I used that moniker once before) was talking to his girlfriend this afternoon via laptop. In Chinese, most of it, so Susan and I couldn’t really follow the conversation. Occasionally, though, he’d use a few English words. As punctuation, perhaps.

So, in the evening, there was a brief discussion of future prospects.

Susan (to Kevin): “So, do you think you and Mei will get married in China?”

Me (breaking in): “Are they talking about getting married? Because I hadn’t heard that.”

Susan: “He hasn’t said anything, but I’m projecting.” Pause. “Besides, he said, ‘Oh, baby’ to her on the phone” [Skype] “this afternoon, and it sounded so sweet.”

Me: “Okay. But for all we know, ‘O-bei-bi’ is Mandarin for ‘Listen, bitch —!’ ”

And that’s life in my family.