This is how my regular phone calls with my kids usually go:
Me: "Hi Joe (or Kitty or Orla, depending on who picks up the phone)"
Kid: "Oh, hi Dad!"
Me: "How've you been this week?"
Kid: "Fine."
Me: "What have you been up to?"
Kid: "Nothing much"
Me: "How's school been?"
Kid: "OK"
And so on and so on. It's hard work getting anything out of kids at the best of times. Trying to get them to tell you about their lives when they're 3000 miles away and on the end of a phone line is not the best of times. I can usually - eventually - provoke them into a bit of loquaciousness by homing in on the right topic. With my youngest daughter it's her hamster; with my eldest it's her schoolwork; with my son, it's Doctor Who.
Yesterday's phone call doesn't quite follow the same pattern however:
Me: "Hi, Kitty, how've you been?"
Kitty: "Fine"
Me: "How was school?"
Kitty: "OK... There was a bomb scare at school today"
Me: "How was.... A BOMB SCARE??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, A BOMB SCARE???"
After I get over my shock, I find out - with a bit of intense questioning of my daughter - that it was nothing too serious, a quickly-uncovered hoax. Don't you just love the way though that kids plonk a corker like that into the middle of a conversation? What's known in my profession as a "drop-intro".
A bomb scare... Yes indeed, that's an expression I know well. My childhood was littered with such. That you're a journalist must help you find the best topics to home in on.
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