Who better to call for money than your parents, eh? Mom said "sure."
I gave myself two days to do the fundraising, so on the last day, the money was due. I emailed Mom:
"hey, how much were you going to give? The money is due today, so I'll just pay for you for now."
an hour later: "How about 25 bucks?"
30 mins later: "Sure."
an hour later: "The check's in the mail."
Good deal.
Then I though, oh damn. They probably made the check out to the American Heart Association, and not to me... Oh well, that's double the money for AHA, I guess.
Later, we found out our company didn't raise nearly enough money. So we decided to have another fund raiser sometime in the future. I call home and this time Dad answers. I tell Dad "thanks for your donation. We didn't make enough, so I'll put the check mom sent towards the new fund raiser we're doing."
Dad kinda chuckled. "I'm not really sure Mom sent you the check yet..."
"Well, she told me she did... she said she did."
"Yea.. well I think Mom meant that she would send it soon..."
"What? Why would she tell me she sent it when she hasn't?"
"Well, how about I transfer $40 bucks to your account? $25 for the first one, and the rest for the second one? Will that be okay?"
"...Sure."
Either Dad's confused or Mom's a liar. Humph.
The next day, I get an email from Mom:
The Check is in the Mail...
Is an idiom that means I will pay you later.
I laughed so hard at your sweetness.
However, it made you another $15.00, so it was profitable.
You need a book of idioms! J
Whhaaaat? My own mother is in on the secret language too!?
Am I an idiot?
But this idiom can be taken literally and it still makes sense!
WHAT A DANGEROUS IDIOM!
Oh, and I know Mom knows I have the dictionary... I'm thinking J means Joking.
Oh ya, and, Mom,
this one is NOT listed in my dictionary of idioms (thank you very much).
so HA.
The Check is in the Mail
My Score Card for this idiom:
Able to be understood initially?: umm... when you're actually expecting a check, no, it does NOT make sense!
Able to be understood once explained?: I suppose
I'm not even sure this proves I'm an idiot; I think this is a bad context for this idiom.
I'm not quite sure I'm the idiot in this one,
One who takes things at face value
2 comments:
yeah, I had to explain this idiom to my Boss today. Also, that "J" your mom signed off with indicates that she
a) uses outlook
and
b) uses smiley faces.
I think the J character in wingdings or webdings is what outlook uses for it's smileys - so as soon as the email is sent to someone who uses a non microsoft engineered email platform we see the confusing little "J" characters where the stupid little smiley faces should be. :-)
If somebody called to collect on a debt, and you had already sent the cheque, you would say "your cheque is in the post" (or "the check is in the mail" if you're American), to mean "I have already sent you the payment, and it's not my fault that you haven't received it."
Source: theidioms.com
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