Taking a Phone Message Page 22.
Script.
I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home. As soon as I walked in the door, though, the phone rang.
Paolo: Hello.
Evelyn: Hi, could I speak to Tony?
Paolo: He’s not here right now. Can I take a message?
Evelyn: Do you know when he’ll be back?
Paolo: No, I don’t.
Evelyn: Okay. I’ll call back later. Thanks.
……
Ten minutes later, the phone rang again.
Paolo: Hello.
Pam: Hi, is Tony there?
Paolo: No, he’s out.
Pam: Could I leave a message?
Paolo: Sure. Give me a second to get something to write with…Okay, I’m ready.
Pam: Could you tell him that Pam called and ask him to call me back as soon as he can.
Paolo: Does he have your number?
Pam: He should, but I’d better give it to you. It’s 279-555-6347.
Paolo: Okay, I’ll tell him.
Pam: Thanks.
…..
As soon as I put down the receiver, the phone rang again. I couldn’t believe it.
Paolo: Hello.
Susan: Hi, is this Tony?
Paolo: No, I’m his roommate, Paolo. Tony’s not here right now.
Susan: I need to get a hold of him. Do you have his cell number?
Paolo: Uh, yeah, I do, but I’m not sure he wants me to give it out.
Susan: Oh, I’m sure he’d want me to have it.
Paolo: I tell you what. Why don’t I take your number and have him call you back?
Susan: I really need to get a hold of him right away.
Paolo: I’ll give him your message as soon as he gets home.
Susan: Fine. This is Susan and my number is 742-555-3655. Please make sure it gets it. It’s important. Bye.
Paolo: Bye.
As soon as she hung up, I took the phone off the hook for the rest of the night. I’d had enough of being Tony’s answering service for one night!
Order Food in a Restaurant Page 30.
Script.
Customer: Hello, we would like to order some dinner. May we have the menu, please?
Waiter: Here you are, ma’am.
Customer: What are your specials for this evening?
Waiter: We have smoked salmon with onion sauce and spinach and mushroom soup for tonight’s special.
Customer: Well, I would like to have some chicken and my companion would like some beef. What would you recommend?
Waiter: I would highly recommend the country fried chicken and the pepper corn prime rib steak. They are quite popular among the locals.
Customer: Okay. We will go with your recommendation. Give us one order of country fried chicken and the prime rib steak medium rare.
Waiter: Would you like some appetizer, salad or soup with your meal, ma’am?
Customer: Alright. We’d like to order some spinach and mushroom soup and a green salad with the vinaigrette dressing on the side.
Waiter: What shall you have for your drinks, ma’am?
Customer: Bring us a couple of frozen margaritas, please.
Waiter: May I repeat your orders, ma’am? For appetizer, you have requested for spinach and mushroom soup and a green salad with the vinaigrette dressing on the side. For your main entrée, you ordered a country fried chicken and the pepper corn prime rib steak. And of course, you’d like a couple of frozen margaritas. Is this correct, ma’am?
Customer: Yes, that would be all. Thank you.
Waiter: Your meal will be ready in ten minutes, ma’am.
Room Service Page 30.
Script.
I was staying at a nice resort hotel in Arizona on a short vacation. I had been out on the golf course playing a round of golf. When I got back into the room, I was feeling pretty hungry. I was meeting some friends for late dinner around 8:30. I wanted a snack. I took a look at the room service menu and called their number.
Woman: Room service. What would you like to order?
Jeff: Hi, I'm in room 1201 and I'd like an order of the calamari and a slice of cheesecake.
Woman: Do you want the calamari appetizer or the entrée?
Jeff: I'd like the appetizer.
Woman: Anything to drink?
Jeff: A diet Coke. About how long will that take?
Woman: It'll be about 30 minutes.
Jeff: Okay. Thanks.
There was a knock on my door about a half hour later.
Jeff: Who is it?
Woman: Room service…Hi, where would you like me to put the tray?
Jeff: On the desk would be fine.
Woman: The total is $16.75.
Jeff: Oh, that's higher than I'd expected.
Woman: There's a 12% service charge for room service and there's also the usual food tax.
Jeff: Oh, I see. Can I charge it to the room?
Woman: Sure. Just fill in the total here, write in your room number, and sign at the bottom.
Jeff: Okay, there you go. Thanks.
Woman: Thank you and have a nice day.
The calamari and the cheesecake really hit the spot..
Extra work: New York Street Food.
Script.
Eric: Let’s talk about another favorite thing of mine in NY, which it might be silly, might not, but it’s the street food.
Tom: Uh-huh.
Eric: It’s just to me there is no other place in the world where you can eat so well on the side of the street for 2 or 3 bucks. I mean
Tom: Yeah, you get your hot dog served, the Greeks serve the gyros, um, normally in the morning when I go to work there will be the coffee stand on the street and I get my coffee for a half a buck a doughnut, breakfast would cost me a dollar.
Eric: So you’re saying that you get your coffee, but it’s outside, on the street, you don’t have to walk outside on the ..
Tom. We’ve got a Starbucks there, but that’s expensive, cheaper in NY surprisingly than it is in Shangai
Eric: Really?
Tom: But…Yeah, I can get that regular coffee for a dollar eighty.
Eric: Well, it can be done.
Tom. Yeah, a regular sized , but on the street I get a coffee. Reasonably, drinkable coffee for fifty cents still. I can get a bagel for a half a buck. So I can get a bagel and a coffee for a buck.
Eric: So the coffee , you know, it might not be the best, but it gets the job done.
Tom: It’s OK.
Eric: Wakes you up. What would you say to people that would be scared or frightened to go to NY because of the price, I mean, you just mentioned that it can be very expensive, but it also sounds like what you just said, it can actually be quite reasonable.
Tom: There are reasonable places to go, I don’t know about the hotels, I know people working in the hotel industry there and living there, spending a week in a hotel you’re spending a lot of money. I think a fairly cheap hotel room can be 130 dollars a night.
Eric: Wow.
Tom: You know, That’s so, I don’t know what to tell people except that find a friend that you can crash with and after that, you can go to fairly cheap restaurants in… where I work in NY Central Park, if you go to the west side on like on 9th avenue and the fifties. There are an awful lot of good ethnic restaurants and you can have a pretty decent meal for 6 or 7 dollars. Indian places, Chinese, Thai, Turkish restaurants.
Eric: Sounds like you can have anything you want really.
Tom: Anything you want is up there On 9th avenue is a good place for lunch or for dinner and you’re going to get away reasonably untouched as far as your pocket buck goes.
Eric: Nice
Tom: So it’s pretty good I eat lunch there a lot, I have dinner there a lot I have to work. Down Chinatown you can eat for about 3 or 4 dollars still.
Eric: Can be done. Excellent. Tom Spears, thank you for joining us.
Tom: Hey, no problem.
Extra work: Tips for stress free shopping with kids.
Script.
Hey there! You're listening to the Mighty Mommy with some Quick and Dirty Tips for Practical Parenting. Today's Topic: Stress Free Food Shopping
Tips for Taking the Kids to the Grocery Store.
I love grocery shopping. I don't really know why, but I do. I love to clip coupons and check sales ads to save money. I have my list and my coupon organizer ready when I arrive at the grocery store, but it still takes quite a while to find everything I need. If I have the kids with me, which I usually do, shopping can become quite a challenge. We have found some great ways to make the shopping trip fun and educational for all of us.
Organizing your shopping trip in advance can save you time, money and stress. It's best to shop with children when everyone is well rested and not hungry. Try to keep your shopping trip under an hour. Older children will be able to tolerate longer shopping trips, but toddlers generally don't have that much patience.
Some supermarkets have fun shopping carts. Check to see if you can find a fun cart for your kids. Some stores have miniature shopping carts that your kids can push and some have ride-on carts that look like cars for the younger shoppers. Always use the carts as they are intended and buckle your children in as instructed. Let your child walk once she is mature enough to walk along with you. Unless a child is tired or refusing to stay by your side, she really should be permitted to walk. It is good exercise and good practice for following instructions. Letting your child walk also gives her some independence along with the ability to retrieve those cheaper items from the bottom shelf for you. If your child is having trouble staying with you, ask them to hold onto the cart. When my daughter was just learning to walk with me, I would thread a knotted receiving blanket through the side of the shopping cart and have her hold onto the other end. The blanket was much easier to hold onto than the cart.
The grocery store can be a fun and educational place to visit. It may seem boring and tedious to some grown-ups and children, but you can make it interesting with a few little games. Since the store is covered with labels and price tags, it lends itself very well to letter and number recognition games. For the younger crowd, just learning letters, you can ask them to help you find items in the store beginning with a certain letter. If your daughter's name is Mary, you can ask her to point out items with the letter M on them. Older kids can carry your shopping list and help you locate and mark items off as they are found. If you are shopping with coupons, have your child match the picture of the item or brand on the coupon to the item on the shelf. The more you make it seem like a treasure hunt, the more fun it will be for everyone.
You might think that a child's favorite place in any store would be the toy aisle. This is not so with my daughter. She loves the produce section. The pretty colors and smells always get her attention. When we are making our produce selections, I let her help. This is definitely her favorite part of the shopping trip. She will pick up an apple and turn it around looking for bumps and bruises. If it satisfies her, she will let me look it over and if we agree, she gets to put it in the bag. We do this with most of the product items we purchase and not only does she enjoy the process, but she's more likely to eat the items she's helped pick out. I remember a day when my daughter had chosen a large bag of beautiful, red grapes. I had looked at the price and thought it was much too high. We almost put them back until I realized that the price was about the same as a premium box of cookies. She was making a healthy choice and I wanted to support that. We enjoyed plenty of delicious grapes that week. This incident gave me the opportunity to talk to my daughter about making healthy choices and saving money.
Older kids might find it a challenge to help you find the best deals. Shopping for the best price is all about math. Give your child a few options and let her figure out what will save you the most money. If you are shopping as a family, have each family member try to keep track of the running total as items are added to the cart. Before the cashier begins ringing the order, have each person make a guess as to the total of the bill. The winner will be the person closest to the actual bill total. This is a great game for older kids and preteens. The prize could be something as simple as not having to unload groceries this trip. Games like these keep the shopping trip interesting, fun and educational.
I have two more quick tips for today. My first tip is to leave any precious toys at home. Unless it's a toy you don't mind losing, it's better not to bring it into the store. If you let your daughter bring her favorite little doll shopping, she might drop it somewhere and never see it again.
My final tip is to invest in a protective seat cover for shopping carts. These are wonderfully useful items. They make the shopping trip more comfortable for little riders and, with regular washing, can cut down on those icky shopping-cart germs. At the very least, take advantage of the antibacterial wipes now available at the entrance to most grocery stores. Wiping down the cart's seat and handle can help minimize the amount of germs that you and your child will be sharing with other shoppers.
That's it for now. Hope you enjoyed listening.
If you would like to request a topic for the Mighty Mommy, or if you'd like to share a wonderful tip of your own, you can e-mail mommy@qdnow.com or leave a voice mail at 206-222-9148. Also, if you haven't already done so, please take a moment to post a review at iTunes. I'd really appreciate it.
The Mighty Mommy's Quick and Dirty Tips for Practical Parenting is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips network at quickanddirtytips.com. This week Grammar Girl is talking about the phrase between you and I so be sure to check out her podcast!
This is your friend, the Mighty Mommy wishing you happy and fun parenting!
