A Matter of Calling

Title reference: "A Matter of Magic" by Patricia Wrede

***

Tate's mama, who's a very progressive lady for her age (no offence meant, ma'am!), has gotten obsessed with talking to all her children daily... And there's like... 8 of them! All grown up and just as (cough) dumb (cough) as Tate is. Guess it's genetic... or they've all taken after their dad, whom I've had the "pleasure" to meet only once. Lovely guy, I tell you. He told me I speak like a "bloody French" and that   my English is just as good as that of a "Welch shepard"! Guess he didn't like the latter as well. The "more" the "better", huh?

Anyway, Tate's mum has done some on-line research (Yeah, that lady surfs the Internet like a pro!) and came out with a great plan to stay in touch with her kids.

Prepaid cards.

The idea behind them is pretty simple, really. You get to make cheap international calls, without paying any additional maintenance costs. Users only pay a few minutes of the call... and you can access the service from anywhere! Prepaid cards are used by travellers, tourists to call their friends...

Mums who feel the need to check on their "lost sheep" children.

Best part is, your cheap international calls are also accompanied by lower rates and better voice quality. Prepaid cards, that use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP for short... though it has no ring to it what so ever!) software, provide a coherent communication. And more than this, prepaid cards work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Which is great, as long as it's not your mum, who's gotten possession of one of those "devil" cards. Yesterday, Tate's phone started ringing at around 10:30 pm, with the most ridiculous ringtone ever ("Mama's Song" by Carrie Underwood... I mean, come on, Tate, man! That's so.. fairy, if you get my meaning!), and got us both really embarrassed! Anyway, he picked up, accidentally putting the phone on "Speaker"... And all everyone in the pub heard was:

"Tate Matthew Rory (what kind of a surname is "Rory"?!), you're in a lot of trouble, young man!"

Luckily, by then Tate managed to stop the "Speaker" and get out of the pub, but still... I don't think we'd ever be able to show our faces there again! I mean... come on!

Still, do you know who was the most distressed person after that fiasco? Lulu, Tate's now official girlfriend, that's who. Why?

"Lulu Rory?!" She exclaimed in terror. "I sound like a cartoon character!"

And you act like one, honey... And you act like one.