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Got the Wong number - it's not Barry Night here!

 

Surreal experience in my local convenience (well, it's a 15 minute walk, so not really convenient) store which doubles up as a Yodel parcel store. I sold some tat on Vinted and went to "post" it, the new owner assuming delivery to them by using Yodel might indeed materialise this year.

Anyway, the shop is owned, somewhat unusually, by a Mrs Wong (I never phone the shop in case I DON'T get the Wong number) whose lovely daughter usually manages it. However, today, Mrs Wong herself was at the helm. Her English is a bit 'suspect' at times.
 
Now a fellow worker on the magazine at the publisher I worked for in Dublin many decades ago was named Barry Knight. After much gesticulation, pointing and pleasant surreal conversation of which I had no idea what she was talking about, Mrs. Wrong announced as I was leaving, "Your Barry Knight". I replied "Sorry, no, I'm not" to which she looked rather dismayed. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the assistant piped up that Mrs Wong was actually inferring that I'm "very nice" as opposed to being "Barry Knight".
 
Mrs Wong has plainly not witnessed me when someone says they will "reach out" to me, tells me of their "career or business journey" that has never involved physical transport, or uses "super" as an adverb or adjective!

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