Conversation Tips From Our Grandma, Mommom

Our grandmother is 94 years old. She is the queen of getting herself out of tough conversations and giving responses that say everything and nothing at all.  These are her best responses that have become invaluable to us and have turned into life lessons and tips throughout the years.  We wanted to share them with you:

“Why not?”

It doesn’t matter if I am ordering an ice cream cone at 8 a.m. or trying on a ball gown just for the fun of it, her first response to me is most often, “why not?”.  On occasion, “why not” is replaced with “might as well”.  I could not count how many times this phrase has come to mind whenever I have nothing to say.

“Fouled up”

This is a lady’s way of using the F word.  When we want to be a lady but also want to say the F word then just say that the situation is  “fouled up”, just sayin.  This works to describe pretty much any messy situation: untangle-able jewelry, a broken kitchen disposal, or a complicated family dynamic.  All of these things can be categorized as “fouled up”.

“I thought so.”

This response comes in handy when, frankly, you don’t want to look like an ass. After every question you ask but feel like you should already know the answer, make sure to respond with, “I thought so”. You will forever seem like you knew what you were talking about.

“Tricky trick”

This is the favorite and most commonly replicated in our family. Usually after someone brings up a tough situtation and you aren’t sure what to say, “tricky trick” is always in your back pocket. The hard part is not using it too many times in one conversation. This is why there are many variations on the phrase. For example, when a situation is too “fouled up” to talk about any more, you can say, “On to the next trick!”. “On to the next trick” both ends the conversation and provides the wisdom that there will always be another “tricky trick” down the road, so don’t get too bogged down in the one right in front of you.  “Tricky trick” can also serve as a boiler plate for similarly worded phrases such as “funny fun”, “spooky spook”, “nifty nift”, “rainy rain” and so on.  You get the idea.

So those are just a few conversation tools that will help you along this holiday season filled with fouled up conversations!  Feel free to give ’em a try and let us know how they went over.