Forsooth I tell ye verily

Before we moved into the District, we looked at school boundaries.

As you may know, DC public schools have a horrendous reputation, on the whole. But there are some excellent ones. We wanted to make sure that we could at least send Jordan to a good elementary school.

We figured this would buy us a number of years before we would have to contemplate moving out to the 'burbs for the schools.

Anyway, because I did the bulk of the school research, I became familiar with a lot of elementary and middle school names.

And it turns out that our phone number belonged to someone who sent their kid to Hardy middle school.

Because in the evening the phone will ring and we'll get a recording that begins, "Hello, Hardy parent." And then they announce a snow day, or two-hour delay, or whatever.

I was impressed with how organized they seemed to be.

Every once in a while when Nick answered the phone, though, he would hang up and say random things, like, "And a merry eventide it is!"

But he's like that. So I didn't pay any attention.

Until one evening, when I said something about how clearly we are on a list for people with kids at Hardy middle school.

"Hardy middle school?"

"Yah, Hardy. You know all those calls we get."

"I was thinking it was incredibly odd that they addressed us as hearty parents!"

"Hearty parents? Hello hearty parent?"

"Exactly! And I would think, why, yes, I am feeling rather hale, thank you!"