One day the phone rang, and being the excited 7 year old I was I ran to answer it. Before I picked up the phone, my mom said, “If it's so-and-so, tell her I'm not available.”

I picked up the phone, and lo, it was so-and-so.

Being the good girl I was, I said, “Hi, my mother told me to tell you she wasn't available.”

To relax after the damage I've done, my mom put some milk on the stove to boil so she could make some tea. She told me, “Watch the milk, it might boil.”

And I watched as the milk boiled. How should I know that the flame should be turned off?

I was known to be a very obedient child.