Went to mum's last night and the silliest thing happened and my mum was so mortified about it I couldn't do the one-liner (possibly slightly racist but my sister in law's chinese and she laughed when I whispered it to her so I think it's OK) joke that was made for the situation because I didn't want to hurt her feelings.
We always get a chinese takeaway when my sister and her family are up visiting mum. Last night we collated the order then mum rang it through, on returning to the living room she said "they said we have to pay cash, it's £110 and it'll be ready in twenty minutes". Normally we pay by card so there was a bit of discussion that the owner must be going to the casino for NYE. My brother and his wife then set off with the cash to collect the food. Fifteen minutes later my brother rings mum's landline, the shop has no record of the order and are unable to make the food at all because the restaurant is very busy. Mum's shrieking down the phone "well you all heard me ring it through! I'm not going mad! etc." at which point she told my brother to just come home and she'd make some sandwiches. I went to put the phone back in the holder and looked back through her call history, she'd rang a completely different Chinese! Went back in the living room and said "mum, you rang Rainbow House instead of Tung Fong!", mum said "no I definitely rang Tung Fong", I replied "no, it's a 702 number and Tung Fong's a 794 number and Rainbow House only take cash" then there was a dawning realisation, both hands went up to the side of her face and she burst into tears in the hall. I'm hugging her and saying it's OK, come on we'll just jump in the car and go get it, I've got enough money in my purse, it's all alright, just a daft mistake". She was really quiet in the car then on the way back home she said quietly "It's something your dad would have done isn't it?". I realised then just how terrified she is that she's going to go down the Alzheimers route and I felt so bad for her. I just said "Nowhere near something dad would have done, you just rang the chinese you ring the thirty times a year when we're not having Posh Chinese, stop being daft, it was just a mistake" when what I really wanted to say was ...
... can't believe you Wang the Wong number!
(she was fine afterwards and I warned everybody else in secret how upset she was and not to wind her up about it so I think we're all good again)