I've got good news and I've got bad news

Probably the most famous line that you never want to hear when you pick up the phone is: "Are you sitting down?" Everyone knows that when they hear those words, they're about to hear something important, usually bad news. But something that might be better to ask in that situation is: "Are you in a phone booth?"

Why is that? Well, let me explain... probably everybody has gottten dizzy (or maybe even passed out) from standing up too quickly. Well, that's due to a temporary drop in blood pressure to the brain (don't worry, it's only temporary). Anyway, in that situation, we usually recover pretty quickly, and go on about our business. But sometimes people pass out when they heard bad or shocking news. This is also mostly because of a temporary drop in blood pressure to the brain. This is something called "vaso-vagal syncope" (syncope means passing out). Its really complicated, but the gist of it is, due to some kind of stress (like bad news), your blood pressure to your brain goes down, and you pass out. Usually this isn't a big deal (well, not life-threatening anyway), because when you fall down, your head ends up at the same level as the rest of your body, and then more blood flows to to it, and you wake up, and recover and everything's alright.

However, if you're standing in a phone booth, you can't really fall over. That seems like it would be a good thing, but it isn't. Because you can't fall over in a phone booth (ever...) you're head can't go down to the same level of your body, and so the blood can't flow to it well enough (read: bad!). Anyway, because of that, I guess you couldn't really wake up until somebody else came along wanting to use the phone and opened the door.



Anyway, who knows how long that could take, so in the meantime, your brain isn't getting enough blood, like what happens in a stroke. Obviously, that isn't good. So, the take-home message here is that before you tell someone bad news on the phone, make sure they aren't standing in a phone booth.