Learn the English Phrases "a close call" and "to call off"

In this English lesson

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase,

"a close call."

When something is a close call, it means

that something bad almost happened,

but it didn't happen.

Here's a little story.

Once when I was younger,

I was working, I was about 17.

I was working on a building on scaffolding.

You know, what they put along the side of the building?

And lightning struck the ground

about a kilometer from where I was.

But me and my coworkers saw little bolts

of static electricity go

from the scaffolding to the building.

So we quickly climbed down and ran inside.

That was a close call.

I didn't get hit by lightning

but it was certainly a close call.

I was happy that the lightning hit far away.

So the second phrase I wanted to teach you today

is the phrase "to call off."

When you call something off, it means you cancel it.

This happens sometimes when it snows a lot in Canada.

They'll call off school, they'll cancel school for the day.

Sometimes this happens when two people are planning

to get married and then they start to not like each other.

Sometimes they call off the wedding,

they decide not to have it.

So to review a close call is whenever something

almost happens that would be bad.

Like if you almost hit someone with your car.

If two cars are driving and almost hit each other,

we would say that that is a close call

and when you call something off,

to call off means to cancel something.

So, hey, I don't have a comment today.

I have to apologize.

I've had a really busy week

and I did not have a chance to respond

to all the comments

and it's close to raining out here.

So I ran outside quickly.

I'm not sure if you can see the storm approaching.

There are

actually some small raindrops hitting me right now.

If you don't believe me, I'll show you the puddle.

You might be able to hear the thunder as well.

Whoa, that's upside down.

That's not how

that's supposed to work.

Here we go.

You can see maybe

some drops hitting that puddle there.

Let's see if we can get this turned around.

(birds chirping)

I'm not sure if you can hear the thunder.

I probably should just go inside now

instead of staying out here.

So just a short lesson today.

Busy week, haven't had time to reply to comments.

I'll get back at that as soon as possible.

But I thought I should still jump outside

and make a quick lesson for you.

Hopefully you learned a couple phrases

and I better get back inside now.

I don't want to tell another version

of the lightning story after this lesson.

So, have a good couple days.

I'll see you in a couple days

with another short English lesson.

Bye.