Pavarotti, dead

My parents, from the living room:

Mother: (watching the news) Old man! Pava-loti dead already leh!
Father: (reading something) Wah. Great soprano leh.

Then my father breaks out into some kind of yodel, possibly in adoring emulation of Pavarotti’s vocal ability.

I laughed, because:

1. at first I thought my mother was talking about Papa Roti, the coffee-bread brand
2. Pavarotti is not a soprano, he’s a tenor
3. they probably wouldn’t be able to name a single thing he’s ever sung (in fact, the only thing I’ve heard him doing is some poorly-conceived duet with Celine Dion)

Here’s to a man who was a household name, even though less than a single percent of the world actually ever heard him sing.