I can hear it now:

Ok ok ok…we’ll say that we had a phone conversation with him. How long should we say it was?

Well, 5 or 10 minutes seems short and almost not believable given his position and length of time he’s been gone.

So 15 minutes?

No. That’s a quarter of an hour and we don’t want anyone using the word hour because that’s going to stir controversy if he’s so sick.

How about 25 minutes?

No…that’s too close to half an hour and there’s that hour word again.

Then 20 minutes?

Ok. I think that works…it’s neither here nor there.