Here are the links to the 356 Japanese originals (spoiler free) and to the the spreadsheet with all the upcoming senryu as well as the translations to date.
TiL that this word has a fascinating history. Obviously, it’s a French word for Dutch footwear that came to Japan via English due to a French railway strike in 1910. Not sure why I didn’t intuit this immediately.
I’d heard the word before but it never dawned on me that “sabotage” and “slipshod” were at all related, much less “ciabatta”!
This was the part that was confusing me most about this one. I was like, “Are they…making toast speeches at some kid’s birthday?..Is a kid giving a long speech?”
I’m so happy that people seem to be enjoying these as much as I am.
It’s not making it any easier to pick a winner, though, especially with the number that have even accomplished 5-7-5 in English recently!
I’m still going to try to select just a single translation every morning. I think it’s worth it for future readers of the complete list. Maintaining the links to each day’s discussion with all the entries makes me feel better about this decision.
Hopefully, I can just count the likes when there are two excellent submissions like this (so far).
Here are the links to the 356 Japanese originals (spoiler free) and to the the spreadsheet with all the upcoming senryu as well as the translations to date.
That’s close but slightly different to my understanding (which likely means we are both wrong, of course ).
Here’s how I parse it:
帰りぎわ - on the brink of returning home / as I was about to leave
とらなきゃ - equivalent to 取らないといけない = I must pick up
よかったこの - I think this means “(something) I was happy for” here. The の is important.
Future me: No it’s not, you idiot. It’s just the second half of the word この. Somehow my eyes just completely glossed over the こ. You were exactly right: 取らなきゃよかった means “I wish I hadn’t picked up” or, more precisely, “it would have been better if I hadn’t picked up.”
電話 - telephone call (in this case, the “something” above).
So I think it means something like “Fortunately, I received a phone call I had to take just I was about to return home.”
That is, I think the implication is he wasn’t looking forward to returning home.
Case in point: I’m pretty confident that よかったの電話 indicates they were pleased to receive the call [Edit: that’s not what’s written! It’s 〜よかったこの電話, so I’m sticking with my interpretation unless someone can explain how I’m wrong. I’ve certainly been victim to misplaced confidence before, though!
I though the grammar might be 〜なきゃよかった which is casual Japanese for 〜なければよかった ”it would have been good if I hadn’t” which expresses regret .
Edit to add: While I’m fairly confident in this one, I’m often pitifully mistaken when it comes to grammar—so don’t take me too seriously from here on please
〜よかったの (or のに) is, I believe, effectively “subjunctive mood”. It expresses a wish or desire for something to be true. お役に立てれば よかったの ですが means “I wish I could help you.”
So my interpretation is that it’s worded よかったの電話 because of the 5-7-5 constraints but basically means 電話あったから、よかった.
But I’m unsure. You’re interpretation also makes sense to me.
to @JazzFuneral for a very nice English 5-7-5!
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Now it does sound better and is indeed more ‘husband’ volume than a scary warning 
).
Also surprisingly good exercise for grammer 
Edit to add: While I’m fairly confident in this one, I’m often pitifully mistaken when it comes to grammar—so don’t take me too seriously from here on please