LOL - Great story, Mark. I think only my wife knows when I'm using a "Columboism".

My wife and I just off the tennis court here in our development. A guy, who I later found out is named Fred, came to the fence to ask me how much longer he thought we'd be. I told him, "in about three seconds," after we collected our tennis balls. We did so and chatted with him for a few moments. As we turned to walk home, I noticed we'd missed a ball on the court. The guy got to the ball first and tossed it across the court to me.

I responded, in my best Columbo voice, "Thank you, Fred", making sure to run the words together as he did in "Last Salute to the Commodore".

Maybe I've never done it out loud, but when I think someone is making big assumptions, I think of that as "cigar ashes" (after Milo Janus).