Of all the people in my group of friends, there’s one, T, who’s the most level-headed and mature. (and he’s actually the youngest.) Nobody knows where that comes from: his family’s a bunch of screwups. His brother is a stoner and a Big ol’ Meanie, and we suspect he may have killed somebody. His sister is a shrieking succubus. And his mom is almost retarded.
Most of the time, she’s cool about letting people stay over there. (we’re teenagers.) But once she just decided, at one in the morning (or somewhere around) to kick a bunch of people out. I wasn’t there, but friends say it was unprovoked. She had earlier approved of this party, but now they’re out in the cold. Miles from anybody’s house. And she won’t give them access to the phone. At this point, i don’t believe any of us had cars.
Once, she brought T all the way to Portland, to a Pavarotti (or someone like that) concert. Whoops, no concert today. She hadn’t bothered to actually look at the date on the ticket.
She’s still married to the sexually abusive monster that abused her daughters.
Refuses to admit that anything was wrong with the situation.
Fought the court to make sure said monster didn’t actually do any time.
Still tries to influence and control daughters through guilt, even though both are 1200 miles away now.
examples:
“If you would just talk to your father, things would be fine here.”
“Well mom, how about an apology for 12 years of sexual abuse?”
“He didn’t do anything wrong. He was sick.” sigh
My parents left my favorite Fisher-Price toy (the airport, I think) on top of the car roof and lost it when I was about 3. I’m not sure this was their dumbest, but hope the OP feels better knowing about a similar screw-up.
This thread is an unusual mix of offbeat “oops” type stuff, and seriously messed up stuff. Was this supposed to be a humorous thread or a horror thread?
My parents would let my oldest sister take me swimming when I was three. They’d let us walk to the swimming pool around a mile away and left my sister in charge. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad except my sister was only 8 at the time.
Another swimming story, my mom and dad dropped us off at Barton Springs to go swimming for the day when I was around 9 or 10. We spent the day swimming and then they were supposed to pick us up at a certain time. So, at the appropriate time, we’re standing at the entrance waiting for them. No one shows up. We call the house. No one answers the phone. After waiting for a half hour or so, we walk the three miles home. I don’t remember if I wore shoes, but I know I walked home in my bathing suit and it was night when we got home.
Then there’s the time my parents drove through Dallas on their way to and from Shreveport on Christmas and didn’t even bother to call or visit me. Oh and did I mention that one happened a this year?
I guess the most heartless thing my mother ever did was when I had chicken pox. I got it when I was in high school (I think I was 16) so I was hit pretty hard. My face was a mess with pock scabs. After a week in bed with a high fever I was finally feeling well enough to come down to the kitchen to get myself some soup. I twas dinner time, and my mother was at the tabe. She looked up at me and said, “For chrissake, did you have to come down now? You look so disgusting I’m losing my appetite.”
Good ol’ Mom often has trouble filtering words through her brain before they come out her mouth.
Despite my own efforts to be perfect, when UvulaDaughter was a couple months old, I got so involved with getting her buckled into the car seat and ready to go that I forgot about the diaper bag on top of the car. Scattered diapers, two changes of clothes, and a few bottles of formula all along the Interstate to get knocked around by traffic. Duh.
Once about 10 years ago when my son was 6 and my daughter was 4 and a half they decided to get up and start playing VERY loud.
So I get up from bed to give them a dirty look and tell them to KEEP IT DOWN!
So here I am fussing at the kids about being to loud. And my kids are looking at me crazy. They quiet down and I turn to go back to bed.
My wife is standing behind me laughing. I turn and say “Whats so funny?” She points to my crotch, I look down and notice my PENIS is hanging from my open fly in my PJ bottoms.
When I was in elementary school, every Wednesday was “early day”. We lived on a hill at the top of a dirt road. The road was 1/2 mile long, and the bus dropped us off at the foot of the road. So it was 1/2 mile hike uphill. Normally, especially in the fall and the spring when it was warm, we just walked it without aproblem.
When this happened though, I was in first grade. It was valentine’s day. I remember because my mom sent me a helimum filled balloon on a stick from the local florist (she liked to send me litle surprises like that on big days). So I step off the bus into a howling blizzard. It was so bad I couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of my face, and the wind was blowing something fierce.
And nobody was waiting for me at the corner. So I started walking.
By the time my dad showed up, I was more than halfway home, frozen, and my balloon was all bent and mostly deflated. My dad felt awful and I tried to thank him for remembering me except I couldn’t really talk because my lips were numb.
To continue the car-related theme, my father used to regularly drive the whole family around drunk as a skunk. This was again before there were seatbelts in teh back of cars (but not so far back that it was acceptable to drive drunk).
Sorry about your photos Torgo The only practical advice I can offer is to let your kid know as he is growing up why there is a gap. I was convinced that my parents hadn’t taken any pics of me as a child, even though they had taken loads of my younger brother. Found out recently that mine are all on slide-film in a different drawer doh Let the little’un know that you took lots of pics but that they had an accident.
Good heavens, it’s a wonder some of y’all made it to adulthood. I’m with Hugh Jass here, I thought Torgo was looking for “oopses” not “OMGs!”
In that spirit, I shall share my own embarrassing oops. I had to take the Terrible Teen (then four) to work with me one day - not serious work, really, I was manning a bead shop for a friend and it was nothing more than keeping an eye on the store. TT was outstandingly well-behaved that day, playing quietly with some odd beads, chatting politely with customers, no whining, no getting into the displays. The owner returned and thanked me for keeping the place open for him. TT and I left, and as we walked out of the store, past the big glass display window, I reached out and ruffled TT’s hair and said, “I am SO proud of you!” JUST as I touched her head, she tripped over her shoelace and went down, hard, on the sidewalk. I picked her up and started to console her, when I realized that the shop owner was staring at me in horror through the window. A quick mental review of the situation made me realize that it looked for all the world as though I had reached out and shoved the poor child to the ground. Even worse, I couldn’t think of any graceful way to exit this situation, so I took TT back into the store and made her tell the guy that I had NOT pushed her down. She willingly did so, but I’m still sure that the guy thinks I am a monster.
Back when the earth cooled, and dinosaurs were free-range, my parents were young, happy and naive, my dad worked alot to support his growing family. He was out of town mostly.
So, mom, was used to doing her own thing without Dad’s help.
She had two children at the time. One was about 4, the other under 1.
Dad calls and says he is coming home.
Mom is so excited she scoops up the baby from the playpen and swings him through the air ( by the airpits.) Baby hits the chandelier, causing it to shatter and crash down upon both of them.
Mom ends up in emergency needing loads of stitches and her whole face bandaged up. The baby was unharmed.
Alright, i’m going to most a couple of OMG not oopses.
I was prolly 16 at the time. I had a car and friends with cars. I spent the majority of my time at a lady friend’s house as it was the Summer and who wanted to be at home with the family? My family never took vacations, not even one dayers to like amusement parks. The last time had been when I was like 11. So I return home one day after a two day leave of absence to find my house completely empty. My mom, dad and bro were not home. I find a note lying on the kitchen table. A short one at that.
Dryfreeze:
Well, you weren’t here, so I decided to take the family to Kings Island for the day. See you when we get back.
Dad
Well that’s just spiffy eh? I had a cell phone too. I let them know where I was going to be at least every 3-4 hours.
Now for current times.
I’m preparing for my redeployment back from Iraq. I am going to back to FT Campbell, KY. My dad lives in Indy, all my stuff is in Indy to include my car. I call my dad via sat. phone and let him know when I am coming home. My dad says “so, you’re going to want to come home for the three day pass eh?”
I reply calmly, “No dad, I have no car, no TV, no clothing, no anything, I just want to stare at the damned walls for the pass time.”
Dad replies, “Hmm, I guess I’ll talk to my boss about coming to get you. I’ll email you tonight or tomorrow and let you know if I will be able to pick you up.”
My response, “Gee thanks Dad.”
Dad. “No problem”
Well it been four days and no reply back on the ride. I have made other arrangements. A friend of mine is driving the 5 hours to come get me and the 5 hours back. I had told my father that the aforementioned conversation would be the last one on the telephone I would have and I needed his reply soon. A while back he had told me that he already contacted his boss and his boss would let him have anytime off he needed to pick me up and whatnot. I have spent a good deal of time with his boss before and he is a really nice man.
Oh Well, Gee thanks Dad.
When Dominic was about a month old, we went to the grocery store (essentially across the street, mind you) to buy formula (thankfully it was a one-item-shopping-trip) and forgot to take Dominic with us! We had him all bundled into his seat and everything, but we left him in the living room. We’d only been parents about a month, and I guess the “routine” hadn’t stuck yet. Scary part is that we didn’t realize it until we were getting back in the car at the grocery store and realized we didn’t have him with us to buckle into the car! Fortunately the whole thing took less than 15 minutes and Dominic was just fine.
As for the photo thing… I can relate. I don’t have the video of Dominic’s ultrasounds and birth (taken tastefully from behind my shoulder–it’s totally G rated) because I’ve lost the video tape somewhere
Sounds like what might make the OP feel better is stories of generally good parents doing bad-parent things, so I’ll share two. When our oldest was about 3 months old, mr. norinew laid her in a living room chair to change her diaper. I warned him that she had recently started to roll over. Well, the diapers were across the room, and he left her laying in the chair to go get a diaper. When his back was turned, she rolled out of the chair! He said he felt like someone should take away his “daddy license”. Also, when our oldest was about 5 months old, she had bouts of crying in the middle of the night. We tried feeding her, rocking her, and felt her diaper (stick in a finger. . .I know it sounds gross, but parents will understand), and it wasn’t that wet. Finally, exhausted, we went back to sleep, and let her cry in her crib. The next morning, my mother volunteered to dress and feed her, since we hadn’t slept well. When my mother took her diaper off, her diaper area was actually cracked and bleeding!! She had developed a yeast infection somewhere along the line, and the poor little thing was in pain all night! Man, we felt like the world’s worst parents! Nonetheless, with antibiotic cream, and 3 months of cloth diapers as well as letting her “air out” as much as possible, she recovered and flourished.
Oh, yeah, one more thing. About a year and a half ago, I had our middle daughter at the grocery store with me. Left hubby home with oldest daughter, and baby, who was napping. The grocery store is right down the street from my house; middle child and I were coming out of the market, only to see hubby and oldest crossing the parking lot toward us; he had realized that he’d forgotten to add something to the list, and was coming to tell me. I looked around and said “Where’s the baby?” He got this blank look on his face… . “Baby?. . .” The baby was home, asleep, alone! :eek:Course, she was home alone for a total of about 5 minutes, but still, pretty damned stupid!
Hope that helps!
My dad felt awful and I tried to thank him for remembering me except I couldn’t really talk because my lips were numb.