Strangest things your Parents have ever done?

In My Humble Opinion
1

What are the strangest things you ever saw one or both of your parents do?

Here is mine.

My family took a houseboat trip to Lake Powell. My parents with my brother and his girlfriend, my sis and I. Great vacation. You rent a houseboat and camp in a different cove every night. We had my parents and my brothers boats with us for water skiing and sight seeing.

One day we had a hard time finding a cove to camp in and the only choice was a pretty big cove that had another houseboat already set up to camp. In an effort to be good niegbors we beached as far away as possible from the outher houseboat. Once we got set up my brother decided to fish off the back of the boat while the grill was heating up for dinner.

About 10 minutes later a kid from the other houseboat got on his jetski and started riding around. This is fine. Then the kid decided that buzzing the back of our houseboat, where my brother was trying to fish, would be fun. At first he didn’t come to close and he was just being rude. After a couple of passes he was coming within 10 feet of the back of the boat which is downright frickin unacceptable. My brother was casting the hook at this little prick of a teenager.

At this point my Dad, who was on top of the houseboat with me said “Eric, come with me”. I said ok. My Dad went down the ladder and I followed. He climbed into the Bayliner, which was on the left side of the houseboat, and told me to push off which I did. He started the engine and told me to get in. I got in the bow. Right after I got in the kid on the jetski passed behind the houseboat going from right to left. As soon as the kid passed my Dad nailed the throttle and took off chasing the kid. I looked back and my usually mild manner Dad had the throttle pegged, his eyes were bugging out of his head, viens were standing out on his forhead and he looked so scary that I decided on the spot that I would never piss my Dad off again.

It took like 10 seconds before the kid on the jetski figured out that my Dad was chasing him[#1]. When he did realize it the kid tried to lose my Dad. It didn’t work. After a couple of minutes of twisting and turning the kid figured out that he wasn’t going to lose my Dad. The kid looked back and it was obvious that he was scared S*****s. The kid then turned and ran straight for the beach. In fact he didn’t stop and ran the jetski onto the shore next to his houseboat.

At that point my Dad throttled back with a smile on his face and went back to our houseboat. He beached the boat, got out and never said anything about the incident. I got out of the boat with my jaw hanging somewhere around my breastbone. We then had a nice cookout.

This from my Dad. The PHD in math with a 4.0 GPA, worked for the government, pay taxes on time and the picture of stable Dad.

The incident still amazes me.

Anyone have any other stories?

Slee

#1. We were never close enough to actually hit or run over the kid.

PS. The kid never came close to the water after that.

2

Good story! I could visualize it.

3

When I was growing up, I lived in Rochester New York, but my whole extended family was in chicago. We would take 12 hour road trips in the middle of the night to get there for Christmas and summer vacation. Dad always wanted to go in the night so we could ‘make good time’.

My sister and I would sleep in the backseat…but once, I was awake and staring out the window. My dad, unwilling to pull over and rest, would begin to nod off at the wheel.

So to keep him awake, my mother would periodically flash her tits at him.

Interesting to say the least.

4

My dad bought $500 worth of Frango Mints from Marshall Fields on the PBS auction about 20 years ago. Not sure why, and we weren’t the wealthiest of families either. To this day, I’ll never eat another one of those.

5

god I love Frangos

6

My mom dated a Satanist once.
She hasn’t been quite the same since.

Right after they broke up (when she supposedly “found out” he was worshipping the dark turtle)
She came home drunk from a Corporate Party @ Lake Buena Vista. My cousin got her undressed and into bed. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, she leaps out of bed, dodges us both, hurdles over the couch and heads out the door. (We lived in a 4th floor condo, right next door some incredibly rude people) Sadly - they were coming in for the night, just as my mom ran out onto the breezeway, pantyclad.
She looks up at them - And In her best drunken slur she yells "Oh god, it’s those damn (insert religious slur here) then fell FLAT on her face! Zzzzzz.

7

I don’t remember my folks doing anything strange like that, but my kids couldn’t probably write a book on me. :o

8

[sup]preview, preview, preview[/sup]

“could” write a book :o :o

9

[sup]Strangest Things Your Parents Have Ever Done?[/sup]

They married each other.

10

My parents have been divorced for so long that when I see a picture of them together, I think “WOAH! You guys KNOW each other?!”

That really has nothing to do with this discussion.

11

For a while, my mom was convinced that the best place to keep the remote for the TV was on top of the TV. I never figured that one out.

12

Oh, my dad has done so many strange things, where to start? My favorite is that once several years ago, after discussing my money problems on the phone and the difficulty I was having making rent, he sent me a dozen pairs of white tube socks. Not even a note, just a squishy package in the mail from Dad. I’ve told that story to friends and they all get that same look on their faces after, what I now call the “your dad sent you socks?!?” look.

A couple weeks ago he and I got into a bit of a money tiff where he was po’-mouthing. I told my best friend about it and she suggested I send him some socks. Given that he would probably have had a stroke upon opening them, I refrained.

13

I can top that. My mom keeps the remote in a drawer in a stand beside the TV.

Probably the strangest thing my (now ex-) stepfather did was marry my mother, which may not seem so strange on the face of it, except…

my stepfather is gay.

Actually, given his predeliction for teenage boys, I consider myself extremely fortunate that I was born with indoor plumbing.

14

My mother signed me up for Lamaze class. I have no partner, since Airman is a few states away and can’t make the class. So, my mother graciously offers to do it, and if she can’t, my father will fill in. That’s just going to be weird.

Robin

15

Eeeeeewww. A redneck Lamaze class…

16

My parents took in a lot of stray dogs when I was young, and some of them just didn’t work out - they tore up the neighbor’s garbage, or snapped at kids, or bit us. That, in and of itself, is odd, but what I find even weirder is that when they had to get rid of the dogs, instead of telling me about euthanasia, they told me the dogs were going to the mailman’s farm, where they could run free and live in an Alpo commercial.

Jeez, why didn’t they just tell me the dog was going to die? I never liked the damn things - they bit me! I had to find out years later and lose all my faith in every single thing my parents ever tod me!

Also, in the summer, when my parents were preparing for a fight, they would systematically close all the windows so the neighbors wouldn’t hear. I still don’t get this - why turn the fight into an event? Why prepare for it? How about just brushing it off, talking through it quietly, or deciding it isn’t worth it? No, they have to charge admission. Crazy fuckers.

I’m never getting married.

17

My mother was very “cheap” and “controlling” and “neat”, dare I say “anal”? It was not that bad when I was at home and back then I learned how to avoid trouble. In later years before her death, it got a little weird. They owned a house in the country club area and she would hang her clothes out to dry in the garage, so the neighbors wouldn’t object. However, that didn’t keep them from talking, because they saw her vacuuming the driveway. There was a problem with the fact that the hot water heater being in the back of the house and the kitchen in the front. It took a long time to get hot water (and look at all the good water that was being wasted). So she would fill a bucket with hot water and carry it to the sink to wash dishes. Of course then there was that damn dishwasher going to waste, so she used that to store her silverware. They moved to a small duplex in a care center and she stopped using a bucket, but you know where the silverware was put. She died last year and my dad still doesn’t use the dishwasher (except for…), because she is watching. :rolleyes:

You see otto the sock story begins to make sense. :wink:

18

A few years after my parents got divorced, my father married a woman with two daughters, one of whom is about two years older than me. They made a big show about everything being as fair as possible and that one of the parents kids wasn’t being treated differently than the other parents kids. It would get to the point of being ridiculously anal.

One year when I was away at college I got a check for my 20th birthday. The check was for $107.50. I called to thank them and then asked why the check was for such a strange amount. They told me that Ellie (my older step-sister) got $100 for her 20th birthday and that I got the same amount adjusted for inflation.

Haj

19

Ah yes.
My dad on vacation is really an entire category. (Which still cracks me up :slight_smile: )

But what stands out is the summer he procured the giant dragon pool float. Picture a pool float, in a rather shocking shade of sherbet green, with a large dragons head and tail at either end. Sorta like vikings designed a pool float with Puff the magic dragon as a model.

He carried it triumphantly into every body of water we vacationed near until it, sadly, expired a punctured death…

Its finest moment was when we were on vacation and had stopped at a rest area for sammiches right before getting to whichever waterfront we were headed to, and decided to go ahead and inflate “Puff” in the grassy dog walking area along the freeway. We got a lot of honking :smiley:
Especially after we hit the road again with it lashed to the roof rack. You just can’t fit 4 kids and an 8-foot inflated dragon in a station wagon.

20

My mom was schizophrenic, so how much time do y’all have?
The strangest thing my dad did was stay with my mom as long as he did.
OTOH, the strangest thing they did as a team, was…
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.
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.
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they sold Amway. They became Amway zombies, we had to stop using our regular products, and replace them with Amway stuff. They won a reginal award thing, and got these matching coats. Green corduroy with fake leather buttons, OMG those things were ugly, but they were so proud of them, they wore them everywhere. There’s something disturbing about seeing your parents in matching outfits.