My mom just told me to clean up all the tools, or else Dad wouldn’t let me use 'em. Uh… I paid for half of the ones laying out… I think that’s up to me then, eh?
Mine told me that coffee was illegal for anyone under 18. They also threatened (in the past) to take away my car for something or another. Um… I paid for it myself, I insure it myself and my name’s the only one on the title, hell, you don’t even purchase my DEODORANT, why the hell do you think you can take away my car? They’ve also threatened to take away my TV, or whatever, that I’ve paid for, too. Umm… does this make sense?
Of course, horses weren’t fearsome creatures that ruled the earth in the late Mesozoic with their terrible hooves and fearsome claws, either, so what do they know?
“don’t mess with the automatic windows, they’ll break.”
um… aren’t they meant togo up and down?
“eat those carrots, you’ll be able to see in the dark.”
I eat carrots every day for almost a year in hopes of having super-human eyesight, all I got was super-human constipation.
When I was very young, I was hesitant to try a new food–bologna. (No, I don’t know if that’s spelled right.) To encourage me, my parents solemnly explained that it was identical to the hotdogs I ate. I had trouble with this concept–it sure didn’t looklike a hotdog–so they told me that it had actually beena hotdog…which had been run over by a steamroller.
I have never eaten a piece of bologna in my entire life because of that.
I am eternally grateful to my mother for never ever suggesting the clean underwear/accident connection. She grew up on a farm and probably knew that clean underwear would be the last thing on an EMT’s mind.
She did used to tell me to “Go put on a sweater. You’re making me cold!” Logical little cuss that I was, I always wondered why she never put on a sweater herself when she issued such a proclaimation.
Dad rarely made any absurd pronouncements. Both he and mom were college educated, and had a lot of common sense. Occasionally, Dad might say something of questionable veracity, but he was always willing to concede he might have been wrong when confronted with evidence.
…it’s illegal to put a postage stamp upside-down on the envelope.
…they can still throw you in prison for not paying your bills.
…that the school lunch monitors would make me eat all the food on my plate at school (I dreaded the lunch hour all morning - then I found the monitors didn’t care if you finished your food as long as it didn’t end up on the floor).
…that she could open my mail (I was 26 and living at home - her house, her rules. I got a P.O. Box and moved out soon after.)
…that I’d better marry a rich man, because I could never survive on my own (HA! Still here!).
…that because she helped me with one car payment (while I was waiting for the lawsuit settlement), she was legally entitled to use and claim partial ownership of my car.
[Note on the last three: living at home was an economic and physical necessity - an automobile accident left me physically impaired and I needed help with several daily activities.]
We finally started speaking to each other again two years ago.
In my mid-teens, I had a cat. In the winter, he slept inside the house. He had a few accidents in the house, which my mom and I would clean, depending on who found it. Finally, one day, Mom discovered a particularly nasty pile, and yelled at me that she was “tired of cleaning up cat shit in my house.” (Mom rarely, rarely swore.) I said, “You mean for a while there you were okay with cleaning up cat shit in your house? 'Cause I’ve been sick of it since it started.” She got REALLY mad for about 30 seconds, and then busted out laughing.
Some time later, I killed and stuffed Mom. But that’s another story.
My mom, God love her, told me that the crust of the bread was where all the vitamins were and that is why I should eat it. Growing up, we always had wheat bread, you know, with the thuck crust, so this was her way of getting me to eat it.
<flash forward to college>
My roommate was making a sandwich and was pulling the crusts off. I was |___| this close to telling him he really should eat the crust, since that’s where all the vitamins were when it hit me that it was utter bullshit. Amazing how that stuff stays with you.
My parents also tried to get me to eat seafood by telling me that all you taste is the garlic-butter or whatever the souce was. I came back with “Fine, give me some bread and I’ll did it in there and we’ll call it even.” That went over like a lead ballon.
I was in Junior High and my mom was picking me up after school. I was talking to a girl I liked when Mom pulled up. (I should explain that at the age of 12 I was already 5’9", and topped off at 6’4" in high school. The girl I was talking to was 4’11") Mom asked who the girl was and I responded that it was just some girl I liked. “Well,” she said, “don’t go marrying a little girl like that, because they have problems delivering big babies.”
When I was in my thirties, I was “T-boned” on the driver’s side and broke my pelvis in three places. My wonderful parents of course rallied around to the hospital, and were so upset-somewhere during that hospital stay, my mom asked for my blood soaked clothing, so she could wash it for me and bring it back to wear home from the hospital. She commented that she hoped I was wearing “whole” undies (as opposed to undies with holes) when I was injured.
Of course, I was not wearing any underpants, I never do with leggings. I was all doped up and didn’t feel capable at that point of dealing with the whole thing, so I just had the nurse give her my clothes and went back into a blissfully drugged sleep.
When my mom brought my clothes back (she was **so **wonderful as always-got the blood out and made things look brand new) -she said “your panties must have gotten ripped, and they threw them away, because they weren’t with the rest of your clothes.”
I agreed. I didn’t even feel like dealing with the facts-how could my underwear get ripped, when my leggings were intact? I wasn’t sure that she could deal with the thought of her precious baby girl routinely walking around with no undies on. Sometimes denial is the best of the available solutions.
Hey-works for me, don’t expect it to work for everyone!
Otherwise, I would have had to start dealing with “always wear underpants, honey, in case you get in an accident.”
My parents didn’t say stupid stuff to me seriously. Oh, they tried to blow a few past me (the “clean underwear” classic, and if I swallowed watermelon seeds I’d grow watermelons in my stomach), but you could always tell it was tongue-in-cheek. I think it’s because they heard all that stuff when they were kids, figured out that most of it was BS, and swore never to do that to their own kids. As a result, I grew up with a pretty good sense of humor.
How many of you heard the other absolute classic “Eat your food! There’s children in (insert country here) who are starving!” I never heard that one either. My mom says she used to hear it from her mother on a regular basis. Then came the day when she finally told my grandmother to send it to them. My mom claims to have no memory of what happened after that, and her sister & brothers tell her that’s probably a good thing.
I’ve always been shy. My father’s responce, once I was in college, was that as soon as I was in a sound financial situation, I’d have no trouble finding a girlfriend.
