The first thing that came to mind when I saw this topic was a scene from the Arrested Development, Season 3 episode “Prison Break-In”.
Lucille was planning to have an affair with the prison warden where her husband is incarcerated. She is waiting for him in the conjugal trailer when her son Michael (Jason Bateman) shows up and tries to talk hner out of it.
After making a touching, but failed, plea trying to change her mind, Lucille says, ***“I want to cry so bad, but I don’t think I can spare the moisture.” ***
Words that no son should EVER hear coming from his mother…even worse when his mom is over the age of 60!!! I cringe every time I see that part of the episode…
I’ll never unhear the Monstrous Fart that emerged from my parents bedroom one night when I was a teen. Granted, our bedrooms shared a common wall. But it woke me up. I was surprised the next morning to find that I still had two parents. I figured even if they survived the blast that one would have killed the other.
Amidst all the adulation toward Whitney Houston when she died, I couldn’t unhear what she had said and it ruined any thoughts of her for me. It was something to the effect of she would* have constipation so bad that Bobby Brown would have to scoop poop out of her with a spoon. Now, obviously we all have to do things in the privacy of our own home that are gross but no one hears about. But to say it out loud while cameras are rolling?!
*spoilered because remember, you can’t unhear this
I’m sorry for your loss, and happy that you had a warm relationship with your dad. I was lucky too to be able to have great conversations with my mom when she was dying.
I was thinking of some heartbreakers too, but I’ll take a page from your book and add a heartwarming one.
When I turned 30, I cried all day. I was upset because my life was nowhere near where I thought it would be by the time I turned 30, so I felt like an abject failure. My mom called to tell me happy birthday and she handed the phone over to my grandfather, who was in his late 70s/early 80s at the time. I bitched and moaned about my birthday and said this one wasn’t so happy.
He listened and then said, “Well. You will always be young and beautiful.”
A smartass to the bitter end, I replied with, “Well, yeah to you.”
He cracked up. But I decided that his words made me feel so good that I try to forbid people from telling me happy birthday. Because those words sort of ring hollow to me, like saying bless you after a sneeze. It’s just a reflexive thing people say to be polite. So I ask my friends to tell me “You will always be young and beautiful.” Makes me feel like a million bucks every time, even if it is a whopping lie.
Similarly, listening to my mother-in-law, deep in the throes of Alzheimer’s disease, ramble on and on in a terrible voice about what (some unknown) “he” is doing and how he’s killed little girls and how she hates “him.”
Pixiesnix, I’m so sorry for your loss. That’s a lovely memory though.
As for mine, the worst is my mother telling me I’m demon possessed because of my mental health issues. In her world, there is no bigger insult. And that’s just one of the myriad bad things she’s said that I can’t unhear, it’s just the best.
My MIL, having had a hysterectomy three weeks prior, explaining to me why she had to go back in for a minor procedure to repair some mesh or sutures or something saying my FIL kept telling her “he could feel something up there that was making him sore”. Eeeyeah.
Thank you. That was quite a while ago (hell, I even posted about it in the Pit) and I’ve mostly relegated it to an amusing anecdote in my head. So, I’m pretty much okay now. Just another sign that my mother is really the screwed up one.
That’s a lovely memory though.