The Spanish word compañero can refer to someone with whom you’ve shared pretty much anything. Classmate: compañero de clase. Schoolmate: compañero de escuela (but you weren’t in the same class group). Flatmate: compañero de piso. Coworker: compañero de trabajo…
My mother says “I saw your compañero the other day” and expects me to know which one of my hundreds of former whatever-mates that means. I usually manage to figure it out from what exactly triggered the line (it’s normally a change of subject in the middle of whatever) and maybe a couple of questions. But still, “the other day I met someone you know” isn’t much of a hint, not when she still lives in the town where I grew up and where I worked for about five years between going back to help care for Dad, and moving back out again.
And when she tells me a story about someone I don’t know, she goes into great detail about their relationships with other people I also don’t know; whether I know them or not she’ll often detail how everybody was dressed (always badly, as she is the only person in the world who has any taste; if she ever gets a story featuring Carolina Herrera, Ms. Herrera’s blouse will at the very least be askew). I’m good at going ahum and aham at the right spots while actually not listening at all. She even knows I’m not listening. One time I told her “Mom, it’s an international call, it’s the fourth time you tell me that story during this very call, and I already didn’t give a shit the first time.” “Well, I’m not telling you because I want you to know, I’m telling you because I have to tell somebody” “So it’s ok if I put you on speaker and just go ahum aham?” “Sure!” “OK, say my name when you want me to pay attention again.” put her on speaker “So anyway, last Thrusday I did meet my friend Anne as usual, because as you know we meet every Thursday, except sometimes we don’t because I’m busy or because she fails me…”
And oh yeah: people “fail her”. To the extreme that several friends have “failed her” when they oh-so-impolitely moved to their very final addresses at the local cementery. I swear they didn’t do it with the only purpose of leaving a hole in your calendar, Mother Dear…
A lot of people have been posting about how cheap their parents are. Let’s see if you can beat this one:
My parents own (but don’t live in) a nice house along a river. 3 bed, 2 bath, ~2400 square feet. Last assessed at ~$350,000.
The house had 5 feet of water in it during the last flood in 1964. Since then, maybe half a dozen times, the river has came close to coming into the house, but stopped shy a foot or two.
And despite all this they don’t carry flood insurance. Because the ~$400 per month is too egregious, even though their income would more than allow the added expense. It boils down to dad being a libertarian and feeling that flood insurance is a overpriced scam. The house is a rental, and they own it free and clear so there’s no requirement for flood insurance.
My parents, who are both 85, need to move out of their house and into an apartment. My mother has wanted to do this for at least a decade; my father, whose health is failing faster than hers is, wants nothing to do with any of this. :smack:
Whenever my sister or I go out of down, Dad will always advise us to “stay away from bad people.” The first time he said that to me, I envisioned a group of people standing on a street corner with signs saying, “Hi! We’re the bad people.” She often travels internationally; I do not. Anyway, I always remind him that there are bad people in our hometowns, and we’ll do our best to avoid them.
I was also the older sibling to a golden child who apparently couldn’t do any wrong and I was the blame for everything.
When we were both in high school and she decided she didn’t want to go to school anymore so she could sleep in and just watch TV all day, my parents blamed me for “Keeping her up at night” because she was taking constant naps because she had nothing better to do and her 7PM nap being interrupted meant she couldn’t go to school 12 hours later.
When me and her got hired to the same local business out of high school she routinely showed up late and did sub-standard work while I showed up on time and actually made my way through the ranks. Eventually when she quit because they were actually forcing her to work my parents blamed me for not “Looking out for her” despite the fact she was literally still living with my parents at the time and they sure weren’t making sure she was showing up on time.
When I stopped by for a family visit (and my jobless sister was still living there at the age of 30) and $100 was mysteriously taken out of my wallet when I left it in a bathroom by accident, they blamed me for leaving “temptation” out for someone.
“Oh, that’s not true!” Said repeatedly by my mom, until I finally stopped sharing interesting info with her. Two that stand out for me are:
Me: Hey, listen to this! These German school kids are learning something called ‘eurythmics’: telling a story mostly through body language. So that’s where the Eurythmics, the band, got their name!
Mom: Oh, that’s not true.
Of course I didn’t dare say, because I was only 15 or so, “I’m sure you’re an expert on both New Wave band name origins and German performance art, but I think it’s a safe bet that that is where they got their name.”
And the one that led me to stop sharing these tidbits with her:
Me: Did you know why American schools are scheduled the way they are, with students changing classrooms and bells to mark the passing period? At the turn of the century [it was still the 20th], it was decided that most public school students were going to work in factories, so they should get used to that kind of routine.
Mom: Oh, that’s not true.
Me: [out loud this time] Oh, can you prove me wrong?
Both parents dead. My Dad back in the day - before we had cable - would check the TV guide (remember those?) and see that a show he wanted to watch was on @ 9pm.
Dad “put it on channel 7 my show comes on at 9”
Me “but Dad it is only 7:45.”
Dad “I don’t care put it on the channel now, I don’t want to miss the show…”
My mom was the absolute worst person to ever take to anyplace that had tipping, mainly because she had previously worked at a sit-down restaurant for 20 years going from simple server to general manager and decided the best way to tip servers was by merit which she deemed the “fairest” way. The problem is that she often would leave small tips because she knew exactly how many times a sever was suppose to pass by a table and ask if they needed assistance, how they were suppose to properly greet customers, when being given the check asking if we needed a to-go box. Most severs nowadays are pretty terrible according to her and that shit wouldn’t fly if she was general manager of the place. It’s super embarrassing having to put an extra $5 on the table after she leaves to cover the minimum tip.
My mother is dead now but one of the things she did that royally pissed me off was to bitch about gifts my siblings had given her for Christmas, Mother’s Day, etc. I finally told her, “You know, because you bitch about these gifts to me, I know you also bitch to other people about the gifts I’ve given you. I don’t want to hear it any more. Stop it.”
Mom and Dad are into their 80s, and want to be part of social media for the grandkids, etc. They post on Facebook, but have zero understanding of any of the features. They’ll just post odd responses or questions to someone, not realizing you have to be “friends” first. (But I’m already her friend!!! No Mom, not that kind…).
After a long agonizing call about how to post a picture, I finally figured out they do not understand the concept of their own Facebook “page”. Wut? Both used to talk a lot on CB radio in the 1970s, so I think they are of the belief this is how the social media works.
Do they talk about TV news because they’re trying to take an interest in what you do? That would be pretty charming.
My introduction to finance was my dad constantly telling me how much gas, cars, candy bars, bicycles, and everything else cost when he was a kid. I eventually worked out the mechanics of inflation and could do rough price calculations in my head based solely on the data he gave me. From there, I worked backwards into time value of money.
If trucks had gone up at the rate of inflation, an average full-size truck that was $27,300 in 2008 would sell for about $32,000 today. Instead, it’s about $44,000. Sure, today’s truck has updated technology and maybe a better powertrain but of today’s cars are also better than 2008 cars and yet the prices of all new vehicles rose only 28% over the same period (compared to the 61% increase for full-size pickups). Worse yet, since full-size pickups are such a large part of the market, they skew the industry-wide price average, so the increase in car prices is likely much less than 28% over the same period. The best explanation for the divergence in car and truck prices is profit-maximizing by truck makers. It’s fine for truck makers to aim for as much profit as they can. It’s also fine for customers to recognize what’s happening to truck prices and push back. You don’t need to gaslight your customers. Trucks are just a relatively bad deal right now compared to ten years ago. Your customers are smart enough to recognize that.
My dad seems to think I need to always know the minutiae of obscure family members that I have never met.
Dad: “Jeremy is in rehab again”
Me: “Who?”
Dad: “He is your Aunt Mary’s daughter-in-law’s step-son from a previous marriage”
Me: “Ummmm, ok”
My mom takes random things and turns them in to lifelong generalizations.
Mom: “Would you like some more carrots”
Me: “No thanks, I’m full”
5 years later…
Mom: “We didn’t serve carrots because I know you hate them”
Me: “I don’t hate carrots”
Mom: “Then how come you wouldn’t eat any the last time I served them”
My father is so damned irritating this way. My brother and sister say the same thing when we compare notes. I wanted to post but couldn’t put it into condensed words as good as you did.
He’s a Type A+++, and I’m a Type B+ at most. Stoic he aint. Every time I visit and we go to ( he takes me ) someplace interesting, or see his new house or new vehicle, he’s always prodding me with stuff like “This is pretty nice…right?” or “Pretty good huh?..You like it?” I say, ( sincerely, not deadpan ) “yeah, it is” and he responds with “You don’t like it?” WTF? Do I need to lead a marching band, replete with a cheerleader that says ziss-boom-bah to express myself?
I’m a producer and writer, so I never actually sit in front of a camera and talk (I get caught walking in the background) but they have tried to tell me about stories that I have written and about people I have interviewed.
I didn’t realise I had so many siblings, especially:
At my previous house, I used to borrow the live-in landlord’s landline phone (he got free evening calls, I was on pay-as-you-go on my mobile) to call my parents. One day he was just passing as I put the phone down and said ‘Is your Mum away today then?’ I said yes :dubious: and asked if he was listening in to the call or something, to get the reply ‘Nah, could just hear you were actually having a conversation all the way through the call. Normally you’re only talking during the half your Dad’s on.’
Even when I went to Australia, via Borneo in my 20s, on my first call back she talked for over 20 minutes (I timed it), about stuff like work and the neighbour’s dog, and the plants she’d bought, all before even bothering to check what country I was calling from.
Well, it’s kinda neat that, since I moved back to my hometown, I work at the TV station they’ve watched since the late '70s, and that all the people they see on air are my colleagues.
But they’ve always talked to people about the news they see on TV, and they do it to my siblings too.
I’m not advocating going without flood insurance but just to point out facts, by not paying the $400 per month (in current dollars) for 54 years, your dad has saved $259,000 - likely more than enough to completely rebuild the house. Remember, the assessment of $350k includes land value, rebuild cost is only for the building(s). In this particular gamble, even if the house was destroyed by flood tomorrow he came out ahead.
My mom loves to pull the “old, decrepit, poor widow” routine when, in fact, she has good health, a paid in full house, more than enough coming in each month to meet expenses and a bank balance that would see her through well over a year worth of expenses even if the income suddenly stopped (it won’t. Her income is from 2 government pensions). She also has a rigid schedule of bedtime (8:00 pm) and wake time (5:00 am - she sets an alarm) that cannot be violated by any other plans. It matters not that the world doesn’t operate on her schedule nor that she has absolutely no need to go to bed and rise early. She complains that we don’t do enough things with her, or that the things we plan are “too late” in the day, but insists on being home by 7:00 so she can start her bedtime routine. My wife and I don’t even get home from work until 6:00 or later…:rolleyes:
She often travels internationally; I do not. Anyway, I always remind him that there are bad people in our hometowns, and we’ll do our best to avoid them.