They had extremely plush carpet on their stairs. None of the stairs in my experience had been this plush.
I am only trying to explain why I fell down the stairs. Twice. On the same visit.
Story of my life. :mad:
A friend told me one that has haunted me for years. One of her in-laws was meeting the parents for the first time and had a period accident through her pants into the fancy parlor sofa they were sitting on. :eek:
My husband suffered a bowel perforation and emergency colostomy the weekend my parents came into town to meet him. He met them in the ICU, on a ventilator. At least he couldn’t say anything stupid…
Sounds like a line from *The Romance of Lust *. 
A fairly new girlfriend invited me over to her parents’ home (she lived with them) for dinner. She said her favorite food was pork chops. Well, being Jewish myself, I had never had them and what with a new girlfriend, I was willing to try them. Well, her parents were there for dinner too. And her mom was a recently un-excommunicated Roman Catholic. And an English war bride too. So, as we sat down for dinner, the mom asked me in that way Britishers have of sounding superior, “Why don’t you say one of your prayers over dinner?” I said I’d rather not because I don’t do it regularly and it seemed a bit hypocritical. She continued to urge me on until I explained…
“Look, there really isn’t a Jewish prayer for pork chops.”
That shut her up.
I met my (Japanese) wife’s mother for the first time a few years after we married. The meeting seemed to be going pretty well, actually, though I only spoke a few words of Japanese and she spoke no English. My wife was translating for us, and it all seemed fine.
Then…her mother must have decided that she approved of me, because she suddenly opened up the family altar (traditional buddhist) and invited me to pray to her deceased husband’s spirit.
All I can say is, I did my best to follow the right forms, and she seemed pleased when I was finished…!
I keep reading this as “your worst meet-the-press stories” and I’m like, Reagan and Iran-Contra, no doubt.
Carry on.
Shortly after moving to Miami to begin my residency, I met and started dating a very sweet, pretty Cuban girl who worked at the hospital, named Mayra.
Around the same time, a Cuban attending doc befriended me and took it upon himself to teach me enough Spanish so that I could take proper histories from Cuban patients. But, this guy was a wiseguy and liked teaching me vulgar Spanish phrases, too. Somehow I conflated some of the good words with the bad.
Mayra lived at home with her very conservative parents. She invited me to Thanksgiving dinner at her parent’s house. This would be the first time I met them and Mayra expressed how important a ritual meeting-the-parents was in her culture. She also told me her parents preferred that she not seriously date anyone who wasn’t Cuban. Hmm, pressure…but, I was typically pretty smooth with parents, so I wasn’t sweating it too much.
So, I arrived punctually at Mayra’s house. Her dad greets me at the door. He was quite devoid of any humor and looked like a bulldog—a mean, muscular bulldog. Mom looked darned serious, too. Both of them spoke very fractured English and my Spanish was worse than their English. Mayra was bi-lingual.
The Cuban Thanksgiving dinner was great. The dinner conversation? Not so much.
I don’t recall what I was trying to say (something complimentary), but the word “pinga” spilled out of my mouth as I was pointing in dad’s direction.
Dead silence. Mayra’s eyes widened. Dad’s eyes glared. Mayra later told me I called her father a penis. Oh…we’ll that’s probably not a proper ritual thing to do.
After dinner, Mom, Dad and Mayra were cleaning up in the kitchen. I was left alone at the dining room table. A thin swinging door separated us. I don’t know if they didn’t realize I could hear everything they were saying, or if they just didn’t care:
.…heated Spanish chatter…
Dad: I no like!..I no like!
Mayra: Dad! Stop it!
Mom: You too young to date him! (I was 25; she was 21)
Mayra: Mom! Stop it!
Dad: I no like!
…and, so on…
It made for rather awkward dessert conversation.
Mayra and I dated for quite a while. Her parents ended up liking me and even talked of us marrying. Alas, things didn’t work out that way. But, 30 years later, we re-connected and are online friends.