How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Today's big story in Britain is that David Cameron and his wife Sam went to a pub for Sunday lunch at the weekend and accidentally left behind their 8-year old daughter. Personally, I think it's a non-story. Or, possibly, even worse than that, a story which has been allowed to run and run by cynical political spin merchants in order to distract from the abject incompetence of Cameron's doomed Coalition by presenting Cameron as just another ordinary, lovable Dad prone to ordinary Homer-Simpson-like incompetence.
Whatever. But it does give me a nice excuse to invite you all to come up with your fond personal recollections of the dumbest things your parents ever did. (And I'm not blaming your parents for what they did by the way. Speaking as a parent myself I am prepared to forgive pretty much any extremity of parental incompetence, recognizing as I do that, hey, being a Mom or Dad is tough and kids are demanding and difficult and sometimes mistakes are made).
I'd love to start the ball rolling by telling you the embarrassing thing I did the other day when I took Boy to look at his new school but I can't because he would never forgive me (and is barely prepared to speak to me again, even as it is). All I can say is that - weirdly enough given my last post - it involved the use (or otherwise) of firearms.
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Dec '11
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
After all that the Camerons suffered upon the death of their son, one would think even the British MSM could give them a break on this one...
BTW, Annefy- your stories are so entertaining, I wonder if perhaps you're related to the late, great Erma Bombeck? :-)
Jun '12
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
There's something about Vick's Vapo-Rub, I guess. In our case, it was once mistaken for the tub of diaper-rash ointment. I am told the screaming lasted for hours. · 7 hours ago
Ouch. Vick's on diaper rash. Ouch.
Although I clearly remember the unpleasant sensation of swallowing Vapo-Rub, the memory has in no way discouraged me from using it myself. One of my daughter's fondest memories is lying sick in bed as I apply Vick's to her throat and chest. External application only.
She tells the smell still makes her feel incredibly loved. She's 25.
Apr '11
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
When I was four or so, my father took me to the supermarket, which was just down the hill and across Connecticut Ave. After he went home, I went up to one of the grocers and said "I've lost my Dida". He sat me down to wait in the front window.
Meanwhile, my mother was asking "Hugh. Where's Grendel?"
I don't think he ever did that to one of us again, but I would have to ask my mother.
My most lamentable lapse was when our oldest was about four. We stopped at the Clarks Summit, PA, McDonald's and left her in her car seat. I walked out of the restaurant to come face-to-grill with our station wagon as it rolled across the drive toward the store, Elizabeth standing in the driver's seat clutching the wheel. Her face said this was more than she had reckoned for.
I think she had pushed the floor shift out of gear and the parking brake had slipped on the grade. The wagon was going so slowly that it bounced harmlessly when it hit a car parked by the curb.
Oct '10
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Apr '11
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Our kids would wander away from my wife in stores and then deliberately hide--inside low-hanging racks of clothes was a favorite. Colin once crawled into the double-height bottom shelf at the supermarket and pulled giant packs of paper towels around him. He listened as his mother called and called for him and was finally found when he couldn't suppress his giggling any longer.
Oct '11
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
EThompson: After all that the Camerons suffered upon the death of their son, one would think even the British MSM could give them a break on this one...
BTW, Annefy- your stories are so entertaining, I wonder if perhaps you're related to the late, great Erma Bombeck? :-) · 2 hours ago
Why, thank you! What a weird feeling to know someone read what I wrote; I have a lot of men in this house and they are not exactly hanging on every word.
Dec '11
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Annefy
EThompson: After all that the Camerons suffered upon the death of their son, one would think even the British MSM could give them a break on this one...
BTW, Annefy- your stories are so entertaining, I wonder if perhaps you're related to the late, great Erma Bombeck? :-)
Why, thank you! What a weird feeling to know someone read what I wrote; I have a lot of men in this house and they are not exactly hanging on every word.
Humour is the most precious gift, so pls keep 'em coming!
Apr '12
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Not in the least!
Of course, their bars are different too-- my husband still has fond memories of when he got to go on a business trip with his dad at 16, and had a beer at the bar.
Being a country kid, I still get amused at the idea of "bars" as their own, separate establishment-- I was driving before I realized that some places DON'T have a full menu and happen to serve hard alcohol, with an area that is kid-free for drunks to be idiots in. Every small town eating place I can think of had a "bar" area, and served hard alcohol at the table if you asked. (NOW there's a bar in my home town that only has a snack menu, but eh, "progress.")
IIRC, Pubs go adult-only at some hour.