Times your parents behaved egregiously out of or in character

[Cuellar]

Twit is a liar, a goddamned sonofabitch liar. That's a passage from famed bon viveur E.M. Cioran's The Trouble With Being Born

[Gregory Torso]

Well boy do I have burst ovaries all over my uneducated face.

[St_Eddie]

Well boy do I have burst ovaries all over my uneducated face.

+ karma for a wonderful and inspired turn of phrase.

[Twed]

Mother.

In character: Describing somebody they were looking for to a stranger, said "they're brown... not that it matters".

Out of character: Quite seriously asking if I'd like to kill myself with her when I was depressed. Also when alone with me asking if I'd heard about that case of a mother and a son having sex together and how weird that is.

DID SHE WANT TO BOFF ME OR IS SHE JUST OBLIVIOUS, I WILL NEVER KNOW

[a duncandisorderly]

Trough Mum: becoming the World's Biggest Nick Cave Fan. Seeing him in Dublin tomorrow. Still won't listen to The Birthday Party, though.

she doesn't know what she's missing. try working backwards through bad seeds via the bad seed ep.... 'deep in the woods', before 'zoo music girl', perhaps.

[edit]

or go straight for this. "it's clearly the same bloke", you can say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM6mr_MGITw

[madhair60]

Mother.

In character: Describing somebody they were looking for to a stranger, said "they're brown... not that it matters".

Out of character: Quite seriously asking if I'd like to kill myself with her when I was depressed. Also when alone with me asking if I'd heard about that case of a mother and a son having sex together and how weird that is.

DID SHE WANT TO BOFF ME OR IS SHE JUST OBLIVIOUS, I WILL NEVER KNOW

Fucking hell

[DArtagnan]

Most Dad thing,
Many, many moons ago, my mother was pushing for a new settee.
Somehow, living in Bermondsey, we wound up in Walworth Road, SE17, one Saturday, where someone had told her there was a store with some good stuff available at decent prices.
When we got there, close to the junction with Albany Road, there was a printed sign in the window,
SALE OF SETTES, my Dad took Mum's arm, and said, "If they can't even spell settee, it must be a shit store, I can't deal with fools, let's go to Lewisham."

[Twit 2]

Well boy do I have burst ovaries all over my uneducated face.

'Lucidity's task: to attain a correct despair, an Olympian ferocity.'

I'm an enormous fan of Cioran, probably the greatest writer I've ever read, just astonishingly good, even by the standards of astonishingly good writers. There's a huge amount of nuance and humour too, lost on people who think he's Nietzsche when he's actually Chamfort. I have a habit of posting his stuff in threads where it's appropriate, usually attributing the quote, but I thought it was so plainly a quote, not me, ( I suppose there are some posters in their 50s/60s, but I thought the '50 years ago' but was a clue it ain't me), that I didn't this time.

Anyway, Gregory, if that is your real name, you are my favourite CaB poster right now, and I know you would absolutely love Cioran, it's right up your street. Can I recommend, All Gall is Divided, Drawn and Quartered and The Trouble with Being Born? I can? Then I will. I have. I really love A Short History of Decay too, but is fairly dense and not necessarily the best to start with, although in some ways it's the apogee of his style and thought. See if any of the truffles from those books on this page give you the horn: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran, then buy them and read them conspicuously on public transport. Off you go then.

[Better Midlands]

Out of character: Quite seriously asking if I'd like to kill myself with her

Wasn't this an SMBH thing too?
Apologies to SMBH in advance if not.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Wasn't this an SMBH thing too?
Apologies to SMBH in advance if not.

It was, yeah. We should introduce our mothers to each other, Twed, sounds like they'd get on like a house on fire.

[Twed]

You're playing into their hands there. Power like that should never be consolidated.

[pancreas]

Most Dad thing: I once silently watched my father in a Chinese restaurant staring at - and weighing up - a hot plate which had been placed on the table, ready to rest the food on when it arrived. I could see the cogs groaning and clunking in his head, his brow furrowed in curiosity and befuddlement, and I thought: "that cunt is going to put his hand on that hot plate in a minute. He's going to put his hand on that hot plate and burn the fuck out of his hand, and I'm going to watch him do it".

Fuck. I just read this. Lots of talent on display here.

[Gregory Torso]

'Lucidity's task: to attain a correct despair, an Olympian ferocity.'

I'm an enormous fan of Cioran, probably the greatest writer I've ever read, just astonishingly good, even by the standards of astonishingly good writers. There's a huge amount of nuance and humour too, lost on people who think he's Nietzsche when he's actually Chamfort. I have a habit of posting his stuff in threads where it's appropriate, usually attributing the quote, but I thought it was so plainly a quote, not me, ( I suppose there are some posters in their 50s/60s, but I thought the '50 years ago' but was a clue it ain't me), that I didn't this time.

Anyway, Gregory, if that is your real name, you are my favourite CaB poster right now, and I know you would absolutely love Cioran, it's right up your street. Can I recommend, All Gall is Divided, Drawn and Quartered and The Trouble with Being Born? I can? Then I will. I have. I really love A Short History of Decay too, but is fairly dense and not necessarily the best to start with, although in some ways it's the apogee of his style and thought. See if any of the truffles from those books on this page give you the horn: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran, then buy them and read them conspicuously on public transport. Off you go then.

Thanks Twit. I will get on some Cioran and become enlightened and cool as hell.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Most Dad Thing: When I called from university to ask what to do with a live mouse writhing around on a glue trap, firmly instructing me to "put a nail through its brain" even though he has likely never harmed a living creature and passes out at the sight of blood.

[The Lurker]

Most mam thing: I was watching Green Street Hooligans, she caught the ending and immediately said "see, he didn't need violence after all."

Least mam thing: Bursted into my room pissed as a fart, when I was asleep, took my duvet off the bed and through it into the bathtub before skulking off. When I went to retrieve it, she took it off me again and threw it down the stairs for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

[The Lurker]

Most dad: Would always complain, without any irony, about foreigners coming over here and taking people's jobs when they don't speak the language despite the fact that he worked in France for about six months, even though he couldn't speak French. If he lived to see Brexit, he would've been in his element.

Least dad: Ringing me up constantly during Freshers week to ask how I was doing at uni, how proud of me he was and that he was missing me. He didn't ring again after about two or three months of uni so presumably, he stopped giving a shit which was more like him. 

[Attila]

Most dad thing: in winter, putting little space heater pointed towards the central heating thermostat and in summer, aiming a desktop fan towards the same controls (the system operated either the furnace or the central air) so fool the system into thinking the house was at the right temperature, thus saving him money. Consequently the house was freezing in the winter and boiling hot in the summer. [Could provide many, many examples of his tightfisted schemes to save money, but this is pretty representative].

Least dad thing: the handful of times he was ever kind or generous were, for him, acting out of character.

Most mother thing: insisting, no matter what the weather or what event I was attending, on wearing a bulky jacket or coat 'just in case' plus carrying a lot of extraneous shit 'because you might need it.' Example: finally being allowed to attend a (night) baseball game when I was about 10 years old, middle of July when the weather'd been in triple digits during the day, but being forced to carry a jacket, a thermos, an extra cardigan, a hat, an umbrella, and a purse. I got yelled at by the people we were with because I had so much goddamned stuff I was wrestling with. (The other kids on the trip pretty much just showed up in play clothes and baseball caps).

Least mother stuff: not telling anyone (I didn't find out until like 35+ years later, when we were helping her clean out the house after my dad died and found the photos) that, back in the late 60s/early 70s, she'd secretly signed up for and took a course on modelling, and briefly modelled clothing for a couple of high-end department stores in the area.

[Icehaven]

Most dad: Would always complain, without any irony, about foreigners coming over here and taking people's jobs when they don't speak the language despite the fact that he worked in France for about six months, even though he couldn't speak French.

My Mum worked as a nurse in Australia for 12 years in the 60s+70s having emigrated as a £10 Pom, and is exactly the same, regularly denigrating economic immigrants to the UK. But it's different you see, as they speak English in Australia.

[Paul Calf]

they speak English in Australia.

Since when?

[Twit 2]

[The Bumlord]

Phwoar

[Jockice]

Out of character ones.

My dad: A man who hated swearing and thought Billy Connolly was crude and unfunny, raving about Jerry Sadowitz's Pallbearers' Review.
Finding a documentary about Shaun Ryder on late-night TV and enjoying it so much he stayed up for the next showing a few hours later so he could record it for me.

My mum: Liking Upside Down by The Jesus And Mary Chain. Using a racist word (in fact probably THE racist word) once. And once only. I really was shocked. I can only assume that it just slipped out without her thinking about it. I've done things like that before, although not with that word...

[St_Eddie]

My mum: Liking Upside Down by The Jesus And Mary Chain. Using a racist word (in fact probably THE racist word) once. And once only. I really was shocked. I can only assume that it just slipped out without her thinking about it. I've done things like that before, although not with that word...

"Black"?  I don't think that it's necercerily racist to say "black", or even "white".  It's all dependant on the context in which it's used.  For example, it's fine to say that you like the song Paint It Black but it's awfully racist to say "that cat is black".  All things considered, it's probably best to err on the side of caution and simply say "that cat is a n**ger".

[St_Eddie]

I'm going to Hell for that last post, aren't I?

[Johnny Yesno]

Let's just say you need to work on your material before you give up the day job.

[Jockice]

"Black"?  I don't think that it's necercerily racist to say "black", or even "white".  It's all dependant on the context in which it's used.  For example, it's fine to say that you like the song Paint It Black but it's awfully racist to say "that cat is black".  All things considered, it's probably best to err on the side of caution and simply say "that cat is a n**ger".

it was n**ger.  Referring to someone on television. I can't remember who but I was totally surprised. My mum had her quirks but racism certainly wasn't one of them. She'd never said it before though and she never said it again, certainly not in my presence anyway.

[idunnosomename]

Most dad thing: in winter, putting little space heater pointed towards the central heating thermostat and in summer, aiming a desktop fan towards the same controls (the system operated either the furnace or the central air) so fool the system into thinking the house was at the right temperature, thus saving him money. Consequently the house was freezing in the winter and boiling hot in the summer. [Could provide many, many examples of his tightfisted schemes to save money, but this is pretty representative].

That seems a bit Mr Bean-esque. Those space heaters cost a fortune to use even for a few minutes.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Why didn't he just adjust the thermostat or override the controls?

[Attila]

Why didn't he just adjust the thermostat or override the controls?

You ask reasonable questions in the face of someone who was completely unreasonable.

This is a guy who would put gaffer tape over the themostat to make sure no one else in the house tinkered with the settings.

[castro diaz]

I think my dad improvised my childhood.  He had an unshakable faith in his own ability to make up and then subsequently ignore his own invented parametres of misrule and more and more I see how right he was.  A jazz dad.  Laissez-faire mob rule the odd day, pressed and put away the evens.  The days and their number, of course, followed no such identifiable pattern.  An odd day of free market anarchy where he would only let us eat vowel foods or dress like Eno could last months.  He taught his boys, without saying a word, to bear an inherent mistrust of authority but at the same time to behave yourself.  Tight and loose, like how you should play pool.

It is hard to write about him this morning, more so than usual.  Perhaps because my own impending fatherhood is thickened by the sad, recent demise of his own father.  And his eulogy that day said much of what I am saying, or can't, now, but under a canopy of immediate grief.   He stood up there like science project volcano, tempered to a crust in its own crêpe paper fire.  And somehow words blew out. 

Odd to see your dad reduced to a son for the first time in thirty years and more.  And now orphan and grandfather, they expect.  Let so naked, too.  Left alone on a pulpit like a lost property bear.  Grief bouncing around him like light in a glass brick.  The three divisions of man in one trembling body.  It put me in mind of the recent film and treatise on aging, Boss Baby.

He is, I think, the embodiment of the Celtic nations.  At once defiant and deferent.  Literate and poorly read.  Repulsed by and beholden to The English.  The pall of drink never far away. 

In 1992 Dad got a big job with books and, being awful with money as life with a sensible woman allows you so happily to be, took his family to Disneyland in Florida to celebrate.  An extravagance that juts out here and now even more than it did then, though suffice to say that as an eight year old I was less bothered with how we were going to pay that month's gas bill and instead concentrated on how I was going to meet and then fuck Deaf Linda from Sesame Street. 

Almost all actual memories of that trip have been replaced by the scant video evidence we had of it captured by the camcorder Dad had borrowed from South Glamorgan libraries.  For two weeks he saw America solely through the rubber lens of a shoulder mounted video camera the size of a sedan chair previously used for outside broadcasts on HTV.  Immediately upon return we waited four weeks for the tapes to get developed and when they finally came he invited the street round for a holiday projectathon 90% of which was comprised of raw footage of the camera, and my father I suppose, zooming in and around the arses of various 19 year old queueing Americans in stonewashed denim shorts.  My favourite type of women after the girls who give free walking tours in European cities and the idea of Buelligan.

It was in one of the state's many amusement parks that Dad, or that day's Dad anyway, can be so precisely and beautifully drawn, whilst we were waiting 'in line'.  He absolutely loved using Americanisms that holiday, a full decade before Britannia bent her knee, grew out her bangs and starting grabbing coffee, and it was therefore an endearing Partridgesque attempt at cultural fusion rather than the spineless affectation it is today.  He instructed us to refer to it as the elevator when in the hotel lest we end up trying to get to from our room to the foyer via the garbage chute, as we now had to call it, rather than the South Walian 'shit-chasm' we used to say back home.  Either way, those little concessions were the closest he ever got to French. 

We waited there, in his line, for a considerable while in the impossible hope of getting on, for the first time in my life, a rollercoaster that wasn't put up by gypsies.  In front of this long queue, almost deliberately so, there were two park staff struggling to get a small rowing boat up onto the banks of the lake in front of us.  Because an American can't be with themselves they had been employed by the Disney corporation to entertain the public waiting for the most popular rides.  There they would do a turn of perfunctory slapstick and audience gurning to help stave off the boredom of an hour long wait.  It is the closest they get to the welfare state.  Two overworked, underpaid sods a century too late for Vaudeville pratfalling while 'failing' to get this boat out of water and on to dry land.  My dad, who is a kind man which I hope comes across elsewhere if not here, unthinkingly stepped out of the queue, over the red rope and down on the sand to help these men carry what turned out to be a surprisingly light boat to the safety of the shore.  He wanted to help them, you see, because he was well brought up and sometimes takes things at face value. 

He flailed about on the sand as they had done (out of stranger's solidarity rather than ineptitude, I think, saving their blushes by showing the crowd how hard a job it was), soaking himself in the process and flapping about like a dying perch.  He did, to be fair to the man, at least have the wherewithal to impersonate a freshwater fish.  This happy spectacle was met with muted respect by the present Europeans who don't want to act but think we all should, and by open guffaws from the Yanks who know that this type of schtick happens if you're caught not buying something for more than ten minutes at a time.  This little play on civility and buffoonery eventually finished when one of the pair, speaking curtly out of the side of his mouth, fixed smile never wavering, said to my dad, I hope, 'this is my Act kid, beat it'.

This desire to subconsciously kowtow to Americans and their authority which, in colder moments, he knew they didn't have, was also laid bare on the family's second trip Stateside, as twats say, to Las Vegas too soon after a lengthy psychological episode that punctured him at the turn of the century.  We were not the type of family for such extravagant holidays and that's exactly the reason why I tell this little aside.  Upon checking-in at the reception desk at the Toblerone shaped Luxor hotel in Las Vegas (a destination perhaps unsuited to a now nervous recovering alcoholic) a decade after 'the rowboat occasion', he was asked by the concierge whether he'd like to honour his booking in the Sphinx replica as already arranged or, rather, he'd prefer to change his booking and try out the standard hotel shaped sister-hotel the other side of the Strip.  He, turning down his once in a lifetime opportunity to sleep in a pyramid barring reincarnation as the sun god Ra, instead chose the Premier Inn looking monstrosity over the road as he thought we'd get more 'ceiling space' there and 'I don't want your mother banging her head'.

To offset this undoubtedly unfair portrayal of my father I should also point out that he once got chased by a pack of Hell's Angels for 'showing colours' earlier on at a motorcylce festival.  A dozen of them forced him on to the hard shoulder after spotting him wearing a t-shirt to which my mum had ironed on a logo.  He told them 'The Road Rats, you fucking idiots, consist entirely of me and a bloke called Ken.  Now fuck off'.  Which tells you as much about him, or more, as the incident with the boat.  Go to bed meek as milk, wake up Paul Sykes.

Mum is just mum.  Which sounds reductive and disrespectful but it is a compliment so laden with love and admiration it doesn't need an adjective.