My mum used to accuse me of having pride in nothing.
Which usually resulted in a lot of mumbling when pressed for examples.

That is until a couple of years ago. Now she's all too happy use the phrase "you used to have a laptop until you pissed on it, didn't you?". She loves reminding me of that.

Stupid beer.
( Slippery Mick ‏, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 23:58, Reply)

Christmas Wishes
Many christmases ago my mum was mid-way through writing and addressing her usual mountain of cards when my little brother rushed into the room yelling that our baby sister had been sick. Mum dropped what she was doing and went to sort things out.

A few weeks later she had a phone call from a good friend who'd been wanting to ask about something which had been troubling her. The poor woman had been wondering why on earth she'd been sent a card wishing her "a merry christmas, with lots of sick from Pat, Joe, and all the kids".
(Haywood Manley, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 22:34, 2 replies)

Mummy dearest
My mum was an English teacher and was made redundant. So she took up writing women's erotica, and wrote several books, the first of which was called "Punishment Exercise".

She also used to describe herself as an ageing hippie, and that her love for shiny things was due to the fact she used to be a magpie in a former life.

Unfortunately she passed away suddenly two years ago, but I'm still proud of the fact my mum wrote porn.
(dna_girl, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 22:07, 4 replies)

Mrs Manga, in the garden, with a bra
Mum is a sun worshipper - she learned her lesson and taught me one too as her skin is now a bit thick and brown and freckly. Whenever the temperature rose above 10 degrees (we live in Scotland, it's rare) and the sun put his hat on mum would strip off and go lie in the garden. Not in her cossie, not in a bikini but in her pants and bra. My brother's mates would stop in their tracks when they came to visit, aghast at the sight of mum Manga in her M&S best with her face turned to the sun. One warm afternoon we were sitting out - she in her frilly knickers, me in shorts with my pasty teenage legs out for the world to see. MASTURBATION she says and turns to me, I choke on my irn bru. Yeah? It doesn't make you blind you know - it's fine. Ok mum, thanks. Oh the humiliation...
( Animanga, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 21:49, Reply)

mamabear
firstly can i just say that my mama rocks almighty? we work at the same place (but in unrelated departments so it's not smothering or owt) and she makes me lunch about twice a week which is always goooooooooooooood!!!

she has an odd way of describing things which, even when i explain why theyre so wrong, she still continues to use them...

when i go jogging with my dog, she calls it dogging. now, my mum is pretty open minded so i explained what it REALLY MEANS and yes, she still says it.

she has this kitchen genie jml do-dah which whizzes stuff up and she refers to it as her magic bullet... maaaaaaaaama!!!! that's a sex toy! i even explained where it goes and what it does!!! but no, she'll refer to it when she's talking about making soups or broths or whatever...

and yes, my younger sister had a rampant rabbit back when she lived at home. and yes, my mum, seeing the multicoloured beads inside the pink transparent plastic case, thought "i wonder how you get the sweets out of there" and nearly died of shock when she set it off on full speed.

oops!

still, she's pretty cool and makes jokes about sending rugby teams over to my house to help me with my diy all the time. bless. how long until i have to explain that's not what i need the rugby team for?!
(PrincessTinkle is charlie brooker's secret wife, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 21:40, 2 replies)

pointless question your mum would ask.
after been spanked how come mums would ALWAYS ask
" DO YOU WANT SOME MORE? "

did anybody ever answer with a " yes Please "

Or what about you would always see mums spanking there kids with the same beat of saying how bad they were

DON"T (Hit) DO (Hit) THAT (Hit) AGAIN (Hit)
(Bermuda_import Beach party this weekend, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 21:29, 2 replies)

There are so many...
... but one that springs to mind happened not long after my Mum got satellite TV, and thus was exposed to the many many different music channels. Since the Sky boxes of the time organised channels by "most watched favourites", I was quite surprised to see MTV Base rank pretty high. Until, that is, a Prince video came on. Mum stormed across the living room and turned off the TV, shouting "I WILL NOT HAVE THAT SQUEAKY LITTLE PERVERT ON MY TELLY, FUCK HIM AND HIS MONKEY!"

Mum, firstly I think you mean Michael Jackson, not Prince, and secondly, just... wtf?!
(gordonjcp, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 20:10, 1 reply)

Just thought of some from old work colleagues.

Maureen - when her son was about 15/16 he would still kiss mum goodbye and say he loved her when he left the house. One day his friends were waiting outside for him so he just grunted on the way past to look cool. Mum got her own back by waiting until he had joined his friends, calling out to him so that she had everyone's attention, and yelling in the way you would to a five year old "bye darling mummy loves you!"

The other lady's name escapes me for the moment, but her moment of horror came when she was 14 and in a school play with all her friends. She fell off the front of the stage, which was only about 2 feet high so she wasn't hurt but was really embarrassed. Before she could regain her composure her mother, who had been sitting right at the back of a packed hall, ran down the aisle in the centre screaming "oh my poor baby!" :O(
(purplelizzie, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 18:53, Reply)

Ma has come out with some treats...
...in her frail old dotage. Bless her, she suffered from manic depression for 16 years (which has incidentally gone since she lost a leg. That's another story), and as a result also suffered from paranoia every now and again. Now, husbandless and sadly lacking someone to give a shit about the trivial pap that Mothers tend to care about, I was constantly on the receiving end of phone calls whilst I was out on the shant/ getting extremely stoned round a mate's. Being the inebriated young upstarts that we were, pretty much anything would make us laugh; so chances were when I received one of the numerous phone calls about the cat having one eye lower than the other or somesuch, my mates would be (in an unrelated manner) laughing in the background.

Now at the time, I owned a Trium mobile phone - the sort of £30 sub-par tossycock that you make do with but has the uncanny knack of sounding like someone sexually molesting a Nintendo Gameboy when it rings - lending it the name of the 'underwater telephone' (told you we laughed at anything). Said phone call is taken, accompanied by group of mates pissing themselves silly at my fruitily aquatic sounding mobile. Sounding extremely fraught and pretty sketchy, the old dear demands to know why my friends are laughing at her. Hushing said friends out of their slightly unjustified apoplexy, I maintain to Ma that they are in fact laughing at my underwater telephone. As the silence was rolling across the room, all you could was her yelling "you don't fool me. I know that's a slang name for genitalia". I'm not sure what was funnier - the fact that she could get it so wrong, or what she thought I was getting up to in my friends' flat that would involve everyone laughing at my cock.
(Nimrod's Son Boredom provokes some interesting habits..., Mon 15 Feb 2010, 18:48, Reply)

Too much information
The early nineties. Our household was the relaxed type where the dogs were allowed up on the beds. We had a beautiful big boy of a dog and as he'd never had his bits done (male solidarity - Dad wouldn't allow it) he was prone to getting a bit aroused and if you ever made the mistake of bending down to pick something up then he'd jump you from behind and hump away. My parents of course found this hilarious and took photographic documentation. Yeah, thanks for that. None of this quite compared to what happened one day to my poor mum. She was relaxing on her bed, reading a book, when the dog got a bit excited for some reason and started humping away...but on this occasion he was clearly more excited than ever before and err 'shot his load', with a bit of it hitting mother dearest in the face.
(Chazbaps, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 16:26, 5 replies)

Trapped in the car
I think it's an unspoken rule that mums will sabotage their children with awkward conversations while trapped in a car together. One of the strangest stories that comes to mind was when I was stuck in the car with her and she started reminiscing about her days of high school. She went into this lovely story about how she worked with a boy her age with Down Syndrome and I was half-listening when she said, "He was just the nicest boy. One day I was sitting next to him and he said, 'My thing gets hard when I look at you.' Isn't that just the sweetest thing you have ever heard?"

Now, I was 17 or so at the time and looked at her with horror and said, "Euuuughhh, that's disgusting!" She was very offended and refused to talk to me the rest of the car ride.

She also decided at the age of 50 to divorce my dad and (again in the car) informed my sister and I that she would probably be dating women now, so we shouldn't be surprised. Yep, my mum's a lesbian. This provides no end of amusement to my friends. My mum regularly calls me up and tells me about all her new lesbian friends and the lesbian parties she goes to. Hey, whatever makes her happy!
(Tarana, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 15:54, Reply)

Ah my dear old mum.
I've mentioned her before in the qotw, as she's sadly no longer with us.

My mum was great. She never swore (well, nothing stronger than bugger, or the occasional shit), and was very proper. Sex was something which was never discussed openly, and my entire sex education during my formative years was a curt "I know what goes on up in your room, I'm not as silly as you think. So don't worry about it."

Due to this rather old fashioned way of looking at things (which I think in many ways is better than today's attitude. 8 year old girls wandering around looking like they're on their way to a nightclub and sex education getting piped into the womb through a tube), you can imagine the hilarity when the unavoidable double entendres slipped in. My mum had a hilarious high pitched laugh when she realised she'd just said something incredibly filthy by accident.

Like the time they got some new windows put in. While putting them in, the workmen somehow managed to crack the inner pane of glass on the front window. They were returning the next day to replace it so it was no big deal really, but when my friend arrived at the door he was greeted with the immortal line "Hello Eddie. Have you seen my big crack?" She never even noticed she had said it, and left my friend struggling for breath at the front door.

The best by far, though, was during one of her little visits to my house. She used to pop in most nights while walking the dog just to say hello, and usually only stayed a few minutes as she would have had something cooking at home for when my dad got home from work. That night, it was chicken thighs. Well, she sat for a few minutes chatting away, then suddenly she jumped up, remembering the food at home. "Oh no! I need to go!" she cried. "Your dad's thighs will be burning!" Again, she never realised what she had said until she turned to see me laying gasping for air on the couch, then the puzzled look turned to realisation, then embarrasment, then hilarity as she collapsed in tears of laughter as well.

My dad looked puzzled the next day when I enquired about his scorched thighs, too.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 15:25, Reply)

Classic mum lines
Most mums seem to come out with classic lines every once in a while - these are my two faves.

My friend Nicola's mum to her (Nicola's) boyfriend: "You're so mysterious, it's like you work for MFI!" (Note to non-UK B3tans: MI5, who she meant to say, are roughly our equivalent of the FBI but more secretive (edit: thanks Rear Admiral for the info). MFI on the other hand is a cheap furniture superstore.)

And my mum's all time classic. We were in a half empty car park with no barriers of any kind around it, surrounded by pavement at the same height as the parking bays. We wanted to be on the road just behind our bay so my dad decided that, rather than drive a long way round to the exit only to come back to 5 feet away from where we already were, he'd just reverse across the pavement onto the road, like backing out of a driveway. There was no need to go out of the exit as the car park was free, there was nothing in the way barrier or other car-wise and no pedestrians around so it seemed totally logical. My mum was horrified at the idea that we were 'cheating' by taking a short cut and yelled "Oh Brian, I'm so ashamed!". No-one would have paid any attention to our exit had we not had the windows rolled down because it was a hot day. The few people who were in the vicinity and had been happily ignoring us all instantly turned towards us to see what she was so ashamed about.
(purplelizzie, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 15:11, 2 replies)

We once had a Vax carpet cleaner
the upright one that first came out in the early 90s. It had a design fault (IMO) whereby a blockage would form all too easy in a hairpin part of the pipe.

We took it back to the shop (by taxi) and the manager was having none of it. So we ended up having to get another taxi to take it home.

Later that day, we told my mother-in-law, who phoned for a taxi, picked us up and took us back to the store. We left the Vax back at home this time.

"Who did you speak to?" she said. I pointed him out.
"Right," she said and stormed over. He was already speaking to a couple, trying to sell them a TV.
"Excuse me a moment, you'll thank me in a minute when you see what he's like." she said to the couple.
She then 'gave the manager a piece of her mind' ™, inventing some random consumer laws up on the spot. We could see the manager's face withering and he took less than 4 minutes to cave in before he then gave us a refund, arrange for the collection and stump up for the taxi fares. By which time the couple had cleared off.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 15:02, 1 reply)

POW!!!
This one time, when my brother was about 5, a big fat woman shouted at him in the street for being too noisy, & when she came round a bit later to apologise for making him cry, my mum kicked her in the fanny & slammed the door shut on her.
(Dr Fishfinger Want's to see a fat man give a tit wank, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 14:01, 3 replies)

This is entirely bloody true, I promise:
My mum is a very light sleeper - I discovered this in my teens when trying to return to the house intoxicated in various forms, and get to bed without waking anyone up.

Now I'm in my mid-thirties, and a few years ago was visiting my mum.

The second or third Harry Potter film had just come out on video, and she loves it, because she reckons she's just like one of the teachers in it - the one played by Zoe Wannamaker - and to a certain degree she's quite right.

Now - she was insistent that I watch - or at least try to watch - the video, but her and hubby were off to bed (they're in their sixties and anything beyond 9pm is a stretch these days), so here's the telly, here's the video, here's the remotes - off you go, and you know where the fridge is if you fancy a sandwich.

So I started watching it, and I vaguely got into it - I had enjoyed the books when they came out, and - irritating child-actors aside - I thought the film was quite engaging.

Half way through, I decided that yes indeed and sure enough - a sandwich and another beer would be a good idea (she knows me so well - it's like she's my mother), and so I hit "Pause", and go and make myself some sort of BLT-type affair.

I return to my seat, and look around for the remote, which seems to have hidden itself entirely from my ken.

Now - the older children among you will recall that certain telly-and-video combos mean that after the video's been paused for a while, it stops the tape and flicks back to actual telly automatically, at the volume the telly was before you turned the video on.

This happened at this point, and BANG the telly came on and what was it? Channel Five. It was now late at night, so showing was soft porn - cue some topless girl bouncing up and down shrieking excitedly at the top of her bleedin lungs, at top volume on the telly because my mum has the telly loud as she's a bit deaf.

In desperation I look for the remote where the fucker is I don't know under the chair by the sofa on the pouffe on the table where the FUCK are you DOWN THE SIDE OF THE CHAIR DOWN THE SIDE OF THE CHAIR I desperately start reaching for the remote, my back to the living room door as I search with my hand where is it where is it where is it oh god where is it

when I hear

"Erm ... Vagabond ... " I turn and stare, terrified, over my shoulder - the living room door is open a tiny crack, "Could you, ah ... turn the volume down please, we are actually trying to sleep upstairs ... " as I turn back to the screen, the actress finally reaching the climax of the scene.

Oh god.

I honestly was just looking for the remote. I swear to god, mum.

Will I ever be able to raise this in conversation, and the truth be known?

Will it fuck.

Length? She might as well have made me a cup of tea.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 13:41, 4 replies)

My mam's a fruitloop.
My surname since getting married is Brown, which is a massive novelty to both of my parents, especially since I announced I was pregnant. Lots of name suggestions that sound more like shades of hairdye or paint (Matt Brown, Ash Brown, Sandy Brown etc.)

My mam is particularly keen on me calling the baby James. Not after the late singer, but after a footballer who plays for Hartlepool.

Since announcing the baby is going to be a girl, you'd think she'd change her mind, but no. She wants her first granddaughter to be called James Brown.
( Kittenpants, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 13:23, 6 replies)

my mum is a ginger Catholic orphan
Well not an orphan really but I thought it sounded better. She was however raised in many children's homes run by nuns. She's told me stories about the hellish food they made her eat, about how she was regularly beaten and the saddest story ever was when she got her first ever Christmas present.

I think she said she was about 7 and her uncle came to see her on Christmas day and brought her a doll that was nearly as big as her and if you held its hand and pulled it kind of walked with you. She cried with joy when she got and she swore to her uncle that she would love it and cherish it for her whole life as she'd never even received as much as a card from anyone in her life. Anyway after he had left they were all called to a church service and she was told to leave the doll on her bed. When she returned a few hours later someone had ripped every arm, every leg and it's head off and had got some scissors and had cut all it's clothes up and cut it's hair off. I think she still finds it quite hard to talk about.

Anyway she grew up into one of the most level headed people I have ever met and devoted her life to caring for the disabled, although god forbid should she ever hear anyone swear, she hates it and says "never ever call anyone a b (bastard) unless they truly deserve it" (in her eyes that would be someone like Ian Huntley). She has given myself and my two older sisters a balanced upbringing by saying she can never stop us from doing things so she would teach us how to do things safely like how to drink and not end up paralytic.

She has her little paranoias such as cutting my kids (5 and 9) grapes up so they don't choke and she always likes to know where were going if we're going to be more than a few hours (we only live round the corner) and every single weekend she rings us (me and my sisters) up just to tell us that if we're going out to put our hands over our drinks and ring our local taxi firm at hometime. She won't even allow us to go to any hospital appointments on our own and demands that she gets to support us they she never was.

I love her to bits and I would never ever change anything about her because one day I might need her to come to the hospital with me or to remind me to put my hand over my drink and she won't be there. So for now I shall indulge her and enjoy every minute of it.
( Mrs. Spatum, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 13:22, 4 replies)

Back when I was little...
Dearest mummy used to take us to Banham Zoo pretty much every weekend. She's dead now.
(chrisdood Why yes, I am the shizzle, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 13:16, 2 replies)

Now this might sound a bit farfetched
But there was this bloke, right, called Geoff, whose Mum was such a MILF that he killed his Dad and shacked up with her. Then someone pointed out to him that this was well fucked up so he gouged his eyes out with some needles, which I think we can all agree is a horribly impractical way of doing it. So whatever kind of familial relationship issues you might have, try to bear in mind that at least you didn't have a whole psychological complex relating to fancying your Mum named after you like Geoff. Geoff Oedipus. Stupid name, stupid bugger.

Apologies for lack of length - creativity has abandoned me, for 'tis Monday
(Darth Foxtrot A one-man army dedicated to making fetch happen, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 13:16, 4 replies)

Ahhh my wee mammy.
My mum has always been a source of continuous amusement/embarrassment to our family, classic quotes:
“JellyBelly (Although she did use my proper name) is this new boyfriend of yours a good screw?” Apparently she meant is he ok for money, although we didn’t find that out until we had all stopped laughing some hours later.
“Their new house is really posh, they have a Zanussi in the bathroom”. (Jacuzzi).
“That Bill Clinton is an appalling man, imagine making that poor woman kiss his “wee man”, I mean he does the toilet out of that!”
And finally when Channel 5 first launched “Well I wont be watching that Channel again! I couldn’t sleep last night so got up to do my ironing, flicked onto Channel 5 and you wouldn’t believe it, there were people having sex like dogs”.

Poor dad.
(JellyBelly JellyBelly, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 13:16, 1 reply)

My most overriding memory of my mother
Is a pearoast -

I can tell you the exact date of my memory - 29th December 1996.

That was the day my Mum died, after fighting a losing battle with cancer for nearly 18 months.
That morning, My Dad had woken up to find the body, and had gone round waking us kids up one by one, eldest first, right down to myself, the youngest.

I howled, and I sobbed, and I begged that it couldn't be true. But it was.

My Dad took me through to see the body that was still lying in bed. She looked so peaceful, it was incredible. Considering this was the woman I'd had to hear coughing her lungs up every night for 18 months (when you're 8, that seems like the longest time in the world, almost beyond living memory) it was odd to see her finally relaxed.

We had seen the Chemotherapy ravage her body, making her seem even iller than she was, but up until the day she died, I never thought she would. I was 8, the woman was invincible to me!

When I saw her that relaxed, it made me worse, it was when I realised she'd never come back. My Dad gave me a little while to say my goodbyes alone, and I went to the bed and held her hand. As she had died at about 1am and this was 9am, her hands felt like ice. That is the most surreal thing in the world, to feel a hand you were used to being warmed by, with no heat left in it. It's frankly terrifying.

After 5 minutes sat crying, I realised. This was the longest I'd heard her go without coughing in almost a year. It finally clicked, my Dad was right. She was in a better place, not suffering anymore.

My parents were both strong christians, and so I suppose this was the only way they could face death. Makes me jealous really, I wish I could open up to the possibility of there being a God.

Epilogue -
It's been 13 years since that day.
My Dad remarried in 2004, now living happily with his new wife. (QUICK EDIT: She's ace, just realised I didn't mention that)
My 5 siblings are all happy and healthy, with the eldest a happy father now.

And me? I'm a stronger person now. I'm now the person that friends go to when they need someone to talk to. I'm a person I know my Mum would be proud of.

Do I miss her? Sometimes, when I think about her. It's hard to miss someone when you know most of the memories you hold of her aren't yours. Mostly stories I've heard since.

But I know that I'm living the right life for me, and I know she'd be proud of me. (Well, hope so)

Length? She was 4 foot 11 and a half. Always the half! God forbid if you ever forgot!
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 12:05, 9 replies)

My Mum is a mistress of passive-aggression.
Once I wouldn't clean up my room so she went back to university, became a lawyer, and was instrumental in Roe vs Wade.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 11:25, 2 replies)

Yesterday I posted on OT for the first time in a while, letting the interwebs know that my Ma is unwell.
She has Parkinson's Disease, pretty well advanced, tremors like you wouldn't believe.
I was just wondering if it would be utterly wrong of me to make a joke about her shakey hand leading to the bestest Valentine's wank she has ever given me?
( blaireau69 , the Cumbrian Travis Bickle., Mon 15 Feb 2010, 11:17, 4 replies)

My little girl
my daughter, became a mum yesterday. It was a dreadful birth, she was cut to ribbons and lost a lot of blood, the baby had to be resuscitated but is thankfully OK.

I went to see her yesterday evening. First surprise was that she was up and walking after 2 hours sleep, second was that when I offered to take her boyfriend out for a bite to eat whilst she ate her hospital "food" she said - "actually, can I come too ?".

So we went out for a curry (she had a mild one, obviously) which was after the worst 24 hours in her life, her bloke's, and mine, somewhat surreal.

My daughter is aces and is going to be one tough mother.

EDIT: it's a boy !
( I_Was_Mordred, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 11:08, 9 replies)

Very Local Radio - A pearoast from 2008
Given that she’s known me for 30-something years – and been at least partially responsible for my having turned out the way I have – you might expect my mother to have got wise by now to the fact that I spend quite a lot of time winding her up. But: no. She falls for it every time.

A little while ago, my parents came up to Manchester to visit. The conversation wandered, and we ended up talking about something that I’d heard on the radio recently. “Oh,” said Mum, “I think I heard that. Couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it?”
I nodded.
“I can’t remember what programme it was on,” she mused, “but I do remember hearing it. I think I was in the kitchen at the time.”
“Hmm,” I said. “I don’t think we can be talking about the same thing then. When I heard it, I was in the car.”
I caught Dad’s eye and gave him the “say nothing” look. Mum was staring into the middle distance.
“No. I suppose it must have been something different after all…”

Amazingly, Dad and I managed to keep straight faces. Well: for about three seconds.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 10:31, 1 reply)

Open Mouth, Insert Foot
My Mum is one of those who always hasthe besdt intentions, but can't help put her foot in it due to some old-fashioned values or insistance on engaging mouth before social etiquette. One instance that made us laugh, for example was during a gameof the fun game Outburst, we were tasked with naming musical genres, she posed the question of "What's that one the black people sing?". The best (worst?) example was back when I was a pimply faced youth of 18, dating a pretty young thing with a lovely size 10 figure who sadly was convinced she was overweight. You all know the type, georgous, but spends all day saying "I'm fat!". We spent months building up this gals confidence, eventually saving her from the edge of an eating disorder a-la Karen Carpenter. Come the day of "meet the folks", my mum asked if she'd like some lunch. Her response was obviously no, and I figured I'd be diplomatic and stop mum from badgering with a simple "Oh, She doesn't eat much". Imagine the horror, when innocently put, her response was "Really? Well she's not Skinny is she?"
(Virulent, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 10:05, 2 replies)

My mum’s a bit absent-minded
As a baby, she left me in my pushchair in a restaurant. As she walked down the street, the restaurant staff called out after her, “Mrs! Mrs! You forget something!” My mother whirled round in a panic. “Oh my god,” she cried. “My handbag!”

She had to call in sick to work after mixing up her vitamin B complex tablet with the dog’s epileptic medicine. Twice.

Once, she rang home and I answered the phone. She was obviously in a rush. “What do you want?” she asked impatiently.

If we can’t find anything in the house, like the phone or TV remote, it’s wise to check the fridge because there’s a good chance that’s where she’s put it.

I asked her if she’d ever smoked pot. After a long, strained pause, she turned to my father. “Have I?” she asked.

She will spend as long as it takes to explain exactly why, if it takes three men three days to dig a hole, it will take them one and a half days to dig half a hole.

It took her five hours to get from London to Bristol because motorways bore her.

She drove to the country for a walk with the dog and phoned to say she’d lost it. It was still at home.

But the world’s news is safe in her hands. Promise.
(threadkiller, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 3:40, 2 replies)