Apple Pie
Picture the scene:

It's some time in 1996/97, Saturday afternoon, about half past 3.

Man Utd are losing 1-0 (I think it might have been Blackburn, but that's irrelevant). My mum is listening to the match on the radio, dressed pretty much head to toe in red, including her 'lucky' Man Utd shirt.

I'm probaby pretending to do some homework or something similar. My mum pokes her head round the door. "I'm just going to make an Andy Cole apple pie"

Andy Cole scores twice to win the match.... Saturdays have never been the same since.

More recently, she is convinced that Cabrera won the US Open because I had phoned her on the Friday morning and said that my money was on Cabrera .

Maybe I should jack in my lucrative job and earn my living gambling (My mum's "Rooney roulades" are pretty tasty!)
(batgirl, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 20:37, Reply)

Electricals
My cousin made himself an electrical extention lead, but failed to check the plug/socket combination on it, and made a plug/plug version.
Instead of changing it, he put the motor from an old washing machine onto a socket, plugged the whole lot together and made his girlfriend a whirlpool bath. I guess his stupidity was directly proportional with his luck, and no ill became of him from this setup. (My brother spotted it and changed it all over for him).

Same cousin used to photograph his blind girlfriend in the nude as well, she hadnt a clue!
(lordy lordy, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 20:37, Reply)

Dad
My dad told me that he scored the winning goal for england in the world cup final and as he was going up to get the trophy he saw Hitler in the crowd and so he pulled a gun out of his shorts and shot him.

The queen thanked my dad, gave him a kiss, and after that my dad felt nothing could ever better that moment in his football career so he gave up to become a draughtsman.


The above story was recounted by me, aged 10 to my whole class. It was only when I started GCSEs that I found out he'd made it up.

He also insists that to truly savour a peanut you must chew it 99 times.
(spike starski, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 20:36, Reply)

my dad
once he bought a battery powered drill and took the attachment off it then started
running around shouting "this is just like texas chainsaw massacre!"

other of his highlights include:
pretending to be mentally unstable whenever i bring boyfriends around,
talking to my friends as though they have severe learning difficulties,
making the house phone ring just so he can hear himself on the answering machine
and hiding in the bathroom for hours on end just waiting for someone to walk in so he can jump out on them.

.
(i eat crayons, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 20:14, Reply)

Me
I know it's been said, but it's me - it's so, very me.

Those of you that know me are probably nodding and doing that whirly finger thing by the side of your head.

I do actually have a crazy granny, but that's another story for later.

(PS, my car window has now been repaired, I have a new Sat Nav and I need new locks all round on my car and a probable respray. Great)

Deep breath.....
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 19:56, Reply)

My Uncle Rich
Went on holiday to Tenerife on his own and, rather than book a hotel, simply hired a car and kept everything in the back. First day in and everything he'd brought with him had been stolen with the exception of a lilo. Using what little money he had left he bought a loaf of bread and some margarine to eat and decided to make the most of the rest of his time there by going for a float out to sea. Of course, he didn't have any suntan lotion but ... he did have the margarine. Result: second degree burns.
( neOnbubble is both bubbly and neonny., Fri 6 Jul 2007, 19:49, Reply)

Jeccy
Bindun.
(ratthingbazzterd, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 19:37, Reply)

Crazy Iranian Relatives
I have a load of eccentric relatives on my dad's side, the the kind who kiss you and hug you whether you know them or not, just assuming you are part of the family. In particular the grandma is weird, as in a bit wrong weird. Frequently when I visited, she would grope my breasts and arse to check how I was 'developing', and not gently usually either, I had bruises. Now, this was particularly disconcerting when I returned to Iran on holiday after about a 7 year gap a now formed female. I spent the entire time avoiding her (very difficult as we were staying in her flat) but she got me in the end, she always got me and my sister in the end. I had evaded her gropes for weeks when she had a 'fainting spell' which lead me to kneel dutifully by her to see if she was all right. As I did so I felt a gentle squeeze of my left breast. She won, that crazy bitch, to this day I swear she just faked that fall to cop a feel. Needless to say she is my least favourite grandma and one of the weirdest of my relatives. Some of the others just smoke opium or frollick around in their wife's clothes at parties but those gentle souls never accost anyone.

Click 'I like this' if you think I was abused
(Sir_Psycho, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 19:37, Reply)

Mamma
My mum will quite happily enter my room and make my bed. I'm 20. If I make it myself she will come in, unmake it then re-make it. She will then thank me for 'trying to make your bed but you did it wrong.'

She also once took myself and my brother on a sponsored walk. She didn't know where it started from... or the time it started but she went anyway. Three hours into our walk along the coast we bump into the rest of the walk going the other way. No, we didn't join them we kept walking and ended up miles from public transport near an abandoned lifeboat station - turns out she still didn't know where it had started from.

Crazy but I love her.
( rjmrjm, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 18:58, Reply)

Flying visit
My dad used to tell me about his nan who used to come with them to stay. She was seriously batty and used to do crazy things like put cats in the washing machine and iron next door's rabbit etc.
She was in the bedroom one evening so my dad and his brothers decided to dress the space hopper in her clothes and throw it out of the window. My dads mum leapt out of her chair thinking her mother had leapt out of the bedroom window (trying to fly, or something).
She fainted when her mother appeared to bounce up again 8 feet in the air, over a bus shelter and into a neighbours garden!

Moral of the story -
(mysticegg, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 18:07, Reply)

I know lots of old dears do this
But I still don’t understand the mentality of it.

We all know how much the old ladies love Marks and Spencers – not only as you can buy both posh-seeming food and clothes there, but also for their returns policy (you can take back anything and they’ll exchange it). It was pretty much the only shop my dear departed nan ever went to (except on very special occasions, when she went to Debenhams).

One day, she decided she needed a new winter coat. So she went to M&S to pick one out, eventually deciding on a fetching knee-length green quilted number. However, after taking it home she decided she didn’t like the coat as it didn’t suit her, and it went into the wardrobe without being worn. Every day thereafter my nan would take the coat out, think about wearing it, decide she didn’t like it again, and call my mum to moan about her stupid purchase of this horrible coat. However, she wouldn’t just return it as “she didn’t want to cause them any trouble” (not that this had ever stopped her before.)

After three weeks of daily calls about this coat, my mum eventually has enough and drives my nan to M&S to return it. Her money is refunded without problem (as always) and my nan returns home happy to be rid of her foolish purchase. She decides to have a look in her wardrobe to see if there’s anything else that might keep her warm in the winter...

And finds another green coat. She’d bought the exact same version 6 months before from M&S - and never worn that one either.
(silencer, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 18:05, Reply)

sorry I was late posting for the QOTW but...
...oops.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 18:05, Reply)

Thalidomide and porn stars.
Thalidomide fights: instructions given by my mother: we're about 6 or so.

1. get on your knees
2. bring your hands to your shoulders, thus clamping together both bits of your arms together
3. get cushions
4. FIGHT!

This is the same family who thought a wonderful practical joke was buying an 11 year old a t-shirt that says "I love Linda Lovelace". Cheers Grandad.

I intend to continue this tradition by telling my children that tables are chairs and chairs are tables, knives are forks and so on.
(mmmm curry doesn't really understand this sig lark, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 17:46, Reply)

My grandparents
Old Greek Cypriot folks, been in the country for 60 years and still speak English with an almost incomprehensible accent.

When my dad announced he was going to marry my mum, who happens to be English, they desperately tried to stop the engagement. My grandmother took off her shoe and beat my father with it, then proceeded to lie down in the road. While this was happening, my grandfather desperately offered the contents of his wallet (about 20 quid) to pay my mum to go away.

Not as bad as a great aunt on the same side of the family. When her son tried to marry an English woman, she "accidentally" dropped a flower pot off a balcony, landing inches away from the bride-to-be...
( Queen of Cheesecake, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 17:41, Reply)

Vile, I tell you...
Well my mother has her own special brand of madness. It ranges from claiming to be able to contact the dead, to her ever growing collection of tatoos. Her tatoos have to be seen to be believed. My two favourites are bus tatoo(she is a bus driver) with park and ride written underneath, the other is 2 red devils making the beast with 2 backs on her arse.

So this woman has blamed me for her divorce from my father, wastes money on seeing fortune teller types and watches porn as most people would watch a normal film. She asks me for porn on a regular basis!
Plus my entire family will freely admit to watching porn together. Help me.

Though despite the craziness, I wouldn't have them any other way including the crazy mum. She is ace
( hedge_diver, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 17:31, Reply)

Me grandad was nuts, and has indirectly helped me answer loads of QOTW's
Time to make a list;

1 - He used to play darts in the kitchen as me gran was cooking...darts whizzing past her head (and missing by literally a millimetre) every few seconds.

2 - He ate his cooked sunday dinner from the saucepan, regardless of visitors.

3 - He hated Jehovas, which is ok, normal enough. But as in hated, he'd threaten them with violence even before they'd got onto his garden path.

4 - He'd had a kitten which was starving, even though he was feeding it. So he spied on it one morning and saw a big tomcat from next door swipe the poor kitty out of the way to starve. He immediately run outside, caught the tomcat and punched it into his shed door. (Im sure I posted this a few weeks back)

5 - Him and dad went to a pub, and all the tables were full. So grandad walks upto a table full of old ladies and starts pulling one of the chairs out with a granny still sitting on it and shouting "Thank you very much ladies, get up and move it, cmon, shift your arse". One of the grannies says "Well I never" to which me grandad quick as a flash replies "And you won't with a face like that, now fuck off please" while ushering them all out of the pub.

6 - Used to be a regular drink driver. That's another QOTW, involving him pissed and a hurse (I couldn't make this up).

There are loads more reasons why he was nuts, but this one stands out.

7 - Me parents and I call around to thier house one day, and we're sitting around this nice homely table in the dining room. I'm aged 10, me baby sister was 3 and gran was in the room as well, all talking politely. Grandad turns to me during a lull in the conversation and says the following immortal speach;
"You know Jeccy, from all my sons and siblings, it turns out that you are indeed the last of a long line of people to carry the surname of my family. I only realised this upon reflection last night, while looking through all the photos about the house. So Jeccy....I want you to go out there and get fucking."
Gee thanks grandad, sound advice for a 10 year old :D
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 17:28, Reply)

My Dad..
My Dad, or "The Dude" as i know him is a very "colourful" human being! When he was young he was quite outlandish really..... A real Card!! Oh yes. I can tell you. The Family home is opposite the village beck - they hold a Plastic Duck race there in the summer usually drawing a few hundred people from roundabouts. Having just returned home I was delighted to see my Dad exiting the front door into the crowd on all fours barking like a dog - I think he thought it was kids entertainment? It was - I was so proud!
(FlamingBadgers, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 16:56, Reply)

My slightly crazy Polish granddad...
...did a number of crazy things during his life, many in his last 10 or so years, until he died this past Christmas at the age of 85. A few of these I only heard recently from my parents:

1. When he first moved into this country during WWII, he married my grandma, bought a plot of land in Essex, and built his own bungalow, garage and various farmhouses. When they got electricity, he developed a strange fascination with it, insisting on replacing all the plugs and sockets of his tools as he didn't like the ones they came with. This resulted in many broken drills, saws and things that my dad would usually end up having to mend for him...

...it turned out ALL the wall sockets in his garage had the wires the wrong way around, requiring him to rewire all the plugs on his new tools. This explained why most of his electricals didn't even have a fuse in them - he had removed them all to make them work.

2. He bought an electric chainsaw to cut down the bushes and through small bits of firewood. He loved it, but one day it 'broke' and so he gave it to my dad to fix it...

...my dad took one look and decided to never give it back. Grandad had removed nearly every single safety feature from the saw because his old hands (one of which was missing a finger he knocked off) and fading mind couldn't operate it. On trying to remove the final safety feature- the on/off switch (he decided the only on/off switch it should need was at the wall socket) - he had broken it.

3. A few years ago my mum was on her way to visit him and my grandma. As she drove up the driveway, she saw him about 10ft up a ladder, cutting a stray branch off a tree over the road. She stopped, and leapt out of the car over to him, begging him to come down...

...he had been cutting off the branch his ladder was resting on.

R.I.P. Grandad.
( johnsto, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 16:40, Reply)

Non-funny story
I actually did have one relative who was crazy in the not-so-good way. I kinda wish I had been able to meet her- but great-grandmothers tend to die long before you get the chance to know them, unfortunately.

Agnes and Robert came over from Ireland sometime in the 1800s, presumably during the Potato Famine or some such. They settled in Canada a little bit north of Niagara Falls and built a working farm there. I'm told that Robert did the majority of the construction work on the house himself- if not all of it. He was an insomniac who would get up at 3:00 am and go do chores until breakfast, then work until lunch, then until dinner, and keep going until dark. He would then read the newspaper cover to cover and go to bed about midnight- and get up again at three to do it all over again.

Imagine being married to such a person. Imagine being married to such a person out in the middle of nowhere, with no one for miles in any direction. And on top of it all, imagine if your spouse took the crops to town and spent three days drunk and blew a couple thousand dollars in the process (bearing in mind that this was the 1800s, when that was enough to buy a house), then come home so mad at himself that he once hit a solid oak door hard enough with his fist that he cracked it.

My father's cousin remembers her grandmother as only smiling once in all the years she knew her- and she saw her on a daily basis. The pictures of her that I've seen show a woman whose face is permanently drawn into an expression of an intense emotion I'm not sure I could name- as though she were on a wild rollercoaster ride and knew that she couldn't get off of it, ever.

Agnes got increasingly strange in her old age, and refused to eat in the house, preferring to take her meals in the barn. I think she ultimately moved out to the barn shortly before her death.

All I know is that when I saw the family pictures of her, I saw her looking out from the depths of her own hell.

My dad and I are both rather famous for having The Whammy, a glare that will freeze men in their tracks and cause small children to burst into tears. If I get angry, people start backing away from me even if I say nothing. Dad and I joke about it, as it can be rather comical at times- but I now know the origin of it. When I see that glare in my own reflection's eyes, I see Agnes looking out at me.

If I had gotten to meet her, I wonder what she would have had to say...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 6 Jul 2007, 16:26, Reply)

My dad...
...decided the other day that the best way to destroy an out of date credit card was not the obvious way.

Most people chop them up with scissors.

Not my dad, he decided to melt it in the microwave. Having forgotten there was some metal on there.

Cue one massive explosion and a new microwave, he insists that it would have been ok. He just thinks he left it on too long.
( emmalina, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 16:25, Reply)

my uncle is an embarrassing aging goth

Despite being 45 he still wears all black, has a crucifix around his neck, hangs around in graveyards, the whole lot.

Once I had a big argument with him where I told him he should grow up, no one was impressed etc etc. Eventually he told me that I had a very interesting perspective, but he couldn't talk any more because he had to finish this week's sermon.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 16:21, Reply)

Big-girls-blouse
Eggs ARE classified as dairy. And kefuffle is an accepted slang term.
( Digeridude Lord Wellington's Beef Trapeze, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 16:20, Reply)

I don't have any crazy people in my family
In fact no-one every discusses any crazy antics with me at family get together's.

Guess that makes me the crazy relative then.
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 16:04, Reply)

Mums and forgetting names.
My mum had 3 sons, all born with a few years seperating them. Only 3, youd think she´d remember our names. Oh no. She used to always call me by my other brothers names and sometimes even the cats names!
(Miggyman, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 15:52, Reply)

Jewsih mothers...
...deserving of their reputation.

Not mine, but when I was about 9 my best friend was half Jewish. I only went to his house once, and vowed never to return.

It started out normal, and we were sitting watching tv when his mother comes in and asks if we'd like a bit of chocolate. Naturally, I did. She asks us to hold out our hands, which I dutifully do, only to get yelled at for having filthy hands (they weren't spotless, but they were far from filthy). So I'm ordered into the bathroom to clean up, which I do. Now my hands are spotless. She examines them, and tells me I obviously live in a pig sty because my hands are filthy still. So back I go, removing a few layers of skin. I come back, with hands clean enough to wipe the queen's arse, and the old looney insists they are still filthy and decides I'm not allowed chocolate for being such a disgusting child. And my mate isn't allowed any either for having such dirty friends.

Thanks, bitch.

So we go back to watching tv, and a little while later the old bat yells in from the other room to turn it down. As I'm nearest to the remote, I grab it and hit what I thought was the volume down button. Turns out I hit the colour down button by mistake and the picture quickly turned black and white. So my mate grabs the remote and starts trying to find the button to fix it. Cue the crazy old bat coming in to yell about the volume and she spies the now black and white TV. She yells "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!" to my poor mate who, before he can say it wasn't him, gets a whack across his chops so hard it knocks him flat on the floor where he stays, whimpering softly. She tells me I should go, and I was fucked if I was going to argue with that.

So I spent the next two hours sitting on the curb down the street waiting for my mum to get off work so she could pick me up.

Length? She was about 5 ft and just as wide.
( Damocles wants no part of your debauchery, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 15:50, Reply)

I have a daughter.....
i51.photobucket.com/albums/f387/cmpod83/chris_6.gif

Thats me....

No more questions your honor.
( The Pollitt chooses to listen to Enya on, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 15:49, Reply)

Suicidal aunty at Christmas
Never really saw much of my great aunty over the last ten years. But one year she actually made the journey to see us.

We were really happy to see our relative we hadnt seen for a long time. Thought it was going to be the best christmas ever! But as the day went along we started realising why we hadnt seen her for a long time. She just sat there saying "All I want to do is die!"
She had gone completely senial! She was doing other mad stuff to, like insiting she had christmas pudding and nothing else. But she wanted it at the same time as everyone else was eating. Then she didnt eat any of it.

Completely wrecked the day. Funnily enough she hasnt been back, even the journey home weas tremendous, she insisted we pulled over onto the hard shoulder so she could have a cigarette and when we said no she took her seatbelt off and proceeded to open the car door whilst travelling at 70mph down the M5!!!

Nutter! Gotta keep her sweet though.. shes loaded LOL.
(Miggyman, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 15:43, Reply)

Thanks but no thanks.
Returning to my Nans house following my Grandads wake I was invited to peruse his belongings to see if there was any keepsakes I might have wanted. After helping myself to a few small worthless items my nan then enquired if I might be interested taking home his seemly vast collection of Y fronts. After politely declining my Nans well meaning if slightly gross offering she promptly opened a cupboard and asked if I would be interested in his equally vast collection of Razzle magazines.

What can I say? I'm not really a Razzle man.
( Smithlick is often seen at the bottom of threads, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 15:41, Reply)

Erm.. lunch hour
My mother called me yesterday to have a chat and I mentioned I was on my lunch hour.

"How long is your lunch hour?" She asked.

Dear God... let me take after my father...
(sodbiscuit sodbiscuit, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 15:35, Reply)

Bad Dad...
My Dad's in prison!
(mike_in_leeds, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 15:35, Reply)