You Son of a Mad Bog Irishman
I am the offspring of a mad bog Irishman and a quirky half Scottish posh home counties lady.

I don’t have the weeks necessary to relate the daily agonies I went through on the playground by calling things what they were called at home and have people laughing in my face, or doing things as I thought they should be done and have people herniate themselves with amusement until their collective sphincters went ‘hssssssssss’ as they voided themselves completely.

So I have made a brief and non-exhaustive summary.

-Urine and faeces were known respectively as ‘shhhh’ and ‘numbers’. I still don’t know why and my parents still use the terms. Much hilarity ensued at school when I first put my hand up and asked to go to have a ‘numbers’ and having to explain what it was so my at first perplexed and finally catatonic teacher. Teachers also shouting ‘shhhhh’to me if I was being loud…well…I got through lots of pants (and therapy).

-when we went to McDonalds (which was a massive treat if we were good) we all had to in order open our cheese burgers, take out the pickle, and reverently place it into my fathers burger which was held open by him. It didn’t matter if we liked them or not because it was irrelevant. My dad ate his 5 pickle cheeseburger with ‘relish’. (Incidentally, burgers served in a bun are called ‘bun burgers’ in our house and even outside our house. My father once had to run out of the car into the restaurant at a drive through once at our local ‘Burger Master’ to explain what a ‘bun burger’ was as his strong Irish accent was causing the microphone to wail)

-I was forced to call my Irish grandfather ‘daddy pop’. Not one of my other cousins did and I was told I had to because it showed I had extra respect for him.

-When I shouted to my first girlfriend to come up quickly to the bathroom where I was, she raced up the stairs in panic in case I had slipped and was now toe deep in my own head blood she was utterly (and quite rightly) shocked, disgusted, and appalled that I was on the throne grinning with my index finger pointing to her and me asking her to pull my finger. The relationship didn’t really last much longer after that. I couldn’t understand at the time. That’s what loving couples did, right?

-At the first sleep over with my friends, I was shocked to learn that other people usually didn’t stick their head in a bowl of warm water and vigorously towel their hair dry as my whole family did.

-I also learned at that sleepover that waking people up with a cold sopping flannel in their face didn’t endear me much to them. I quickly realised that I had to unlearn and cease my oddball ways in order to make friends and keep them.

Oh well.

EDIT: looking back I think I was abused as child.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 10:31, Reply)