This was somewhere in the early 90's....
I think as a family we all started to collectively lose it. The only one who seemed to be holding it together was the cat, but he too soon succumbed to the madness and by the end of this tumultuous year was developing mysterious bald spots and erratic twitches. Possibly out of some sort of sympathy for my gran, but you can't be sure about these things. The first I realised I might not have a normal mum was when my she turned up to fetch me from school two hours late. Apparently, she had lost her car in the car park at the supermarket and couldn't find it. Once was enough, but after about the third time she finally declared it was "too stressful" to fetch me from school and bought me a bicycle. It was winter then, pissed with rain often and I got soaked most days on the way to school. I was just about dry by the time I needed to make the return journey home. A raincoat was deemed surplus to requirements as I would only "lose it anyway". Thanks mum.

Around this time dad decided it was much nicer to swim naked than with his stylish speedo. No amount of begging or pleading could spare us the site of his random nude swims. It's just about ok when you're watching tv in the afternoon and a naked man wanders past the window. It's unthinkable when your mates are over and you're 13 years old and dad is doing naked bomb drops. The morning swim was always accompanied by his customary piss. This in itself wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that the piss would be in the rose garden literally outside my window and would without fail be accompanied by a symphony of anal belching that would scar even the hardest of men. My ears begin to bleed at the mere thought of that cacophony of noise I was subjected to each morning. And the smell! Who could forget the smell of hot piss and farts wafting into your window on a beautiful summers day as the sun glinted through your curtains.

Gran would pop over to visit and on one such day she happily declared she had sold her tv. Apparently there were too many "rainbows" on tv. This you must understand was in the early days of the breakdown of apartheid in South Africa. Dad helpfully translated that rainbows were black people. Gran muttered something about the good old days, took another sip of her Johnny walker and nodded off on the sofa only to be awaken later by the cat licking her foot. Pretty standard stuff really.

My mother was pretty good at striking the fear of God into us. She used to make us sandwiches for school everyday. Heaven help us if her effort wasn't rewarded by us actually eating the dry bread with a pathetic layer of peanut butter. One day my brother came home with his sandwiches and panicked because he realised mom would kill him if she realised he hadn't eaten them. So thinking logically he did the most intelligent thing he could think of. He flushed them down the toilet. Two peanut butter sandwiches and a banana for good measure. Of course the whole system blocked up and a plumber was called. Upon removing them my brother, who was standing nearby, lost all colour from his face and attempted to make an exit. A don't want to describe all the details of what happened next, but suffice to say some time later a meek, crying boy was sitting next to me in the lounge. My brothers crime then led my mother to declare that she was abdicating from all future sandwich making duties as we didn't appreciate her.

Our dog also started to exhibit some worrying signs and had been rather taken by the habit of chasing cars. Specifically trying to bite their tyres. If you left the door open an inch he'd be out in the street attempting to mow down any car that dared drive past our house. Obviously this isn't the safest habit and he somehow managed to be on the losing end of a titanic battle with a old nissan. Suffice to say he lost a lot of blood, but he survived. However, my mom swears it wasn't the 30 stitches the vet put in his neck that saved him, but rather the healing power that she conveyed through her hands when he was a quivering wreck on the road. Unfortunately her healing powers did not work on all animals apparently and our other sick dog (which mom didn't like) didn't survive his doggy liver disorder. Anyway, at least we had one miracle that year.

I, of course, was a model of integrity while my family slowly crumbled around me. I still am.
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Fri 22 Jul 2011, 14:05, 2 replies)

"symphony of anal belching"
Congrats, my first tea spray reading qotw.
Click.
(dyllon nice beaver., Fri 22 Jul 2011, 14:14, closed)

you had a dog
and your brother got rid of unwanted food down the toilet?
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Fri 22 Jul 2011, 14:18, closed)