Cycle of silliness
Statistically, the vast majority of us end up repeating everything our parents did. We just can't help it. They way they do things is just they way that things SHOULD be done.

For example, my mother keeps her kitchen strictly organised with metalware [saucepans, baking trays etc] in one cupboard, glassware/ceramics [casserole dishes and serving dishes, not glasses, which are kept in another cupboard with the mugs] in another, and plastics [tupperware, mixing bowls etc.] in a third. It's always been this way. That is how a kitchen WORKS. And I cannot help myself from repeating this system in my own kitchen, despite me not having enough cupboards for all the different categories of kitchen implements. [I make do by having a saucepan SHELF].

Similarly, I grew up in a household with dogs and cats, and so would never DREAM of storing food in a cupboard below waist-level. Nor ever ever ever leaving food uncovered, or putting a plate of food on the floor for a minute while I get a drink or whatever. Even now, in my pet-less flat where I'm the sole occupant, I carefully clear a space on the tall bookshelf to park my plate if I want to leave it unattended even for a second or two. the echoes of my mum laughing "it's your own bloody fault!" when i was crying because the cat had eaten my sausage for tea is still too loud in my head to ignore.

Other things get passed down: I always, ALWAYS stir the butter and pepper into the sunday-dinner cabbage with a kitchen knife. And I do this because mum always did, and SHE did it because HER mum always did.
Books are arranged on shelves in author blocks, and vague genre-order, but size-order ALWAYS takes priority [tall books at the edges, shorter/smaller books in the middle of the shelves].
Scraps of coloured paper, broken crayons and other stationery items are obsessively hoarded, to be brought out with the massive bottle of PVA glue whenever a birthday card is to be made. I still do this, even though now i'm in my 20s.

Sometimes it's really small things that stick with you for the rest of your life. I never eat Lion bars, because once when I was a kid, mum told me they had nuts in. Now i just can't bring myself to eat them even though i know this isn't true.

Or the time, when I was about 6 and was getting the sniffles, she told me that I was getting a cold because I'd been drinking out of damp glasses. EIGHTEEN years later, and I STILL carefully dry a glass before I fill it with a drink, even though I now KNOW that she was just taking the piss.

Eating "nute and frut" chocolate, or nipping to the Chippy for a round of "chish and fips", or the sunday ritual of "wog dalking" in the woods, these are all normal parts of my vocabulary thanks to my mum.

I can't wait until I have my own kids, so I can pass on the catalogue of weirdness and silliness to them too. And top of my list is teaching them to sing "Window the in doggy, that is much how", just the way my mum taught me. (it wasn't til i got into primary school, that I realised everyone else sang it backwards!)


_{*sings* window the in doggy that is much how, tail waggly the with one the! Window the in doggy that is much how. Sale for doggys that hope do I!}
( Seventh is somewhat subdued, Thu 11 Feb 2010, 17:55, 9 replies)

This is brilliant stuff
My mum once told me that standing in front of a microwave made your hair straight. I was days before I realised it was a lie, I still haven't really lived that one down.

Also, your sig deserves a click on it's own.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 11 Feb 2010, 18:45, closed)

hehe - yay for mum-lies!
also: cheers!
( Seventh is somewhat subdued, Thu 11 Feb 2010, 20:12, closed)

Lion Bar
it has peanuts in.
(kitescreech still here, Thu 11 Feb 2010, 19:40, closed)

they don't
At least, not generally. there may be a nut version.
www.sweetiebag.com/sweets-chocolates/Lion-Bar-55g-197.asp
( Seventh is somewhat subdued, Thu 11 Feb 2010, 20:11, closed)

Liking Chocolate with peanuts in...
The Lion Bar has caught me out on a couple of occasions. I think I get it confused with Picnics.
(Richy_T hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Tue 16 Feb 2010, 20:32, closed)

.brilliant was this
!you for around all clicks
( ejlflop errrrrgs. Regularly., Thu 11 Feb 2010, 19:53, closed)

!you thank
Seriously though, i find it really hard to say the damn song the 'right' way round. it just feels so wrong! Backwards is much more fun.
( Seventh is somewhat subdued, Thu 11 Feb 2010, 20:11, closed)

Never. Ever.
'ALWAYS stir the butter and pepper into the sunday-dinner cabbage with a kitchen knife.'

No. No. No. As my old grandma repeated everyday of her life:

"Stir with a knife, stir up strife."

If anything bad has happened to you or your family, you can put it all down to you and your mother stirring with knives. You must stop this now. Even reading this has put the mockers on my evening. Stop it. I implore you.
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Thu 11 Feb 2010, 20:14, closed)

Chish And Fips
Yep, I still do that too!

My housemate took about 2 years to work out what the hell I meant!
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Mon 15 Feb 2010, 14:12, closed)