She experiments on babies
for a living, and utterly enjoys it. (Her research was used in the Child of Our Time series. That's pretty damn cool).

When not at work she spends some of her time lying in her four-berth hammock in front of the open fire in the living room, playing games fiercely competitively on her laptop. Staries, Scrabble and Veggie Fling are among her favourites. When I told her a friend of mine had beaten her Veggie Fling high score she shouted "the BASTARD!" quite loudly, in a crowded tearoom in front of my gran.

She wants a Selk bag for Christmas and she phoned me to ask me whether you can still wear your shoes so she can drive to work while wearing it.

Last year we got her a wormery. She'd been dropping heavy hints so we duly clubbed together, gift-wrapped it and hid it in my brother's car. Christmas morning arrived and we'd all opened our presents. Mum was visibly disappointed that she had received nothing but a pen and so we went and dragged the wormery in from outside. She feigned mystification while tearing the wrapping paper off, and then in a joyous rapture she danced and whooped around the paper strewn room shouting "I've got a WORMERY! I've got a WORMERY!!"
She still loves those little wriggly blighters like her own children, cooing lovingly at them whenever she feeds them. She's very proud of the "worm wee" she gets from them, and offers it to guests as if it was a fine whisky.

She was shopping with a friend in Asda once when there was a fire and the store was evacuated. Most of the shoppers dropped everything and fled expediently. My mum held on to her trolley for grim death as she ran (her friend went one better and threw in whatever items she could in an exhilarating Supermarket Sweep joyride), and they won a fair bounty of loot that day... That wasn't the funniest part though. That was the fact that she was so wracked with guilt she didn't tell anyone what she'd done, and she had nightmares that she'd been caught on CCTV and would be summonsed any day. It went on for months. Eventually she broke down and confessed to my stepdad that she'd done something terrible. She was so mortified he thought she'd run someone over or something. She made him promise not to tell anyone but he alluded to it strongly enough for me to pester it out of her... she made me promise not to tell anyone too, but I couldn't help myself. He still won't let her live it down and asks her whenever they go shopping if she'd like to make a run for it before they reach the checkout...

She is hyper sensitive to all chemicals. If her colleagues are bored and want to liven up an afternoon they feed her coffee and persuade her to take painkillers, then watch her bouncing off the walls.

She has no shame. She will barter and haggle for absolutely everything no matter where she is - shops, restaurants, pubs, markets, . She got a really good mobile deal once which I was envious of. She explained that all you have to do is find a great offer from another company, phone your service provider and tell them that you want to switch. They will want to keep you as a customer and usually offer you the same deal. I didn't have the brass neck to do it so she offered to pretend to be me.

She wears pants on her head to do the ironing.

She can't sleep until everyone in the house is in bed and all the lights are off. One night my stepdad came home late and drunken, after being specifically told not to. She reasoned that if she got cross about it she would be up all night feeling wound up while he would simply fall into an oblivious drunken stupor and snore for England until lunchtime. So she waited up patiently for him, wearing a pink sparkly wig she had bought that day on campus. When he rolled in she said to him "oh noes! I dyed my hair and it's gone wrong!" He was actually quite upset by it, and she went happily to bed to sleep the sleep of the righteous.

She's given me a lot of wise advice over the years, but my favourite is still "wear a pink wig... it'll work better than getting mad".
( warmfuzzies Isn't here, Tue 16 Feb 2010, 8:11, 3 replies)

This
Is why this QOTW was asked.

Best answer yet (other than mine, natch).
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 16 Feb 2010, 9:20, closed)

That's very nice of you to say so :)
I haven't contributed on QOTW for ages... didn't have much to say about much... but my brilliant Mum gave me plenty of inspiration! I'll probably think of more too...
( warmfuzzies Isn't here, Tue 16 Feb 2010, 20:29, closed)

Your mum sounds awesome.
She makes awesome kids too :)
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Tue 16 Feb 2010, 11:21, closed)

Aww *blush* fanks
Um, you have seen this too, right? www.b3ta.com/questions/familycodes/post312295
( warmfuzzies Isn't here, Tue 16 Feb 2010, 20:25, closed)

I'd love to work in a place with bouncy walls
Perhaps if someone lent me a baby to experiment on, I may end up in such a place.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Wed 17 Feb 2010, 23:25, closed)