My father was a massive wanker, to the extent that I haven't spoken to him in years - my last contact with him was a text message I sent him saying "getting married 10-05-2001, you are not invited" and that was only at the request of my sister, who didn't want to get into trouble for not telling him about my nuptials.

There were a lot of contributing factors, but the final straw was one night while my sister and I were staying with him and his new wife for a week.

They lived at the other side of the country and we hadn't wanted to go (see: wanker), but mum was concerned that if we didn't go, she would have to deal with accusations about "not letting me see my bloody kids". We were teenagers, but still living at home, still in full-time education, still at the stage where mum's word was law, so off we went.

That night we'd gone out to dinner. We'd told dad we wouldn't get in the car with him if he got too drunk (although he was alcoholic so a little bit drunk was inevitable). But he got properly sloshed. As the meal drew to an end we reminded him that we didn't want him to drive and made repeated and increasingly unsubtle hints about taxis.

It didn't work. He paid, we left, he marched to the car and started shouting at us to get in or else. His wife was already in the car, and so he stopped shouting and threatening, and simply drove off and left us.

So that's two teenage girls, no phones, no money, unfamiliar town, two hundred miles from home, at 10pm on a Friday night.

We ended up going back to the restaurant where the manager and his wife kindly gave us the taxi fare back to dad's house and told us that if there was trouble we should come straight back to them. At the house, the door was unlocked, but every phone in the house had been disconnected and hidden so that we couldn't phone home.

The next day we were admonished for being so quiet when we were "supposed to be having fun!" Thankfully, the day after that, we were leaving anyway.

He was genuinely surprised when the next time he asked us to come stay, we refused and mum backed us up.
( Batsgirl, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 19:23, Reply)