» Terrible Parenting

My dad's a rozzer
and not some tit-headed flatfoot, but the tazer-wielding fast car-chase sort.
One morning he's doing a morning shift, on patrol in a big Land Rover, with ALL the toys. Multi-band radio broadcast unit, tannoys, and, best of all, rear programmable LED board (so that you can type messages to the car behind you.)

Thinking, at the age of 15, that it would be fucking A to get a ride to school in one, I readily accept his offer of a lift (which he wasn't supposed to do, but who cares.)

It was all smiles and gloats as he pulls into the car park, watching my peers and enemies gape their jaws at such a majestic vehicle. I jumped out, try and pass off a blase "cheers Dad," slam the door, and nochalantly stride off towards my comrades. Five seconds later, the sirens blurp out a high-pitched squeal, I turn to look at the departing van to read on the LED board "DADDY LOVES YOU TOO XXX"

You simply cannot imagine the shit I put up with at school for the next three years. All policemen are bastards.
(Fri 17th Aug 2007, 16:39, More)

» Mums

My mum made a cake once
Fuck knows how she managed it. All afternoon there had been much clanging and banging and whirring, and that weird rustly sifting noise you get from paper bags filled with sugar and flour. And then the final solid thump of the oven door closing, and her emerging from the kitchen, beaming like a pixie.

Later that day, when the main course had been eaten and the plates carried away, she brought in her construction on a big round plate, and us three hungry sons sat round it, licking lips and generally salivating all over the place. It was a fruit loaf.

My oldest brother, at the age of 20, was given the honour of cutting it. He picked up the knife, steadied himself at the table, and tentatively poked at the crust. It crumbled slightly, but didn't yield. So he pressed harder. And harder. Then started to worm and twist the knife, digging it into the loaf like a screwdriver, but it wouldn't budge; the cake was absolutely solid. Beads of sweat broke out on his face from the strain until eventually there was a snap, the blade pinged off and the handle of the knife came away in his hand. I laughed, my brother swore, my mum's bottom lip trembled and the dog looked on, hungry and bemused.

After the cajoling and gibes, and frustrated retorts from my mother (pun intended), we took the cake outside to destroy it. The family car (albeit a Metro) happily rolled over it, a hammer knocked a corner of it and the dog could do little more damage to it than making it reek of dog drool. It now sits on my brother's garage workbench, 18 years later, with a series of precise holes drilled in. It's a home-made oven-baked screwdriver-holder, just like Mum used to make.
(Fri 12th Feb 2010, 8:02, More)

» Road Rage

JUST got off the phone to my Dad
He was in Jewsons (the builders' merchant) when some spastic in a massive pickup (a new Mitsubishi Warrior, in immaculate condition parks in the yard.

It's a big old yard, because it has big old trucks reversing in to drop off steel, tonnes of bricks and pallets of concrete. There's one small section with yellow cross-hatching marked "NO PARKING" because thats where the fork lift comes out to unload the big trucks.

There's plenty of space to park your car, but the Warrior driver decides that that yellow cross-hatching is the best place to park so that he can inspect some nearby bricks. He exits the car, wanders over the lot, and the fat bastard that usually drives the fork lift has had enough. I've seen him yell nine shades of shit out of someone's ears before, but this has driven him over the edge. My dad said "he ran like a hormonal orangutan" towards the fork lift, hopped in, and ran it full tilt , prongs raised, across 300m of car park into the Warrior, impaling it sideways through the engine and the front passenger door. He tries a go at lifting it too, seriously fucking it up, before returning the fork lift to it's parked position.

Not on a road, but that's some justifiable anger management right there.
(Mon 16th Oct 2006, 14:29, More)

» The passive-aggressive guilt trip

The girlfriend, yesterday
"I guess you had a good day at work, darling, I stayed at home and did some laundry. And whilst I was cleaning out your pockets, I found this Bounty wrapper..."

(wrapper had been ironed flat, and was presented on the pristine white kitchen table)

I look at her, she looks at me. Her eyes never waver. I droop my neck, put my coat on, and go to the shop to buy her a Bounty.
(Thu 13th Oct 2005, 10:52, More)

» Evil Pranks

My brother, who was older and more mature than I was at the time
visited me at uni. His parting gift was to go through ALL the shower gels and add the appropriate food colouring to it (so orange to an orange gel, blue to a blue one.)

Stains the skin rotten, that does. I had a slight tang of jaundice for a week, whilst my housemate constantly reminded people of hypothermia.
(Fri 14th Dec 2007, 8:29, More)