» Tightwads

Mum's looking after the pennies......
I was in the second year of high school getting changed back into my uniform after P.E. A quick glance around the changing room and I noticed that my shirt was a different shape round the bottom to everyone elses and it seemed to button the opposite way also. Left handed shirts? No. Mum had been sending me to school in my elder sister's old school blouses. Even taking the time to unpick her name tag out of the collar and sew mine in.

Fast forward a few years and I thought I'd be clever and raise the blouse issue at a family get together to highlight her tightwad ways. Shame it backfired as Mum countered my story by telling everyone that as well as wearing blouses at school, the "trunks" that I would wear to my swimming lessons when I was about 7 or 8 were infact hand-me-down bikini bottoms.

Scarred for life I tell thee!

*pop*
(Mon 27th Oct 2008, 13:24, More)

» Family Feuds

Small boy, evil big sister - FIGHT!
I was happily sat on my bedroom floor, aged about four, playing with cars. Big sister, five years my senior decides she is bored so comes in and begins pestering me, wanting to play. I object to this and do my best as a four year old to get her to leave. My protests have the opposite affect (mainly because my big sister is evil) and she begins teasing me, informing me that she aint going nowhere and starts messing with my precision parked row of cars (I had a little MDF car show room with a ramp and everything, swish as!).

So within about a minute, my car emporium has been completely re-designed and she's sat there telling me that she's sold a car and off it goes...."HANG ON", I think, "what on earth is going on? I've been emporium-jacked!" So I stand up and with much bravery state "go away, or…...or I'll wee on you!" quite matter-of-factly. My sister just looks up at me and confidently says "you wouldn't DARE!" and returns to playing (uninvited) with my cars. Damn her.

Well, it turned out that I would indeed dare and as she went back to selling cars off my pitch, I walked up, popped me lad out and proceeded to widdle all down her arm. Bedlum ensued. I think the scream she emitted was heard in the next county and required the replacement of at least 2 windows. Mum, stifling laughter, gave me a monumental telling off. As for big sis, she never assumed I wouldn't 'dare' do anything again and even today, some 23 years later, if she should begin winding me up, a quick threat of a pissy arm usually shuts her right up.

During our childhood she got me back for the wee-to-arm incident more than once (though thankfully none involving wee). Incidents include teaching me to flick the V's and say "Fuck Off" at the same time, then sending me into a room of elderly relatives to "show them your new thing..." Cow!
(Thu 12th Nov 2009, 16:17, More)

» I'm going to Hell...

When arriving in hell...
..I do hope that you are treated to a review (on a big telly)of all the reasons you've been sent there. If only for this particular one, which I don't think exactly guarantees a place at Little Horn's dining table but I'm sure adds to my likely fate....

On arriving back in the UK after two weeks in the sun, myself and the girlfriend stepped off the plane into the miles of arrivals corridors at Manchester Airport. Peering out the window, I could see that a much larger plane had parked up next to ours and many people were flowing from it to join us at passport control.

We joined the winding queues at passport control just behind a family of roughly 8 or 9 people, all jostling for position and generally making a racket (as families do) most notably, a small boy who was no older than three.

The father of the family has the bright idea of leaning over the rope barrier and dropping his luggage on the other side, so he could walk up the queue (a good 30ish yards) and collect the luggage as he came down the next isle of queue, repeating the process. Obviously, airport security went potty and started demanding to know who's the unattended bag was, at one end of this queue. By this point, the father was half way down the other end of the queue so the people stood near his luggage quite rightly said it was not their's. Airport security begin to get a bit jumpy and voices are raised as they peer down the lines, looking for the owner of this bag. I got the attention of the father and told him that it was his bag causing all this and after shooting me a look as if he'd just scraped me off the bottom of his sandal, he raised his hand and smiled like a goon at the security guy who returned the bag and asked him NOT to do that again, please. A request he promptly disregarded. Someone has his back, obviously.

So after this incident, I was suitably seething somewhat as the child I mentioned before (small boy, about three years) noticed that he could run, full pelt, underneath the dividing ropes of the queues without having to duck or slow down. The little guy reveled in this as he ran up and down the queues as his mother and elder sisters tried in vain to hurdle / duck under the ropes fast enough to catch him. Enjoying watching his siblings frustration a little too much, he was unaware of the big metal sign he was heading towards. The sign was held up by two posts and he was heading right in between them. The sign's bottom edge, unfortunately, was about an inch lower than the ropes. He hit it so hard that if it was not for his feet flipping up and hitting the sign as he rotated, he would have done a full backflip.

Well......that was me done. I was crying, literally crying with laughter all the way through passport control, into baggage claim and out to the taxi, all of the time being glared at by the father.

Seeing a small child injure themselves shouldn't really be very amusing, but given the circumstances it was the funniest thing of 2008 for me. I don't care if I got to hell for thinking so.
(Wed 17th Dec 2008, 14:15, More)

» Teenage Crushes - Part Two

Aim high....
I was 10 when the film My Girl came out. There she was, Vada Sultenfuss. I guess this was my first experience of a proper crush. Being a rather innocent and trusting (stupid) child, I had no problems telling my friends about this crush (mistaaaaake!) and quickly learned the life lesson that in future - keep daft crushes to oneself (oops, never will learn). Needless to say, I am still teased relentlessly in the boozer should this type of conversation ever arise.

*cringe warning* back to 10 years old....

So the teasing began and carried on for months, up until the film was to come out on rental video. There was a life-sized cardboard advertising poster stood in the local video shop of the two main characters in said film and my mate helpfully told the video shop guy of my huge crush, so embarrassed but happy, I left the shop with the poster, wobbling down the road with it under my arm, being careful not to bend it (well not on her side anyway). It was placed in the corner of my room, I dread to say, like some kind of shrine to American fee good movies of the time and that's when I decided - he had to go! That Culkin character was leaning against 'MY' Girl, how dare he! So with dad's stanley blade in hand I carefully removed his image from the entire thing. plus I managed not to horrifically mame myself (or her) in the process, Hooray!

*cringe mark 2* (actually blushing mid-type)

With a ferocious optimism that only a 10 year old could muster, I began writing a script (it was basically a shameless rip-off of My Girl but with the script re-written by a 10 year old - you can imagine the quality it inevitably oozed....) I was convinced that if I could get a script written and sent over to the Hollywood types, it was completely reasonable to assume that I would get cast in the lead role and the object of my desire would be cast by my side.

It began well, I was really trying quite hard to produce something worthwhile, all the time bathing in the glorious delusion that soon, I would be having a smooch in Hollywood, oh how beautiful it would be, then we'd climb a tree, presumably. I even had my mum proof reading pages of the script. I'm not sure whether mum humoured me so not to stifle a potential script writer, out of sympathising for a young one in the midst of a first crush, or whether she just nodded and agreed to get the strange boy to leave the room....

Eventually (at about 11 pages) my script writing capabilities dried up completely, (much like my then object of desire's work offers, by the looks of things) and the crush began to become less and less of a big thing, the poster went in the bin and I resigned myself to the fact that I would never be meeting My Girl. Then towards the end of the summer term at school, Karen showed me her mimsy in the cloakroom and I forgot all about My Girl.
(Wed 11th Nov 2009, 16:47, More)

» School Projects

Religious Education, Offerings and Stiff Letters
Secondary school. The class was tasked with making some type of old bread-like offering some Jewish chaps used to make in the olden days. It had raisins and miracles in it, or something. I dutifully note down the ingredients and cooking guidelines from the blackboard and wander off home to present Mum with my list of needs from the local shop.

Once all the ingredients had been procured, we set about mixing the various bits and bobs together. I seem to remember quite a lot of dried fruit making it's way into this mixture, which, according to my notes, had to be popped on the hob with some water for a bit. Following the guidelines 'religiously' (sorry), that's exactly what we did.

After the required time on the hob, off came the lid to inspect the mix, ready for the next stage. What greeted us was definitely not something old JC would be proud of. In fact, I reckon he and his pops would most likely banish this abomination to the fiery depths of Hell should I have pitched up at the pearlys with a bowlful.

Now, Mum hates waste, with a passion. There was no way of resurrecting the gloop that lined the bottom of the pan, all was lost, a culinary Armageddon. Add to that the wasted evening and wasted leccy and Mum, bless her, was seething.

The pan was left to soak and the gloop was binned. What followed could only be described as 'furious scribbling', coupled with a chunnering under her breath, I think there were sweary words involved. I was then handed a note, folded, and told not to open it, just to give it to my RE teacher the next day.

On entering the classroom, I was greeted by beaming smiles from my fellow students as they showed off the wonderful offerings they had managed (some-bloody-how) to create, complete with halo and choir music as they open the tupperware box. Rejoice!

Noticing that I had no halo wielding tupperware, the RE teacher asks me what's happened to my attempt. My only reply was to hand her the folded note I had been instructed to give her. To this day, I have no idea what Mum wrote in that letter but the teacher went a very odd shade of grey and sat uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of the lesson.

Religion - Don't mess with Mums, they'll send letters!
(Fri 14th Aug 2009, 14:52, More)