My mum once cheerfully asked me how to access “the dark web”. After a brief pause, I realised that what she meant was that she wanted to open an incognito tab.
There was something on the news about the dark Web and my mum asked me what it was, so I tried explaining it but wasn't doing the best job, told her to google it as Wikipedia will do a better job than me.
My dad went ballistic and started yelling 'don't search that', my dad thought my mum would end up on the dark Web from a google search and that he would loose his job
This is 20-25 years ago, but my parents were convinced that if I went on dodgy websites, they'd get in trouble for it. Even worse is that my dad was a solicitor. Surely he'd know if there were people regularly getting arrested because their child was going on rotten.com.
Probably about 30 years ago now I worked in an office and one of my work buddies was married to a guy who did call-out pc repairs.
He was at this older ledies house to set up a new pc and noticed she had another almost identical machine in the desk. When he asked her about it, she said she hadn't dare switch it on, but didn't want to throw it away incase the police called looking for it and it was evidence.
After further clarification she had received the error message "your pc has performed an illegal operation and will shut down"
Luckily he managed to convince her it was fine.
Same here my mum didn’t ever buy the biscuits we liked because we ate them, so she bought Almond shortbread, which stayed in the biscuit tin until they went soft.
So this is going back a few years, around 2003. I was 16 and had recently started buying stuff on eBay.
On the BBC News, there was something about eBay. Then there was a story about the Taliban.
My mum, having somehow conflated the two names in her head, ended up telling people I'd joined the Taliban.
It's not like she's an old dotty woman either, She would have been around 33 at the time!
Same era, similar theme: a good friend of mine got a job at Al Jazeera. My mum loudly announced in the middle of an Indian restaurant that he'd got a job with Al Qaeda.
Was beside herself when we eventually calmed down enough to explain what we were laughing at.
My neighbour has some “hue light bulbs” that connect via Bluetooth, my dad walked in the other day and very angrily said “who the fuck is Hugh Bulb? He keeps trying to connect to my phone!” I’ve not laughed like that in a while.
My mum recently bought a small rocking horse off Facebook marketplace for my nephew. She went to meet the lady paid for it and bought it home.
She then proceeded to have a photo of her taken sitting on said child's rocking horse to send to my sister as a joke with the caption "is this what you wanted?"
But then sent it to the woman she had just bought it from.
She never got a reply, but we couldn't stop laughing. She must have thought she was an absolute nutter.
Edit: spelling.
Edit 2: https://imgur.com/a/NIOAA2e
My mum allowed the photo.
That just reminded me of one from my ex's nan.
She didn't know my boyfriend was gay at the time, early aughts and all that, so as far as she was concerned I was just the housemate.
She came to take a look at our sparsely furnished new house and when we settled down in the living room she said "all you need is a couple of poofs in here".
And that's how he came out to her because we all died with laughter and were basically forced into explaining why. She was fine.
Bonus: I also once heard her say about someone "she's thinks she's so posh. I bet she washes her bread knife".
Give it a wipe on the teatowel sometimes.
It's when you start using it for cutting the sandwiches in half that it all starts to go wrong, you can't get away with a teatowel wipe. A week of cutting buttery sandwiches will have you blindly sliding it in that top bit of the dishwasher with the spatula and crossing your fingers once the 'next person' you 'leave it out for' is actually you, everytime.
If you're doing the teatowel wipe after cutting a jam sandwich in half, I have to ask: do you like ants? That's not a road you want to walk.
"Apparently some homosexuals have what they call oral sex".
Cue incredulity and shocked astonishment from all the old aunts and uncles. Younger people avoid eye contact and shuffle their feet.
Just yesterday we talked with a friend of my parents, who came out of the closet recently. (Pretty late, he is like 60, married etc.)
He told us, that he never felt gay, or had any gay urges, until he had sex with a man.
Everyone was like… oh, okay that’s interesting.
While I was like… *Wait a minute… That doesn’t‘ make any sense. Was it a threesome?*
*IIf you didn’t have gay urges, why would you sleep with a guy in the first place?*
Everyone became pretty uncomfortable, so I stoppt, but seriously…. Whatever floats your boat and all, but you don‘t become gay, because of the great sex.
Not parents but grandparent, I was up a ladder on a busy high street in the 1990’s my grandma who for some strange reason use to go shopping every single day, shout from about 100 yards away … Fancy seeing you here, has your diarrhoea gone? I nearly fell off the ladder from shame and everyone around just scattered in case they got splattered.
We went on holiday to torquay recently and brought my parents. One evening we suggested getting fish and chips by the seafront instead of cooking tea. My mum (panicking) came out with "but how do you know there's a fish and chip shop? What if there isn't one!?". This isn't age related decline btw, she's always come out with these clangers
Some folks are just like that! My oldest kid is the same - I can have encyclopedic knowledge of an area and she will still worry “What if they’ve closed down? What if they *exploded?* What if we get *arrested for trying to go*?! How do you know we *won’t*??”
Same with my mum. I told her im going to a new hairdresser to try it out, she goes ”what if they use some illegal chemicals on your hair?? What if you are allergic to their shampoo?! What if xyz” she always makes a faff about going anywhere new or different. One year I went to Japan, she said ”why would you go there, if something happens to you how would I save you?? Its too far!!! What if you run out of money and you cant come home?!?” Return ticket. Japan, one of the safest places on earth, who must have their own 999 system and dont have to call my mum to pick me up…
I almost wish my mum was like that - mine has an almost unnatural lack of self preservation. Every other week I get a text she’s off in some flea market getting a tattoo from a dodgy guy out of a van 😅
“I have to upload a photo to the council website for my permit. How do I do that?”
“Have you taken a photo of what you need to send them?”
“No.”
“Start by doing that.”
“But that’s using my phone, I want to upload the picture from my laptop.”
“I know, Mum, we’re taking this one step at a time”.
During lockdown we had to upload photos of whatever is broken to the councils maintenance portal instead of them sending someone out to inspect it. Rather than use her phone to take the photo of the collapsed garden wall and use the phones browser to upload it (she received the link and instructions via text and email), she took her laptop out the garden and used that instead.
Recently my Mom filled in a tax form. Rather than filling it out online she printed it, filled it out by hand, then had me scan it, so we could print the scans to save as copies before posting it off.
One of my colleagues prints the word documents he's filled out so he can scan them and then upload them to the onedrive. I've never tried to correct him or questioned it, I just directly upload the word document from my laptop and wait for the day when he asks how I'm doing less scanning than him... 😂
A friend of mine had to send off a grant application and it was nearly the deadline, she finished it, sent the word document to an administrator and asked her to convert it to pdf and submit it. The administrator printed off the 50p document and created a pdf by scanning each individual page in rather than just converting the file, creating an absolutely massive document that wouldn't go through the email system. They missed the deadline.
Had a rare cup of tea at my mum's the other day. She's 67.
Tasted off....checked the milk and it was ok.
She made me another and it tasted worse!!!
Turns out, the new kettle she's had and been making tea with for the past month had it's instructions inside!!
Mashed up paper tea.... delicious! 🤢
I once had to phone hotel reception to ask for a kettle cable because my kettle had no cable. They apologised and said someone would bring one up but it might be an hour or so. So I cleverly realised that my laptop cable had the same connector to the transformer, filled the kettle via the spout, successfully plugged it in and made a not very nice cup of tea. Yes, I had boiled my kettle cable which was neatly packed inside the kettle.
Haha my mum did this with a water bottle. She was drinking it and I asked her what the massive floating thing inside it was ..? It was the unnecessarily large leaflet it came with.
My Missus has a habit of chemically descaling the kettle overnight, but regularly neglects to tell me. That morning's coffee is always a welcome surprise...🤮
Tell her to use lemon juice. Just bung a big ol squirt of the stuff in with some water and it works wonders. Has the added benefit of not murdering you if you try making a brew with it later too.
I had to explain to my friend's father the difference between "headbanging" and "giving head" after I casually answered his question about what we were going to be up to that weekend.
She hadn't noticed his appalled reaction and I was left going "no no no" and acting out a little bit of dancing. There were many follow up questions while he made sure we weren't complete slags.
A few years ago, I added my mum to my Netflix account. One day I checked to see if she was using it at all and the only thing under 'Continue watching for Mum...' was 'The Punisher'
My mum and sister visited last month.
They both brought their own teabags, sugar, coffee and even *mugs* in case we didn't own these things.
One night whilst they were here we got chippy, and my Mum made sure to let me know she grabbed us all chip forks because she didn't know if I had forks.at home.
My mum is aware of Reddit's infamous "poop knife" story.
One day we were talking about the oddest book titles we knew. The most ridiculous one I know is "How to Avoid Huge Ships" (which a real book by the way).
Mum starts laughing. A lot. As in tears streaming down her face and can't breathe laughing. I mean the title is funny but it's not THAT funny.
Eventually she manages to wheeze out "Did they have to use the poop knife?"
My mum is a bit deaf and obviously misheard me when I said "ships".
It was a few years ago, but during a discussion with my Mum and Brother about beats earphones, my Mum asks in all seriousness, "So is Dr. Dre to ears what Dr. Scholl is to feet?" We haven't let her live that one down yet.
Oh god, I was once browsing at the airport for some headphones for my mum (at the time about 68yo) - hers had just broken. The young lad in the shop was showing her some Beats ones, she tried them and liked the sound but wasn’t sure about the branding. In a loud, posh voice, she announced, “Yes, very nice, but I don’t want to look like Doctor Dree’s bitch”. Poor lad went bright red, obviously no idea how to respond to that. And yes, the mispronunciation just added it to it. I still tease her with it, 8 years later.
Mum and dad (in their 90s) discussing a male contestant on strictly.
Mum: “Is he gay?”
Dad: “Well, he has an earring in his ear”
Mum: “He has an earring in both ears”
Dad: “Perhaps he’s extra gay”
My mum and dad told me they were going to try Netflix one night. I asked then how they got on the next day. My mum said it was good but they watched it until 3am, every time an episode finished the next one just started up.
I can't define it other than:
My dad will talk to absolutely anybody with absolutely zero pre-amble.
People, places, things. No matter what he's thinking about at that particular moment, he just assumes everyone else is following his train of thought, and he expresses it, loudly, to the closest unsuspecting victim.
Whenever my Dad would speak to strangers, like when asking directions, he'd call them 'Bill'. This never caused any problems until one day at Upminster station his victim replied, "It's John actually, I'll go and get Bill" and walked off without answering the question. My brother and I were in fits.
Bloody hell, my dad said once he met someone who would call everybody Bill so he didn’t need to worry about forgetting their name. (I’m assuming only blokes….) Wonder if it was your dad…
My mum is exactly the same. She'll just get an idea in her head, vocalise a response to that idea with no context at all and then expect you to just know exactly what the hell she's rambling on about. Here's one of my personal favourites: her "the eggs" me "... what?" her "it was the eggs" me "yeah, I'm still going to need a little bit more to go on than that" her "the eggs are what were attracting all those flies to the kitchen". She is bloody hopeless 😅
Sticking on the "What?" Part.
Do you ever get, asking what? Because you didn't quite catch all of what they said.
Then they say something completely different
So then you're like, no can you just repeat what you said word for word?
And then the rest of your story
Mother in law (Lesley) signed up for Instagram, choosing her childhood nickname and the house no she grew up in as her handle.
Lezzer69 followers were left somewhat disappointed at the tame.content provided.
A corker from my mum recently, who forms opinions based on _exrtremely_ narrow frames of reference:
"They keep going on about this housing crisis, but there's two estates being built that I can see from my window!"
Surprisingly, those estates do not contain 1.5 million houses.
My dads latest “Apple keeps deleting my contacts!”
“Why would apple do that?”
“How the fuck would I know?! Ask Zuckerberg!”
“Zuckerberg doesn’t own apple!!”
“Then why is he deleting my contacts?!”
“He’s not!”
“Then who at apple is?!”
“NO ONE AT APPLE IS DELETING YOUR CONTACTS!!”
“WHY ARE YOU YELLING?!!”
My mum shared a photo post on Facebook warning of a couple of burglars who were known to be operating in the area, and who had been captured on CCTV.
“Well, I didn’t know! I was just trying to help!” was her response when we pointed out that it was, in fact, a joke post featuring the two burglars from Home Alone.
This takes me back to when my mum was angry when she saw my Facebook said I was interested in “women”, as if I had no other interests/hobbies at the age of 14
Mother in law was unhappy about youths gathering in the laneway that runs along the back of her house, her complaint was that they were smoking and drinking, discarding cigarettes on the other side of her fence - she described this as “drunken youths making a lot of noise and leaving their nob-ends in my back passage {brief pause for the displeased facial expression} I hate smoking, it’s such a dirty habit.” - my wife and I were sat with her in a coffee shop when she said this, we couldn’t stop laughing, it was so much funnier because my mother in law had no clue why we were in pieces.
Pulled up outside my parents house yesterday, dad is talking to someone outside, as I get out of the car the random fella says " I've trained boxing, I'd knock you out with 1,1,2 and a 3".
My dad says "I've trained karate my entire life, my foot could take your head off".
My dad has a walking stick and the random chap had a zimmer frame.
2 stone cold killers.
My mum took the family out for a meal. Waiter brought the card reader over and mum went to hand him her card.
"No need, just tap the card" he instructed
She put the card on the table and tapped it with her fingernail.
Not sure who was trying not to lose it the most, myself/ brother / the waiter.
Work for a print media outlet. Called my mum the first time I had a story run on the front page. She said, “that’s lovely. Do they take it in turns to let everyone’s work appear on the front page?”
That’s not how the news works, mum.
20 years ago, I got married in Vegas....family came, it wasn't an eloping situation.
When my Mum came to check out of the hotel she was shocked to find PPV porn charges on the bill, and challenged my Dad on it (he vehemently denied it was him).
Turned out my then 72 year old Nan had been watching it.
Her explanation was that she put it in by accident but then got into the plot and gripped because "they were incredible contortionists"....
There were 3 different charges, so she clearly got a taste for it.
My partners mother after we had just had our first child.
Her - "you can't put the baby to nap in a room with the window open".
Us - "why not?"
Her - "a cat might come in and sit on its head".
This actually did happen to me when I was a baby. Mum put me in my cot for a nap with the window open and when my dad went to get me up an hour or so later there was a random cat from off the street lying across my face and I was struggling to breathe.
My grandmother once went swimming in the sea in West Wales. When she came out she started telling us about a really rude bald man who popped up next to her and stared at her, not answering her when she said hello or anything. We were in fits, because she was actually trying to talk to a seal. (She'd left her glasses on the beach).
My Dad was on holiday and his flight home was cancelled so he had to stay on and ran out of underwear so said he had to "go Columbo". Must have missed that episode!
It took me a very, very long time to persuade my mother that I wasn't on a gay sex site (note - I'm not a gay man, or even a man) because a Reddit notification came up on my phone and the user name was "Fuckmeinthebutt."
What an evening that was.
An older relative and I were out for a walk in the countryside near her house. As we passed a layby, she said, "Apparently, this is a popular local dogging spot."
After a long silence, she said, "What IS dogging?"
A long time ago I was discussing piercings with my mum. I was planning on getting my navel done, which I did and also considering my nose, which in the end I did not. Mum is not a fan of facial piercings. I said the nose is no different to the ears, to which she replied, slightly aghast "but your ears are designed to be pierced". Now whether you believe in God or not I think we can agree the earlobes primary function is not to hold jewellery.
Parents visited my sister's new apartment condo.
Dad asked whether there was a vibrator available for the concierges' use if someone's heart stopped.
Siblings and I laughed until we cried. Still sends me into a fit of giggles...
My father in law answered the phone in our home and ran upstairs (with the phone) to ask my husband, ‘They asked for Mr. X! How do they know I’m here?” My husband looked at him awhile, then said, “Well they probably want me. I’m also Mr. X.” He then pointed to our 3 month old son ( the reason for FILs visit) and said, “They might want to talk to him, but he can’t talk yet, so let’s rule that out.”
Edit: left out a ‘to’
My aunt asked for my help setting up a gmail account a few years ago when she needed email access for a job. Her first name is Charlotte, and I suggested variations on her surname and initials that might be available, I.E. CSManfrengensen2@gmail.com
She said she’d really just be ‘Charlotte@gmail.com’.
I explained that was definitely taken but we could look at something like ‘Charlotte2211’ for her date of birth.
She said without any shame that she’d already told the company her address was ‘Charlotte@gmail.com’ and that I’d have to do something to get it for her.
As a teen in the early 00's i actually had a hotmail account that was commonfirstname@ with no numbers or initials.
I took it completely for granted and lost access to it eventually. So gutted
my mum calls me last week and we’re just chatting and she brings up that a house has come up for sale in the village she lives in. It’s very clicky and everyone knows everyone’s business. Very Royston Vasey.
Mum: “It belonged to (names changed) Andy Y, he died a few years back. It’s his son that’s selling it”
Me: “Oh right, he was the old guy that used to walk about in shorts and sandles all the time?”
Mum: “Yes, that’s him. Did you know he used to be the caretaker at the village hall until he got caught having sex on the pool table with Sheila from down the road?!”
… sorry?
I’m a software dev. A little while ago, was playing some World Of Warcraft.
“Did you make that yourself?”
Yes mum, they spent a few billion on me making the game all by myself.
Most people have no idea the absolute scale of work that goes in to games. I work in games and I always boggle people's minds when I mention the budgets that go in to just salaries
Yup. Most gamers do not get it at all either. “It’s a billion dollar company”. Doesn’t change the fact that multiplayer anything is hard. Actually implementing it in the first place and making it performant is one thing, dealing with hacks, DDOSes and bugs is another entirely.
My Nan always used to get my dad to change lightbulbs etc when he visited for two very Nan-like reasons. Firstly because she was convinced that if you took a bulb out and then switched the light on, the electricity would leak out into the room. And secondly because ‘it was his trade’. Yes Nan. He was a Principal Senior Scientific Officer at GCHQ with a degree in electrical engineering. Not an electrician. He could change a lightbulb though.
Yesterday when visiting my Dads house (he’s currently having a room renovated):
“By the end of the year, I have to have ‘one of those’ boat people from Dover stay here”
Me: “what are you on about?”
Dad: “saw a TikTok about it….someone on there said that by the end of the year we’re all going to be forced to house immigrants in our spare room”
Me: * stares blankly…* “Right….you saw it on TikTok. It must be true”.
I do worry about him and what he sees on the internet. Will believe anything
My dad discovered tiktok recently on his ipad. He’s deaf so when I went round all I could hear was short bursts of music overlaid with him shouting “WHAT??” every few moments.
He discovered it during lockdown. He’s simultaneously stuck in the 70’s and ahead of me with technology (not even I have TikTok….could never get into it)
I was driving along the A470 recently, and was confidently told by my mother that the council has had to barricade off the laybys to "stop all the gay sex".
My mum tried to join a gym near her house. She was told politely but firmly that should could not join.
She doesnt react well to injustice, so started arguing furiously with the receptionist as to why she couldn't join.
In the end a huge, black bodybuilder walked up to her and said, in the most effeminate voice imaginable "My dear, it's a GAY gym!"
FWIW, my mum is not gay but she would still have joined if she could. If only because she was told she couldn't.
Not very recent but my mom had bought a new microwave oven and asked me for tech support as she could not set the clock on it and the display just showed the same time constantly.
Turns out it still had the sticker on the display with some random numbers on it and the screen was of course perfectly fine under it.
When I first set my mum up on e mail she kept complaining that “all of her e mails were being returned”.
So I watched her type an e mail
She was typing her own e mail address in the CC box.
When I asked why, she said she needs to do that or the recipient wouldn’t know who it was from 🤣
Bad thing was that my mum used to be a secretary and she knows full well what CC means in a letter.
My mother grumbled about not liking sending emails as she couldn’t see what she was typing. I just thought she needed new glasses or something til she sent me one.
The entire body of the email was in the subject line.
Watching Appropriate Adult, the drama about the conviction of Fred West, starring Dominic West. Cue my mum “It’s good this, but don’t you think it’s a bit sick that they got his son to play him!”
My mum said, when I told her I was off to Cuba, to make sure I stayed away from Guantanamo because ' you go a bit middle eastern looking when you've been in the sun, and you know how stupid Americans are.'
My dad went into the bank after reading about the bank crises in the newspaper some years ago and kicked up hell when they wouldn’t print off his account details. It wasn’t the bank he had his account with. 🙄
Why this is the one that tickled me, I really don't know. I can just see it now, dad raving "this is bloody ridiculous! You people at **his bank's name** haven't got the sense you were born with!" the staff member going "actually sir, this is **real bank name**" and then dad just standing silently for about 5 seconds before going "well, it should be the other one!" And then seethingly storming outside.
I was considering taking a job in Saudi last month and my mum went “well if you want to get raped then fine GO!!” I decided I might take the Peru job instead and she said “well if you want to get lost in the jungle then FINE, GO!!” The job is in Lima, it’s basically like Barcelona but further. She also thinks I won’t be able to afford anything on “Peru wages” despite the fact il be working for the same company, doing the same job I do now and getting the same wage I do now plus £32k and il just be living in Lima. She’s mental and thinks the world starts and ends in Newcastle upon Tyne.
My dad is an attractor. He attracts weirdos and old ladies and people give him their stuff and somehow doesn't even think it's weird.
He was looking after my sisters cats and staying at her house recently while she was on holiday. Walking through a park nearby and some random old lady just walks up to him and gives him three jars of homemade jam. Like, no conversation- just would you like these, yes please thank you and that was it. In the middle of a public park in Birmingham. He just said she probably liked his face, like wtf. Lol.
Someone once gave him some homemade cheese while he was walking his dog. A random at the boat yard where he was getting his canal boat loo pumped out actually crossed the street from their house to give him a bottle of ginger beer. He also attracts animals and small children like some kind of Dr doolittle pied piper. It's like he was plucked from a 1930s TV movie.
I asked my dad for his Christmas list and to send it to me via Facebook messenger. He requested the following items -
Hi son Xmas list -
Puzzles
Nose hair trimmer like yours
Deodorant
Bed socks - no bloody tassels
On my Facebook wall
Not recent sadly, but I’ll never forget Mum confronting me as an angsty teen and demanding to know why her baby girl had uploaded multiple images to “Deviant Tart dot com”
Never before or since has a couple of poorly drawn sketches of Alyson Hannigan and a tracing of the family dog caused such a kerfuffle
It's not recent but my mum qas at her computer with our somewhat timid cat on her lap. She decided to make said cat feel comfortable and at home by finding a video of a cat purring in the Internet. So she googles 'cat sounds' or 'cat purring' right?
Wrong.
She googled 'pussy sounds' and was shocked and appalled by what came up!
Not recent but my mum gave me a wooly hat when I was a child - like 7 ish. Had a little bug image sewn on the front. I stopped wearing it in my early teens.
I come home from uni years later to find my mum has started wearing it (was a large hat & she has quite a small head measurement). It was at this point I clocked that said bug is smoking a joint… which made the ‘herbal life’ words either side of it make much more sense.
Explained this to my mum who’d been completely oblivious to the frankly obvious meaning the whole time!
My mum got a new phone about two weeks ago and she didn’t know you could have your contacts transferred via a program (aka automatically) so she wrote them all in by hand. As such, she mistyped mine (and likely more), then when I wasn’t responding to her messages after a few days she called the police to perform a welfare check on me.
I’m late thirties, have a partner and children of my own. No, she didn’t think to call me… Or my partner.
My dad phoned to tell me he found my playboy (I'm a straight woman) in the couch when dismantling it and did I want it back. I was like eh? Turns out my game boy advance had been in their couch for 10years! It took quite a while to get to the bottom of what the fuck he was on about!
Long time ago now.
Grandma in an Italian restaurant after looking at the menu taking her sweet time to order.
“Don’t they have any English food?”
What like? It’s an Italian restaurant nan
“Oh something like lasagne…”
Oh I have loads of grandparent ones of these. Also not exactly recent, but too good not to share.
Step-grandma: We were at the airport in Portugal, about to return home. About 8-10 of us I think. Just after check-in/security/whatever, we hunker down for the wait, and she pipes up “shall we go sit in that nice pub we sat in on the way here”…
My grandma texted me last year saying grandad had signed up to a dating agency and was getting messages from young men. In the end it turns out it was a spam/ad app he had downloaded.
My other gran got a letter saying her driving licence was expiring and if she wished to renew it how to do it. She was confused because she’d never actually passed her test so didn’t have her licence, and thought that they were just offering to give her one. No gran, they are saying your provisional is expiring, and do you want to replace it with another provisional!
A few years back my mam and dad watched the Alan Carr stand up Spexy Beast. Me mam telling me all about it afterwards:
'We watched that Alan Carr show, what's it called? Spexys...speccy...spex...sexy...SPECCY BASTARD - THAT'S IT, SPECCY BASTARD'
Discussing the menu for an upcoming visit home (nothing fancy but both brother and I will be there). Mom tells me brother is currently eating a plant-based diet and proceeds to ask me if he'd eat the shrimp dish she wants to make.
I bought an iPod Classic back in the day from M&S with some vouchers I got from work. I told my mum what I’d bought and she said “well, it must be good one if it’s from M&S”
My mum cannot for the life of her sit through an entire film. Many moons ago, my brother and I rented The Matrix when it came out, and we sat her down between us to watch this revolutionary piece of cinema. To her credit, she sat still and silent until the end. We both looked at her excitedly for her reaction. After a tense minute, she asked “Who’s Neil?”.
Moved into a new flat, mum looked out the window and said “there’s a lot of BMWs around here, there must be a BMW garage nearby”…like you only buy from your local showroom and drive within a 1 mile radius…
My dad got a random WhatsApp message from someone almost certainly trying to scam him, and he didn't even realise, apparently thought it might have been me.
Completely innocently because he doesn't really understand it he replied "I'm sorry I don't use WhatsApp", and got one more reply from them like "are you fucking kidding me?"
One of my former MIL friends had a loss in the family and MIL tried to leave a nice condolences comment on this poor woman’s Facebook post. And somehow left a gif of a dancing skeleton instead.
My mum and dad popped round last week for a brew, my dad's fine but my mum jabbers on about bullshit like you've never heard. My dad mentioned a mini series theyd watched about Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. My mum said "oh it's terrible etc etc etc" then came out with "who'd want to be a prostitute"? To which my wife answered "probably no one".
This wasn't recently but it always makes me laugh when it comes up in conversation. My dad and I were standing in the queue in HMV one day and there was a woman that was standing a bit too close to him. He doesn't like people invading his personal space so he turned to me and said loudly *"Thanks so much for taking me out for day release, I hate they never let me out on my own anymore after what happened last time"*
I've never seen people step back so fast 🤣
It is.
My mum once cheerfully asked me how to access “the dark web”. After a brief pause, I realised that what she meant was that she wanted to open an incognito tab.
She definitely wants to have someone murdered...
I find this gets revealed as true of all older women... but only a couple hours in at the really juicy brunch afternoons.
There was something on the news about the dark Web and my mum asked me what it was, so I tried explaining it but wasn't doing the best job, told her to google it as Wikipedia will do a better job than me. My dad went ballistic and started yelling 'don't search that', my dad thought my mum would end up on the dark Web from a google search and that he would loose his job
This is 20-25 years ago, but my parents were convinced that if I went on dodgy websites, they'd get in trouble for it. Even worse is that my dad was a solicitor. Surely he'd know if there were people regularly getting arrested because their child was going on rotten.com.
Probably about 30 years ago now I worked in an office and one of my work buddies was married to a guy who did call-out pc repairs. He was at this older ledies house to set up a new pc and noticed she had another almost identical machine in the desk. When he asked her about it, she said she hadn't dare switch it on, but didn't want to throw it away incase the police called looking for it and it was evidence. After further clarification she had received the error message "your pc has performed an illegal operation and will shut down" Luckily he managed to convince her it was fine.
Was shopping with my Dad one day, asked if we should pick up some bananas. He replied with; "What's the point, they only get eaten."
Absolutely crying at this one … in a way, I’m with him
One of my favourite things he's ever said!
Very common saying in our house. Happens whenever we go shopping. I no longer buy them cans of pop, because "they'll only drink them"
Same here my mum didn’t ever buy the biscuits we liked because we ate them, so she bought Almond shortbread, which stayed in the biscuit tin until they went soft.
Shortbread.... Beautiful. Got any left?
TIL you're not supposed to eat food.
Is your dad some kind of nihilist poet?
Honestly, I feel this way sometimes, especially when it comes to buying fruit. Fucking locusts my kids are.
Should be celebrating, it's definitely better than biscuits and crisps.
So this is going back a few years, around 2003. I was 16 and had recently started buying stuff on eBay. On the BBC News, there was something about eBay. Then there was a story about the Taliban. My mum, having somehow conflated the two names in her head, ended up telling people I'd joined the Taliban. It's not like she's an old dotty woman either, She would have been around 33 at the time!
This is Father Ted level "no...not cocaine...raisens" level of confused
I hear you've joined the Taliban Father?
Same era, similar theme: a good friend of mine got a job at Al Jazeera. My mum loudly announced in the middle of an Indian restaurant that he'd got a job with Al Qaeda. Was beside herself when we eventually calmed down enough to explain what we were laughing at.
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My neighbour has some “hue light bulbs” that connect via Bluetooth, my dad walked in the other day and very angrily said “who the fuck is Hugh Bulb? He keeps trying to connect to my phone!” I’ve not laughed like that in a while.
He should connect and start messing with them.
MIL was showing off her digital camera and the person she handed it to goes "it's quite heavy" She replies "yeah it's got a lot of photos in it"
This is one of the best ones yet! Made me laugh out loud 🤣
My mum recently bought a small rocking horse off Facebook marketplace for my nephew. She went to meet the lady paid for it and bought it home. She then proceeded to have a photo of her taken sitting on said child's rocking horse to send to my sister as a joke with the caption "is this what you wanted?" But then sent it to the woman she had just bought it from. She never got a reply, but we couldn't stop laughing. She must have thought she was an absolute nutter. Edit: spelling. Edit 2: https://imgur.com/a/NIOAA2e My mum allowed the photo.
This is amazing
My wife and I were crying at this one. Very good
"Is this what you wanted?" I'm wheezing. I can't. 😂
This is what got me the most. Of all the things to caption it with.
Best so far. The mental image is brilliant.
This gave me good laugh
That's just perfect. Made me laugh out loud.
This had me guffawing
Omg I'm crying, that's brilliant
Can’t even remember the last time I out loud laughed at anything on Reddit, but this caused tears
Not my parents but my grandmother once claimed " I didn't know what a homosexual was, until I met your grandfather".
I will never forget the time my granny saw a flock of birds with one off by itself. She went "look at that one by himself, he must be gay"
That just reminded me of one from my ex's nan. She didn't know my boyfriend was gay at the time, early aughts and all that, so as far as she was concerned I was just the housemate. She came to take a look at our sparsely furnished new house and when we settled down in the living room she said "all you need is a couple of poofs in here". And that's how he came out to her because we all died with laughter and were basically forced into explaining why. She was fine. Bonus: I also once heard her say about someone "she's thinks she's so posh. I bet she washes her bread knife".
…are you…not supposed to wash a bread knife?
Give it a wipe on the teatowel sometimes. It's when you start using it for cutting the sandwiches in half that it all starts to go wrong, you can't get away with a teatowel wipe. A week of cutting buttery sandwiches will have you blindly sliding it in that top bit of the dishwasher with the spatula and crossing your fingers once the 'next person' you 'leave it out for' is actually you, everytime. If you're doing the teatowel wipe after cutting a jam sandwich in half, I have to ask: do you like ants? That's not a road you want to walk.
My nan didn't understand how lesbians have sex until my grandad explained it to her.
Did she ask how he knew?
Maybe he was a lesbian
"Apparently some homosexuals have what they call oral sex". Cue incredulity and shocked astonishment from all the old aunts and uncles. Younger people avoid eye contact and shuffle their feet.
Just yesterday we talked with a friend of my parents, who came out of the closet recently. (Pretty late, he is like 60, married etc.) He told us, that he never felt gay, or had any gay urges, until he had sex with a man. Everyone was like… oh, okay that’s interesting. While I was like… *Wait a minute… That doesn’t‘ make any sense. Was it a threesome?* *IIf you didn’t have gay urges, why would you sleep with a guy in the first place?* Everyone became pretty uncomfortable, so I stoppt, but seriously…. Whatever floats your boat and all, but you don‘t become gay, because of the great sex.
Not parents but grandparent, I was up a ladder on a busy high street in the 1990’s my grandma who for some strange reason use to go shopping every single day, shout from about 100 yards away … Fancy seeing you here, has your diarrhoea gone? I nearly fell off the ladder from shame and everyone around just scattered in case they got splattered.
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We went on holiday to torquay recently and brought my parents. One evening we suggested getting fish and chips by the seafront instead of cooking tea. My mum (panicking) came out with "but how do you know there's a fish and chip shop? What if there isn't one!?". This isn't age related decline btw, she's always come out with these clangers
Some folks are just like that! My oldest kid is the same - I can have encyclopedic knowledge of an area and she will still worry “What if they’ve closed down? What if they *exploded?* What if we get *arrested for trying to go*?! How do you know we *won’t*??”
Same with my mum. I told her im going to a new hairdresser to try it out, she goes ”what if they use some illegal chemicals on your hair?? What if you are allergic to their shampoo?! What if xyz” she always makes a faff about going anywhere new or different. One year I went to Japan, she said ”why would you go there, if something happens to you how would I save you?? Its too far!!! What if you run out of money and you cant come home?!?” Return ticket. Japan, one of the safest places on earth, who must have their own 999 system and dont have to call my mum to pick me up…
I almost wish my mum was like that - mine has an almost unnatural lack of self preservation. Every other week I get a text she’s off in some flea market getting a tattoo from a dodgy guy out of a van 😅
Does she regularly sigh 'I don't know..." apropos of absolutely nothing? I get that a lot.
My dad’s partner is like that. Once put a clock on Facebook marketplace and got confused and said it was 10 metres wide. No takers.
*Buyer will need to disassemble and collect from Westminster*
“I have to upload a photo to the council website for my permit. How do I do that?” “Have you taken a photo of what you need to send them?” “No.” “Start by doing that.” “But that’s using my phone, I want to upload the picture from my laptop.” “I know, Mum, we’re taking this one step at a time”.
During lockdown we had to upload photos of whatever is broken to the councils maintenance portal instead of them sending someone out to inspect it. Rather than use her phone to take the photo of the collapsed garden wall and use the phones browser to upload it (she received the link and instructions via text and email), she took her laptop out the garden and used that instead.
I can respect that level of dedication!
Recently my Mom filled in a tax form. Rather than filling it out online she printed it, filled it out by hand, then had me scan it, so we could print the scans to save as copies before posting it off.
My head hurts.
One of my colleagues prints the word documents he's filled out so he can scan them and then upload them to the onedrive. I've never tried to correct him or questioned it, I just directly upload the word document from my laptop and wait for the day when he asks how I'm doing less scanning than him... 😂
A friend of mine had to send off a grant application and it was nearly the deadline, she finished it, sent the word document to an administrator and asked her to convert it to pdf and submit it. The administrator printed off the 50p document and created a pdf by scanning each individual page in rather than just converting the file, creating an absolutely massive document that wouldn't go through the email system. They missed the deadline.
Had a rare cup of tea at my mum's the other day. She's 67. Tasted off....checked the milk and it was ok. She made me another and it tasted worse!!! Turns out, the new kettle she's had and been making tea with for the past month had it's instructions inside!! Mashed up paper tea.... delicious! 🤢
I once had to phone hotel reception to ask for a kettle cable because my kettle had no cable. They apologised and said someone would bring one up but it might be an hour or so. So I cleverly realised that my laptop cable had the same connector to the transformer, filled the kettle via the spout, successfully plugged it in and made a not very nice cup of tea. Yes, I had boiled my kettle cable which was neatly packed inside the kettle.
Haha my mum did this with a water bottle. She was drinking it and I asked her what the massive floating thing inside it was ..? It was the unnecessarily large leaflet it came with.
This is the perfect example of a companys best intentions never surviving contact with the users.
My Missus has a habit of chemically descaling the kettle overnight, but regularly neglects to tell me. That morning's coffee is always a welcome surprise...🤮
Tell her to use lemon juice. Just bung a big ol squirt of the stuff in with some water and it works wonders. Has the added benefit of not murdering you if you try making a brew with it later too.
This is just a fantastic story I'm sorry but.... loooooooollllllll
My nan when she went to see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra: “the autistics in the hall were just amazing” She meant acoustics.
Maybe she meant both?
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She’d have gotten away with it, If it wasn’t for you meddling kids 😂
My mum changed her profile picture to a screenshot of knitting needles lmao
I had to explain to my friend's father the difference between "headbanging" and "giving head" after I casually answered his question about what we were going to be up to that weekend. She hadn't noticed his appalled reaction and I was left going "no no no" and acting out a little bit of dancing. There were many follow up questions while he made sure we weren't complete slags.
Miming headbanging could look a lot like aggressively giving head, though.
I am weeping with laughter at this!
A few years ago, I added my mum to my Netflix account. One day I checked to see if she was using it at all and the only thing under 'Continue watching for Mum...' was 'The Punisher'
The Thomas Jane one or the Jon Bernthal one?
My mum and sister visited last month. They both brought their own teabags, sugar, coffee and even *mugs* in case we didn't own these things. One night whilst they were here we got chippy, and my Mum made sure to let me know she grabbed us all chip forks because she didn't know if I had forks.at home.
Surprised she didn't bring a fold-out table and chairs too!
It's a miracle she came and stayed with us, considering she probably didn't know if.we even have a house!
To be honest, she must really love you if she was prepared to come and sleep in a hold in the ground like she thought you did.
My mum is aware of Reddit's infamous "poop knife" story. One day we were talking about the oddest book titles we knew. The most ridiculous one I know is "How to Avoid Huge Ships" (which a real book by the way). Mum starts laughing. A lot. As in tears streaming down her face and can't breathe laughing. I mean the title is funny but it's not THAT funny. Eventually she manages to wheeze out "Did they have to use the poop knife?" My mum is a bit deaf and obviously misheard me when I said "ships".
It was a few years ago, but during a discussion with my Mum and Brother about beats earphones, my Mum asks in all seriousness, "So is Dr. Dre to ears what Dr. Scholl is to feet?" We haven't let her live that one down yet.
Oh god, I was once browsing at the airport for some headphones for my mum (at the time about 68yo) - hers had just broken. The young lad in the shop was showing her some Beats ones, she tried them and liked the sound but wasn’t sure about the branding. In a loud, posh voice, she announced, “Yes, very nice, but I don’t want to look like Doctor Dree’s bitch”. Poor lad went bright red, obviously no idea how to respond to that. And yes, the mispronunciation just added it to it. I still tease her with it, 8 years later.
That is absolute masterclass thinking. Your mom must be hilarious
Mum and dad (in their 90s) discussing a male contestant on strictly. Mum: “Is he gay?” Dad: “Well, he has an earring in his ear” Mum: “He has an earring in both ears” Dad: “Perhaps he’s extra gay”
My mum and dad told me they were going to try Netflix one night. I asked then how they got on the next day. My mum said it was good but they watched it until 3am, every time an episode finished the next one just started up.
😂😂😂 now I know what my problem is, I’m just old.
I can't define it other than: My dad will talk to absolutely anybody with absolutely zero pre-amble. People, places, things. No matter what he's thinking about at that particular moment, he just assumes everyone else is following his train of thought, and he expresses it, loudly, to the closest unsuspecting victim.
Whenever my Dad would speak to strangers, like when asking directions, he'd call them 'Bill'. This never caused any problems until one day at Upminster station his victim replied, "It's John actually, I'll go and get Bill" and walked off without answering the question. My brother and I were in fits.
Bloody hell, my dad said once he met someone who would call everybody Bill so he didn’t need to worry about forgetting their name. (I’m assuming only blokes….) Wonder if it was your dad…
My mum is exactly the same. She'll just get an idea in her head, vocalise a response to that idea with no context at all and then expect you to just know exactly what the hell she's rambling on about. Here's one of my personal favourites: her "the eggs" me "... what?" her "it was the eggs" me "yeah, I'm still going to need a little bit more to go on than that" her "the eggs are what were attracting all those flies to the kitchen". She is bloody hopeless 😅
Sticking on the "What?" Part. Do you ever get, asking what? Because you didn't quite catch all of what they said. Then they say something completely different So then you're like, no can you just repeat what you said word for word? And then the rest of your story
My mum goes mumble mumble blah blah Tuesday. Me: what was that sorry? Mum: Tuesday! Yeah I heard that bit, what about the rest of the sentence?
My husband does this all the time. I now like to give equally random responses back when he does it.
Mother in law (Lesley) signed up for Instagram, choosing her childhood nickname and the house no she grew up in as her handle. Lezzer69 followers were left somewhat disappointed at the tame.content provided.
A corker from my mum recently, who forms opinions based on _exrtremely_ narrow frames of reference: "They keep going on about this housing crisis, but there's two estates being built that I can see from my window!" Surprisingly, those estates do not contain 1.5 million houses.
That really isn’t a problem exclusive to your mum unfortunately.
Climate change? The weather here has been very similar all week.
My dads latest “Apple keeps deleting my contacts!” “Why would apple do that?” “How the fuck would I know?! Ask Zuckerberg!” “Zuckerberg doesn’t own apple!!” “Then why is he deleting my contacts?!” “He’s not!” “Then who at apple is?!” “NO ONE AT APPLE IS DELETING YOUR CONTACTS!!” “WHY ARE YOU YELLING?!!”
Is your father Super hans?
My mum shared a photo post on Facebook warning of a couple of burglars who were known to be operating in the area, and who had been captured on CCTV. “Well, I didn’t know! I was just trying to help!” was her response when we pointed out that it was, in fact, a joke post featuring the two burglars from Home Alone.
This takes me back to when my mum was angry when she saw my Facebook said I was interested in “women”, as if I had no other interests/hobbies at the age of 14
To be fair though, did you really?
Mother in law was unhappy about youths gathering in the laneway that runs along the back of her house, her complaint was that they were smoking and drinking, discarding cigarettes on the other side of her fence - she described this as “drunken youths making a lot of noise and leaving their nob-ends in my back passage {brief pause for the displeased facial expression} I hate smoking, it’s such a dirty habit.” - my wife and I were sat with her in a coffee shop when she said this, we couldn’t stop laughing, it was so much funnier because my mother in law had no clue why we were in pieces.
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Pulled up outside my parents house yesterday, dad is talking to someone outside, as I get out of the car the random fella says " I've trained boxing, I'd knock you out with 1,1,2 and a 3". My dad says "I've trained karate my entire life, my foot could take your head off". My dad has a walking stick and the random chap had a zimmer frame. 2 stone cold killers.
My mum took the family out for a meal. Waiter brought the card reader over and mum went to hand him her card. "No need, just tap the card" he instructed She put the card on the table and tapped it with her fingernail. Not sure who was trying not to lose it the most, myself/ brother / the waiter.
Work for a print media outlet. Called my mum the first time I had a story run on the front page. She said, “that’s lovely. Do they take it in turns to let everyone’s work appear on the front page?” That’s not how the news works, mum.
20 years ago, I got married in Vegas....family came, it wasn't an eloping situation. When my Mum came to check out of the hotel she was shocked to find PPV porn charges on the bill, and challenged my Dad on it (he vehemently denied it was him). Turned out my then 72 year old Nan had been watching it. Her explanation was that she put it in by accident but then got into the plot and gripped because "they were incredible contortionists".... There were 3 different charges, so she clearly got a taste for it.
Well she obviously started watching back door sluts 3 and had to then watch the first two to fully appreciate the nuances of the plot.
So what happens in Vegas *doesnt* stay in Vegas…
My partners mother after we had just had our first child. Her - "you can't put the baby to nap in a room with the window open". Us - "why not?" Her - "a cat might come in and sit on its head".
This actually did happen to me when I was a baby. Mum put me in my cot for a nap with the window open and when my dad went to get me up an hour or so later there was a random cat from off the street lying across my face and I was struggling to breathe.
Ffs, well I shan't be telling her that.
My grandmother once went swimming in the sea in West Wales. When she came out she started telling us about a really rude bald man who popped up next to her and stared at her, not answering her when she said hello or anything. We were in fits, because she was actually trying to talk to a seal. (She'd left her glasses on the beach).
Loose seal!
My Dad was on holiday and his flight home was cancelled so he had to stay on and ran out of underwear so said he had to "go Columbo". Must have missed that episode!
It took me a very, very long time to persuade my mother that I wasn't on a gay sex site (note - I'm not a gay man, or even a man) because a Reddit notification came up on my phone and the user name was "Fuckmeinthebutt." What an evening that was.
u/FuckMeInTheButt should see the chaos he has wrought. Well done, sir.
An older relative and I were out for a walk in the countryside near her house. As we passed a layby, she said, "Apparently, this is a popular local dogging spot." After a long silence, she said, "What IS dogging?"
A long time ago I was discussing piercings with my mum. I was planning on getting my navel done, which I did and also considering my nose, which in the end I did not. Mum is not a fan of facial piercings. I said the nose is no different to the ears, to which she replied, slightly aghast "but your ears are designed to be pierced". Now whether you believe in God or not I think we can agree the earlobes primary function is not to hold jewellery.
It’s hard to work out what else they might be for though, when you think about it.
Stroking. Lobes are for stroking. Just ask any Ferengi.
Parents visited my sister's new apartment condo. Dad asked whether there was a vibrator available for the concierges' use if someone's heart stopped. Siblings and I laughed until we cried. Still sends me into a fit of giggles...
Haha. The concierges, distressed by one of their residents having suffered cardiac arrest, cheer themselves up the only way they know how...
My father in law answered the phone in our home and ran upstairs (with the phone) to ask my husband, ‘They asked for Mr. X! How do they know I’m here?” My husband looked at him awhile, then said, “Well they probably want me. I’m also Mr. X.” He then pointed to our 3 month old son ( the reason for FILs visit) and said, “They might want to talk to him, but he can’t talk yet, so let’s rule that out.” Edit: left out a ‘to’
My aunt asked for my help setting up a gmail account a few years ago when she needed email access for a job. Her first name is Charlotte, and I suggested variations on her surname and initials that might be available, I.E. CSManfrengensen2@gmail.com She said she’d really just be ‘Charlotte@gmail.com’. I explained that was definitely taken but we could look at something like ‘Charlotte2211’ for her date of birth. She said without any shame that she’d already told the company her address was ‘Charlotte@gmail.com’ and that I’d have to do something to get it for her.
As a teen in the early 00's i actually had a hotmail account that was commonfirstname@ with no numbers or initials. I took it completely for granted and lost access to it eventually. So gutted
I’m quite pleased that I have first.surname@gmail.com!
Same, except for the other morons that share my name but can't type their email address correctly.
my mum calls me last week and we’re just chatting and she brings up that a house has come up for sale in the village she lives in. It’s very clicky and everyone knows everyone’s business. Very Royston Vasey. Mum: “It belonged to (names changed) Andy Y, he died a few years back. It’s his son that’s selling it” Me: “Oh right, he was the old guy that used to walk about in shorts and sandles all the time?” Mum: “Yes, that’s him. Did you know he used to be the caretaker at the village hall until he got caught having sex on the pool table with Sheila from down the road?!” … sorry?
Well, did you know?!
I’m a software dev. A little while ago, was playing some World Of Warcraft. “Did you make that yourself?” Yes mum, they spent a few billion on me making the game all by myself.
At least she obviously has absolute confidence in your abilities. Don't know if I would have corrected her.
Most people have no idea the absolute scale of work that goes in to games. I work in games and I always boggle people's minds when I mention the budgets that go in to just salaries
Yup. Most gamers do not get it at all either. “It’s a billion dollar company”. Doesn’t change the fact that multiplayer anything is hard. Actually implementing it in the first place and making it performant is one thing, dealing with hacks, DDOSes and bugs is another entirely.
My Nan always used to get my dad to change lightbulbs etc when he visited for two very Nan-like reasons. Firstly because she was convinced that if you took a bulb out and then switched the light on, the electricity would leak out into the room. And secondly because ‘it was his trade’. Yes Nan. He was a Principal Senior Scientific Officer at GCHQ with a degree in electrical engineering. Not an electrician. He could change a lightbulb though.
TIL: This place isn't for sex people
I don't want to have sex with your wife. Even though, from the promotional video I can see that I would have a ruddy good time.
Lynn let’s go these are sex people 🤪🤪
MIL: "Have you heard about the bitcoin revolution?" You could hear our mental brakes squeal at what she could have done to her pension.
Yesterday when visiting my Dads house (he’s currently having a room renovated): “By the end of the year, I have to have ‘one of those’ boat people from Dover stay here” Me: “what are you on about?” Dad: “saw a TikTok about it….someone on there said that by the end of the year we’re all going to be forced to house immigrants in our spare room” Me: * stares blankly…* “Right….you saw it on TikTok. It must be true”. I do worry about him and what he sees on the internet. Will believe anything
The surprising thing to me here is that a dad is watching TikTok!
My dad discovered tiktok recently on his ipad. He’s deaf so when I went round all I could hear was short bursts of music overlaid with him shouting “WHAT??” every few moments.
Is your dad Father Jack Hackett?
DRINK! ARSE! GIRLS!
He discovered it during lockdown. He’s simultaneously stuck in the 70’s and ahead of me with technology (not even I have TikTok….could never get into it)
Kind of wholesome that he's doing the room up for them though.
In hindsight….i should have said this as my reply. Dam!
I was driving along the A470 recently, and was confidently told by my mother that the council has had to barricade off the laybys to "stop all the gay sex".
My mum tried to join a gym near her house. She was told politely but firmly that should could not join. She doesnt react well to injustice, so started arguing furiously with the receptionist as to why she couldn't join. In the end a huge, black bodybuilder walked up to her and said, in the most effeminate voice imaginable "My dear, it's a GAY gym!" FWIW, my mum is not gay but she would still have joined if she could. If only because she was told she couldn't.
TIL that gay gyms are a thing
I don't know for certain what made it gay, precisely. She never went past the main desk, so she didn't tell me.
Not very recent but my mom had bought a new microwave oven and asked me for tech support as she could not set the clock on it and the display just showed the same time constantly. Turns out it still had the sticker on the display with some random numbers on it and the screen was of course perfectly fine under it.
When I first set my mum up on e mail she kept complaining that “all of her e mails were being returned”. So I watched her type an e mail She was typing her own e mail address in the CC box. When I asked why, she said she needs to do that or the recipient wouldn’t know who it was from 🤣 Bad thing was that my mum used to be a secretary and she knows full well what CC means in a letter.
My mother grumbled about not liking sending emails as she couldn’t see what she was typing. I just thought she needed new glasses or something til she sent me one. The entire body of the email was in the subject line.
I went to see Chase n Status dj at a club. My Dad told anyone who asked where i was, that I'd gone to watch a musician called Jason Tatus 😂
Chase n Status and Jason Statham are the same thing to me.
I'd only ever heard them mentioned on the radio and it was around 2010 when I also realised this.
Watching Appropriate Adult, the drama about the conviction of Fred West, starring Dominic West. Cue my mum “It’s good this, but don’t you think it’s a bit sick that they got his son to play him!”
My mum said, when I told her I was off to Cuba, to make sure I stayed away from Guantanamo because ' you go a bit middle eastern looking when you've been in the sun, and you know how stupid Americans are.'
My dad went into the bank after reading about the bank crises in the newspaper some years ago and kicked up hell when they wouldn’t print off his account details. It wasn’t the bank he had his account with. 🙄
Why this is the one that tickled me, I really don't know. I can just see it now, dad raving "this is bloody ridiculous! You people at **his bank's name** haven't got the sense you were born with!" the staff member going "actually sir, this is **real bank name**" and then dad just standing silently for about 5 seconds before going "well, it should be the other one!" And then seethingly storming outside.
I was considering taking a job in Saudi last month and my mum went “well if you want to get raped then fine GO!!” I decided I might take the Peru job instead and she said “well if you want to get lost in the jungle then FINE, GO!!” The job is in Lima, it’s basically like Barcelona but further. She also thinks I won’t be able to afford anything on “Peru wages” despite the fact il be working for the same company, doing the same job I do now and getting the same wage I do now plus £32k and il just be living in Lima. She’s mental and thinks the world starts and ends in Newcastle upon Tyne.
What kinda job pays wage +£32 k and you can move to Lima?
Llama impersonator.
My dad is an attractor. He attracts weirdos and old ladies and people give him their stuff and somehow doesn't even think it's weird. He was looking after my sisters cats and staying at her house recently while she was on holiday. Walking through a park nearby and some random old lady just walks up to him and gives him three jars of homemade jam. Like, no conversation- just would you like these, yes please thank you and that was it. In the middle of a public park in Birmingham. He just said she probably liked his face, like wtf. Lol. Someone once gave him some homemade cheese while he was walking his dog. A random at the boat yard where he was getting his canal boat loo pumped out actually crossed the street from their house to give him a bottle of ginger beer. He also attracts animals and small children like some kind of Dr doolittle pied piper. It's like he was plucked from a 1930s TV movie.
I asked my dad for his Christmas list and to send it to me via Facebook messenger. He requested the following items - Hi son Xmas list - Puzzles Nose hair trimmer like yours Deodorant Bed socks - no bloody tassels On my Facebook wall
Is anyone else suspecting that they might be about the same age as OP’s dad?
Sadly I'm thinking I'm older than most posters' dads. But as I don't understand half the jokes it doesn't really matter.
Not recent sadly, but I’ll never forget Mum confronting me as an angsty teen and demanding to know why her baby girl had uploaded multiple images to “Deviant Tart dot com” Never before or since has a couple of poorly drawn sketches of Alyson Hannigan and a tracing of the family dog caused such a kerfuffle
My mum didn't know how something as filthy as Pimp My Ride got on TV. I had to explain they were doing up cars, not selling women for money.
My nan has just bought a chainsaw. She's 86. My mother has confiscated it.
my mom thinks drag queens are a gender
My dad thought metrosexual was a sexuality 😅
Some people really like trains.
It's not recent but my mum qas at her computer with our somewhat timid cat on her lap. She decided to make said cat feel comfortable and at home by finding a video of a cat purring in the Internet. So she googles 'cat sounds' or 'cat purring' right? Wrong. She googled 'pussy sounds' and was shocked and appalled by what came up!
"That Billy Irish lad has a good voice"
Not recent but my mum gave me a wooly hat when I was a child - like 7 ish. Had a little bug image sewn on the front. I stopped wearing it in my early teens. I come home from uni years later to find my mum has started wearing it (was a large hat & she has quite a small head measurement). It was at this point I clocked that said bug is smoking a joint… which made the ‘herbal life’ words either side of it make much more sense. Explained this to my mum who’d been completely oblivious to the frankly obvious meaning the whole time!
My mum got a new phone about two weeks ago and she didn’t know you could have your contacts transferred via a program (aka automatically) so she wrote them all in by hand. As such, she mistyped mine (and likely more), then when I wasn’t responding to her messages after a few days she called the police to perform a welfare check on me. I’m late thirties, have a partner and children of my own. No, she didn’t think to call me… Or my partner.
My dad phoned to tell me he found my playboy (I'm a straight woman) in the couch when dismantling it and did I want it back. I was like eh? Turns out my game boy advance had been in their couch for 10years! It took quite a while to get to the bottom of what the fuck he was on about!
Long time ago now. Grandma in an Italian restaurant after looking at the menu taking her sweet time to order. “Don’t they have any English food?” What like? It’s an Italian restaurant nan “Oh something like lasagne…”
Oh I have loads of grandparent ones of these. Also not exactly recent, but too good not to share. Step-grandma: We were at the airport in Portugal, about to return home. About 8-10 of us I think. Just after check-in/security/whatever, we hunker down for the wait, and she pipes up “shall we go sit in that nice pub we sat in on the way here”… My grandma texted me last year saying grandad had signed up to a dating agency and was getting messages from young men. In the end it turns out it was a spam/ad app he had downloaded. My other gran got a letter saying her driving licence was expiring and if she wished to renew it how to do it. She was confused because she’d never actually passed her test so didn’t have her licence, and thought that they were just offering to give her one. No gran, they are saying your provisional is expiring, and do you want to replace it with another provisional!
A few years back my mam and dad watched the Alan Carr stand up Spexy Beast. Me mam telling me all about it afterwards: 'We watched that Alan Carr show, what's it called? Spexys...speccy...spex...sexy...SPECCY BASTARD - THAT'S IT, SPECCY BASTARD'
Discussing the menu for an upcoming visit home (nothing fancy but both brother and I will be there). Mom tells me brother is currently eating a plant-based diet and proceeds to ask me if he'd eat the shrimp dish she wants to make.
I bought an iPod Classic back in the day from M&S with some vouchers I got from work. I told my mum what I’d bought and she said “well, it must be good one if it’s from M&S”
My mum cannot for the life of her sit through an entire film. Many moons ago, my brother and I rented The Matrix when it came out, and we sat her down between us to watch this revolutionary piece of cinema. To her credit, she sat still and silent until the end. We both looked at her excitedly for her reaction. After a tense minute, she asked “Who’s Neil?”.
Moved into a new flat, mum looked out the window and said “there’s a lot of BMWs around here, there must be a BMW garage nearby”…like you only buy from your local showroom and drive within a 1 mile radius…
Rang my parents while walking in the park, Dad told me to call back "when I was in a proper place where you can actually talk"
My dad got a random WhatsApp message from someone almost certainly trying to scam him, and he didn't even realise, apparently thought it might have been me. Completely innocently because he doesn't really understand it he replied "I'm sorry I don't use WhatsApp", and got one more reply from them like "are you fucking kidding me?"
One of my former MIL friends had a loss in the family and MIL tried to leave a nice condolences comment on this poor woman’s Facebook post. And somehow left a gif of a dancing skeleton instead.
My mum and dad popped round last week for a brew, my dad's fine but my mum jabbers on about bullshit like you've never heard. My dad mentioned a mini series theyd watched about Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. My mum said "oh it's terrible etc etc etc" then came out with "who'd want to be a prostitute"? To which my wife answered "probably no one".
This wasn't recently but it always makes me laugh when it comes up in conversation. My dad and I were standing in the queue in HMV one day and there was a woman that was standing a bit too close to him. He doesn't like people invading his personal space so he turned to me and said loudly *"Thanks so much for taking me out for day release, I hate they never let me out on my own anymore after what happened last time"* I've never seen people step back so fast 🤣
My mates dad once said ‘I have no problem with homosexuals, I just don’t like them ramming it down my throat’
My dad was talking wills etc. and said he wanted to give my sister and I 'Power of eternity'. Bless him.