Adorable Parent Factoids

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1. My dad never invested much energy in remembering which fast-food restaurants served which items, so any time we stopped at a McDonald's for breakfast, he would order a Croissandwich (which he liked) and then look really crestfallen when they said they didn't have that. He once looked so disappointed that a McDonald's employee apologized, in a tone that kinda acknowledged the Croissandwich was way better.

2. My mom always spelled broccoli "broccholi," presumably by false parallel with "zucchini."

3. Every so often, my dad would come across a new American expression he found charming and hilarious, and would start using it heavily. For one straight month he said "holy mackerel!" in practically every conversation, until (I'm guessing) one of his co-workers decided to teach him a new one, and so he switched to "holy Toledo!" for the next month.

4. My dad, brother, and I came home from someplace once and found my mom standing in the back yard, in her gardening clothes, looking very agitated and holding a shovel. At her feet was a small garter snake that had been pulverized into about 16 separate pieces, some of which looked like they'd gone through a food processor.

5. I once asked my mom for $10 so my friend Tim and I could buy some Dungeons & Dragons book, on the grounds that it "had new spells." She said, "How about a reality spell? Does it have one of those?" Tim laughed, and I did not get the $10.

― nabisco, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:27 (eighteen years ago)

I once asked my mom for I once asked my mom for $10 so my friend Tim and I could buy some Dungeons & Dragons book, on the grounds that it "had new spells."

― river wolf, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:28 (eighteen years ago)

6. My mom has set multiple toasters on fire, and I have two separate distinct childhood memories of her running outside holding a flaming toaster in her hands.

― Mr. Que, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:31 (eighteen years ago)

Where is your Dad from Nabisco?

― Will M., Monday, 9 April 2007 19:33 (eighteen years ago)

I have to go with the all-time classic moment when my mother turned to me and asked me, in all seriousness, "do lesbians have periods?" (I don't know if I'd say that was adorable, though.)

― Sara R-C, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:37 (eighteen years ago)

My mom wrote a "rap" for her 7 brothers and sisters to perform on their parents' 50th wedding anniversary, held in the basement of a church in rural southeastern Minnesota, 1991. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the MC Rove footage because they all tried to dance like how they imagined a "rap dance" would be like.

― iiiijjjj, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:39 (eighteen years ago)

7. The back of our house and my dad's office both faced out on the same stretch of prairie, about a mile apart from one another. One summer weekend, my dad bought a telephoto lens for his camera, to take pictures of soccer games. On Monday, I was drinking a glass of orange juice when the phone rang. It was my dad, calling from work. "Hey!" he said. "That's some good orange juice, right?"

― nabisco, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:40 (eighteen years ago)

hahaha

― elmo argonaut, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:41 (eighteen years ago)

Okay, Nabisco, that orange juice story rules the world/creeps me out/makes me roffle/all of the preceding.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:41 (eighteen years ago)

this is already a pretty aaaw thread and it's only gonna get aaawer i bet

― rrrobyn, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:42 (eighteen years ago)

number 7 sounds like something my dad would do

― river wolf, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:42 (eighteen years ago)

yeah that is a great OJ story!

― Mr. Que, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:42 (eighteen years ago)

8. My parents dated for six weeks, were engaged for one day, and eloped. They have been married 28 years.

― jessie monster, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:42 (eighteen years ago)

- my mom plays piano to me over the phone, has a pixie haircut, phoned me yesterday to tell me there was a rat in the greenhouse (i live thousands of miles away) and began the conversation with 'omg omg i have to TELL you! did i tell you?! omg, eeeeeeee!'

― rrrobyn, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:43 (eighteen years ago)

9) English is not my Dad's first language so he sometimes gets things a little confused even after more than 40 years in the US. He used to be a chef and it never failed to make me laugh when he'd give me the list of specials to write on the board and I'd see "beaked" clams listed as an appetizer. He also invents words. One of his favorite words is "asinating" which I can only imagine is a combination of asinine and ??? He once told me that he had some kind of skin rash on his face and thought he should probably go see the Taxidermist.

― ENBB, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:43 (eighteen years ago)

10)He once got so drunk at the NYC St. Patty's day parade that he and some random cop switched clothes. My Mom opened the door to find him dressed as one of NYC's finest, badge and all. At first, she thought she'd been sent a striper. She through the whole uniform into the incinerator because she was afraid he'd get in trouble.

― ENBB, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:44 (eighteen years ago)

10) He drank with some of The Beatles while in Hamburg.

― ENBB, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:44 (eighteen years ago)

11) My Mother proposed to Rex Harrison in an elevator at The Connaught Hotel in London sometime in the 60's.

12) Said Mom was given a cat as a present when she lived alone as a young woman. Within days the cat got very ill with some sort of chest infection. She rushed the kitten to a vet who very quickly guessed that she'd never had cat before. When she asked why, he explained that the cat was not sick. It was purring.

― ENBB, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:44 (eighteen years ago)

whoah

― river wolf, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:44 (eighteen years ago)

At first, she thought she'd been sent a striper.

Mistake, or not?

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:45 (eighteen years ago)

lol - whoops!

― ENBB, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:46 (eighteen years ago)

Haha, I think that says way more about how drunk the cop was.

― Jordan, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:46 (eighteen years ago)

That lasbian one is just totally funny

― james, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:47 (eighteen years ago)

Good point. He probably could have gotten into some serious trouble for that!

x-post

― ENBB, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:47 (eighteen years ago)

My mom thinks gay dudes are born gay but lesbians are just too unattractive to get a man.

(that's not very adorable, actually)

― Jordan, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:48 (eighteen years ago)

13. My mother once mixed up an entire batch of brownies from scratch and then called me over to the mixer and said, "would you look/smell/taste and tell me if I missed something? They don't feel right but I just can't tell...". I peeked into the bowl to see that she had never added ANY FORM OF CHOCOLATE and the batter was roughly the color of tapioca pudding.

NB: She is otherwise totally functional, has all her senses, is not blind, etc etc.

― Laurel, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:51 (eighteen years ago)

Ha, the telephoto-lens thing bugged me as a kid, obviously -- I was concerned about whatever sneaky stuff 12-year-olds do in the house when no one's home -- but at this age, c'mon, if I had kids and could peek into my own house from the office, I totally would. Plus I appreciate that he just did a funny gag about it and then brought the lens home, instead of actually keeping it up there and spying.

― nabisco, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:52 (eighteen years ago)

For several years in a row, my dad would give my mom a giant trailerload of horse manure on their wedding anniversary as fertilizer for her gardens.

― dan m, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:55 (eighteen years ago)

14. Conversation between me and my mom five days before I left for college:

MOM: Have you ever done cocaine?

ME: [mortified silence] ...uh...

MOM [looking at me with a vaguely wistful expression]:You know, if coke had been as cheap in the 70s as it is now, you probably never would have been born.

― max, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:57 (eighteen years ago)

ha! I love your mom, Max.

― horseshoe, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:58 (eighteen years ago)

stop distracting me, this thread!

― horseshoe, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:58 (eighteen years ago)

omg max

― ghost rider, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:58 (eighteen years ago)

xxxpost

!!!!

― Ms Misery, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:58 (eighteen years ago)

Mom only went out with pops because he was holding?

― milo z, Monday, 9 April 2007 19:59 (eighteen years ago)

lol max - parents are always hilarious in that they apparently think we did/do WAY more drugs than we actually do. My mom once told me she did LSD "a couple of times" as if it was no big thing. My reaction: "MOM I've never even SEEN LSD."

― jessie monster, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:00 (eighteen years ago)

also, the schef to thread!!!

― horseshoe, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:00 (eighteen years ago)

My mom told me she didn't like w33d because it turned her into "a cunt".

― dan m, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:01 (eighteen years ago)

once my mom e-mailed me an e-mail that said in it only these words:

"why are there crows? :)"

never did get an explanation.

― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Monday, 9 April 2007 20:04 (eighteen years ago)

― ENBB, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:05 (eighteen years ago)

my mom sent me an email last month about taking some 7-year-old percocet she found, is that adorable y/n

― ghost rider, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:05 (eighteen years ago)

my mom once IMed me pretending to be my dog.

― jessie monster, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:06 (eighteen years ago)

omg ENBB DID learn it by watching his dad!

― David R., Monday, 9 April 2007 20:07 (eighteen years ago)

my mom, slightly drunk on new year's, discussing with neighbors the unfortunate string of teen pregnancies at my high school, unaware i was in the other room:

"i mean, can't they just give them blowjobs or something?"

― river wolf, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:07 (eighteen years ago)

a valid question, btw

― river wolf, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:07 (eighteen years ago)

David R. - he has no idea that I ever found that bowl!

― ENBB, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:08 (eighteen years ago)

Dad edition:

15. My dad used to tell any number of Cosby-style stories about his childhood in rural Ethiopia, many of which contained some heroic feat involving animals. The truest-sounding ones were about helping his father in his ongoing battle against the local hyenas that had killed their dog. (This mostly involved setting traps and going to bed chuckling.) The one about riding the horse across the flooded canyon, or the one about the warthog, I'm not so sure.

16. When I was really young, I was really impressed with the way he drew trees. They looked like this:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y257/nitsuh/tree.jpg

17. Sometimes, at the dinner table, we would make fun of how, when he chewed, the muscles at his temples really throbbed in and out, visibly, and funnily. What's totally unfunny is that this now happens to me, and with something chewy enough it gets to the point of hurting, and it's probably related to my having a super-tense jaw and grinding my teeth at night.

18. One time, when I was maybe 8, he took my brother and me to the movies and said we could have one candy item. We chose Skittles. Toward the end of the previews, he tried one, and then took them away from us. "This tastes like poison," he said.

(xpost Jessie I've done that quite recently, except I made a whole gmail account for the dog and had him doing stuff like sending Evites and lame forwards and bidding on dog toys on eBay and stuff) (cuz he's a dog, he has bad netiquette)

― nabisco, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:09 (eighteen years ago)

18. One time, when I was maybe 8, he took my brother and me to the movies and said we could have one candy item. We chose Skittles. Toward the end of the previews, he tried one, and then took them away from us. "This tastes like poison," he said.

HAHAHAHAHAAAAOMG

― Mr. Que, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:10 (eighteen years ago)

This is out of an e-mail from my aunt, not my mom, but still: no matter what one may be the lonliest number, we are taught that two people in love become one... and if love is blind, how can their be love at first sight? go figure....

― Jordan, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:10 (eighteen years ago)

19. My mom decided she didn't like her strong regional accent in college and consciously picked up the phonetics of her classmates from northern Maine, so she has a mild Canadian accent despite never having lived there.

20. My dad grew up in farmland, and he said when he was younger he and his friends smoked corn silk and pretended it was cigarettes. I asked if he'd ever gone cow tipping, and he said of course not, that's terribly cruel, but he'd persuaded his friends to touch electric fences.

21. At the drunkest I've ever seen my dad, he went out to play tennis with some Russian guests and came back from the courts at 4 AM.

― Maria, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:12 (eighteen years ago)

The first time I ever smoked up it was with a bowl I found in my Dad's dresser. When I was applying for my first job, he told me to watch myself and stay away from the "Maui Wowie" (imagine being said with heavy German accent)for a while in case they did a drug test.

Relatedly (a memory about my parents that doesn't directly feature them), the first time I ever smelled p0t the first thing I thought was, "Hey this smells like my dad's office!" It took me another ten minutes or so to make the connection.

― max, Monday, 9 April 2007 20:14 (eighteen years ago)

Skipping 304 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

― Pleasant Plains, Saturday, 14 April 2007 00:07 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/about

― estela, Saturday, 14 April 2007 00:10 (eighteen years ago)

please record call

― JW, Saturday, 14 April 2007 00:18 (eighteen years ago)

BTW the parts of Sideswipe that aren't stolen from ILX threads are usually stolen from Column 8 in the Sydney Morning Herald.

― webber, Saturday, 14 April 2007 01:34 (eighteen years ago)

she sounds awful.

― g®▲Ðұ, Saturday, 14 April 2007 02:03 (eighteen years ago)

Later, when VHS rentals came out, she would rent horror/slasher movies. However, not wanting to completely scar the children, she would first fast forward to the end... then play the entire movie on rewind. And do the commentary herself. Friday the 13th became "Jason, the incredible healer."

This is the most fucking awesome thing ever, and now I want to try it.

― Trayce, Saturday, 14 April 2007 02:17 (eighteen years ago)

plz someone intercut this frame:

http://www.listener.co.nz/assets/img/2007/i3492/featuresextra.jpg

into this animation:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v135/endlessxshadow/47dh6y1.gif

― sanskrit, Saturday, 14 April 2007 02:20 (eighteen years ago)

It really does appear that approximately four people work at the New Zealand Herald, all of whom saunter in and out of the office at random hours unknown to one another. No wonder they have to pinch content from the web.

― nabisco, Saturday, 14 April 2007 21:51 (eighteen years ago)

"hi, I wrote your column on Tuesday."

Uh no, you were the primary contributor along with a couple of dozen others. Quis custodiet ipse custodes?

― Mark C, Saturday, 14 April 2007 22:39 (eighteen years ago)

That would clearly not be as funny. Plus it's my title and topic! I'm happy to provide names and numbers for other folks to call and bother them too, though. Right now I'm kinda like those people who used to go on People's Court and sue for 25 cents "on principle."

― nabisco, Saturday, 14 April 2007 23:44 (eighteen years ago)

Also calling New Zealand is really fun!

― nabisco, Saturday, 14 April 2007 23:50 (eighteen years ago)

yo Mark C your purloined anecdote was not OTM

― sanskrit, Sunday, 15 April 2007 01:20 (eighteen years ago)

Following estela's original link, the "Adorable Parent Factoids" content seems to have disappeared from the website.

― C0L1N B..., Sunday, 15 April 2007 01:41 (eighteen years ago)

My mom uses the "Shitterooners" in public. "Shitty Shitty Bang Bang," too.

― Tape Store, Sunday, 15 April 2007 01:42 (eighteen years ago)

one year passes...

does fruit on the bottom yoghurt exist anymore?

― sunny successor, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 17:15 (seventeen years ago)

I want to know if Nabisco ever got a hold of the Kiwi blogger.

― jaymc, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 17:45 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah I see it got taken down or whatever, but, WHAT HAPPENED?

― RabiesAngentleman, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 18:09 (seventeen years ago)

SS, oh yes, most definitely. Actually just saw an ad on telly for said VILE concoction. Well, I find it vile cause it was a yoghurt with fruit and OBV aspartame (cause it was Vitalinea). Not that big of an aspertame hatah but I am when it comes to Vitalinea. :-)

― stevienixed, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 20:23 (seventeen years ago)

what is Vitalinea??

― sunny successor, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 20:29 (seventeen years ago)

A Danone product stuffed with artificial sweeteners so you don't get fat. Usually crap imho.

― stevienixed, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 20:30 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.vitalinea.be/v/view/nl/

i puke at their *image*

― stevienixed, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 20:31 (seventeen years ago)

omg that site is blocked by my work:

Your request for http://www.vitalinea.be/v/view/nl was denied because of its content categorization: "Games"

YOGHURT IS NOT A GAME

― sunny successor, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 20:35 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.vitalinea.be/v/download/nl/396478/image_detail/scaletomax-174-145/foto1.zip-hd-duo-abricot.jpg.jpg

This is some of their THERE IS FRUIT underneath the yoghurt.

― stevienixed, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 20:36 (seventeen years ago)

I had a dream once that I got rich marketing the fruit at the bottom of the yoghurt without the yoghurt. I was reminded of this recently when I saw an ad for muffin tops.

― Maria :D, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 20:37 (seventeen years ago)

I cant see that nath :(

hey this reminds me of that yoghurt that used to come in a tray where one triangle compartment was filled with vanilla yoghurt, one was filled with fruit (fake) and one with some kind of nut/granola/museli concoction. this tray was constructed such that you could bend it and the fruit compartment would land directly over the yoghurt compartment emptying the fruit into the yoghurt. thank you gravity! i used to eat those separately too though

― sunny successor, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 20:44 (seventeen years ago)

Hilarious thing about yogurt ads.

― Abbott, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 20:52 (seventeen years ago)

YOGHURT IS NOT A GAME

o for changeable screen names :-(

― CharlieNo4, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 23:21 (seventeen years ago)

sunny successor, that is a muller corner, and they still make them and some of them are quite nice (not the banana custardy one you tip coco-pops into though, that's just vile).

― ailsa, Thursday, 12 June 2008 08:40 (seventeen years ago)

Wow, just read all this thread.

You remember how ILX threads used to have a 'category' dropdown? (never used it myself)..

It'd be great if you could do that with threads and mark "Buried Treasure" on these sort of things...

― Mark G, Thursday, 12 June 2008 10:59 (seventeen years ago)

...so what HAPPENED?

― RabiesAngentleman, Thursday, 12 June 2008 12:11 (seventeen years ago)

This is worse than waiting on Lost.

― RabiesAngentleman, Thursday, 12 June 2008 12:12 (seventeen years ago)

that column is still going and whenever i see it i think of this thread and wonder what happened in the end.

― estela, Thursday, 12 June 2008 12:26 (seventeen years ago)

11) My Mother proposed to Rex Harrison in an elevator at The Connaught Hotel in London sometime in the 60's

ENBB, you realize he had more spouses than Elizabeth Taylor and both Gabors combined, ja? Enough for any random cute girl of the time and place to think she might be in with a chance re: love in an elevator.

― suzy, Thursday, 12 June 2008 12:30 (seventeen years ago)

Didn't he divorce one wife to marry another who was terminally ill with the intention of remarrying the original one when the second one had passed on?

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 12 June 2008 12:46 (seventeen years ago)

That is an impressively terrible idea.

― RabiesAngentleman, Thursday, 12 June 2008 12:58 (seventeen years ago)

yeah, he nearly missed one!

― Mark G, Thursday, 12 June 2008 13:57 (seventeen years ago)

James: yes. Apparently Kay Kendall (the ill one) went to her grave unaware she was anything other than 'anaemic'* but RH did not go back to Lilli Palmer because she married her toyboy in the meantime.

*this was not unusual in the '50s when you did not say 'cancer' in polite company.

― suzy, Thursday, 12 June 2008 15:21 (seventeen years ago)

Thanks for the info, suzy. In further grim Rex Harrison news, I guess his co-star and his paramour during the shooting of Unfaithfully Yours- two different people- both came to bad ends.

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 12 June 2008 15:29 (seventeen years ago)

Scousers, eh? Eh?

― suzy, Thursday, 12 June 2008 15:30 (seventeen years ago)

Huh?

I only know Kay Kendall from Genevieve, but that's all I need to know.

(I am getting paranoid writing on this thread, like nabisco's dad is watching me with his spyglass)

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 12 June 2008 15:35 (seventeen years ago)

Yoghurt is not a game, but "Yoghurt is not a game" IS a game.

― jaymc, Thursday, 12 June 2008 19:13 (seventeen years ago)

Yoghurt *could* be a game...

― Mark G, Thursday, 12 June 2008 21:25 (seventeen years ago)

two years pass...

I just met Nabisco's dad tonight, which gives me a new appreciation for some of these anecdotes.

― jaymc, Monday, 9 August 2010 02:51 (fourteen years ago)

YOGHURT IS NOT A GAME

― Gumbercules (Trayce), Monday, 9 August 2010 05:00 (fourteen years ago)

i was telling my dad how much i was enjoying Close to the Edge to which is scoffed that they had sold out after The Yes Album

my father, the hipster

― Dad Can Dance (LOLK), Monday, 9 August 2010 16:03 (fourteen years ago)

to which he**

― Dad Can Dance (LOLK), Monday, 9 August 2010 16:03 (fourteen years ago)

Ha, J, the real magic will happen if I can find pictures of him dancing for the "Let ZS animate your photos" thread

― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Monday, 9 August 2010 20:48 (fourteen years ago)

Where mum worked, there was a manager who she felt was unfriendly to her - never returned her "good morning" with anything other than a scowl. Chatting with coworkers, his name came up, and she called him a "miserable old bugger." Somehow, he found out and confronted her, with the first words he'd ever spoken to her: "I understand that you think I'm a mean old bastard." She replied "No, that's not right, I called you a miserable old bugger!" He laughed out loud, then asked why she felt that way. He accepted her explanation and always greeted her with a smile and a "good morning" from that day on.

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Tuesday, 10 August 2010 09:55 (fourteen years ago)

Prompted by my dad having no clue what "surf music" is, I asked him why he never really appreciated rock music, of any era. (He was in his early 20s when Elvis broke big.)

"I guess I could see where Elvis was talented, but I thought Perry Como was a better singer."

― All 10 songs permeate the organs (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 11 August 2010 21:49 (fourteen years ago)

two years pass...

my mom was once engaged to someone who eventually became one of the doctors on "teen mom"

― los blue jeans, Tuesday, 9 April 2013 06:10 (twelve years ago)

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