Let's face it: Raising kids is hard. But raising them to be responsible, well-adjusted adults with healthy relationships is even harder...and some people are better at providing a good example than others. Here, Redditors share their most dramatic, outrageous, and occasionally tragic stories about the biggest parenting fails we've ever seen.
1. Much Too Much Information
My boyfriend's mom once asked us if we were "dipping winkies" and said if he ever needed condoms, for us to tell her we're "hungry for Hardee's" and she'd know what we meant and wouldn't have to explain further. She said that she would either give us money for condoms or go out and buy us some. That's not even the creepiest part. Did I mention I was 14 at the time?
I found out years later that she became pregnant and had an abortion at 13. She didn't want us to have to make that decision, so she really was just trying to be helpful. Still, it was a little much the very first time meeting her.
2. They Never Really Got To Meet
I dated a girl for just a bit, with no plans at all to meet her parents at this point. We had just finished getting intimate for the first time when she got a call from her mom. Apparently, they had a little too much to drink and needed a sober ride home. She asked if I minded, and I didn't, so we headed to the bar to get them. They were kind enough to be outside waiting for us when we got there.
They were both leaning back on a railing above some concrete steps leading to an outside basement entrance. She waves at them and they wave back. Her dad lost his balance and went backward over the railing. Her mom looked over and just started wailing. I made my girlfriend stay in the car and call for help while I went to see what happened. It was more chilling than I could have ever imagined.
He landed just right on the corner of one of the stairs and split his skull wide open. He had passed before I ever said a word to him. That relationship didn't last very long.
3. A Little Too Close
My first real relationship at the beginning of college was with a girl who had a strange dad. The first time I went over to her and her family's house, her dad walked in her room and started massaging her feet while she was laying on the bed and he was all like, "I love you, sweetie." Then, he introduces himself to me after like two minutes of foot rubbing.
I was like, "Um, what the heck was that?!" when he left. She said that he's just an affectionate dad. But that wasn't all. She then told me how they hold hands while watching movies. A massive yikes.
4. Kept Himself Out Of Trouble
My girlfriend only had her mother since her father passed when she was young. I go to her house to wait for her to get home and happen to meet her mom there, and she has a bottle of Dewars on the table. Her mom was pleasant and not yet not intoxicated at the time, and she offered me a drink. I normally don't drink the hard stuff, but I decided to be polite and take it.
Her mother gets a phone call and apparently, my new girlfriend is going to be about two hours late. The mother then sits down next to me on the couch and strikes up a conversation with me. Then the unthinkable happens. Her mom, not very attractive by the way, puts her hand on my upper thigh. She says we have two hours if I'm interested and smiles.
Now at the time, I was only 18, but I had enough common sense to get the heck out of there really quickly. I met up with my girlfriend later that night and didn't even bring up what happened. I thought, “What good could it do, right?” Two days later, my girlfriend shows up at my house and is wide-eyed, and her breath is labored.
She tells me that one of her best friends just told her that he slept with her mom. I asked when it happened, and she said two nights ago. I made the right choice!
5. Another Family
So, I'm the eldest. My mom had me when she was only 18, and my dad was 16. He left shortly after, and after that, I ended up with a terrible stepdad for about 10 years. My next stepdad just didn't like me at all. Mom would constantly make fun of me for being fat, even at the times I wasn’t, and often used me as her emotional dumping ground because she has unresolved issues.
She had two other daughters during this time. When my second stepdad came along, they tried to make a better home situation, and I couldn't help but be jealous of how much better my sisters were treated. At lunch one day, my mom broke down crying and made a horrifying confession...She said that she saw my sisters as a second chance for how much she screwed up with me.
At the time, I was happy to hear it because I want my sisters to have a much better life. But I'm still in the same place mentally. She didn't really try to fix anything between us. When I told her about my first stepdad, she said she didn't want to report him because of something to do with her taxes.
6. Saw Story Stays Secret
One time, my older brother and I were helping my dear old dad cut down some trees in the backyard, and the chainsaw kind of stuck. My dad yanked it out a little too hard and to our horror, the chainsaw hit my brother's leg. We all froze and looked at his jeans, which had 4 or so perfectly spaced holes—but there was no blood.
He had managed to hit my brother's pants but didn't get in far enough to hit flesh. The next words out of his mouth were pretty obvious: "Don't tell your mother!" And we still haven't over 20 years later.
7. My Father And I
My father has extreme PTSD from being in Vietnam, with a history of being hurt physically and mentally, and I’m sure, several undiagnosed health issues on top of a CVS receipt worth of physical issues. He was heavily medicated for all of the above but there was no medication management going on, so he was a mess. In retrospect, I understand and feel terrible that he went through that.
Most of my childhood was hard with him after a certain point. He had been prescribed OxyContin for pain in his knees which he had just broken at work. This might have been the tipping point. He told me, “You’re probably not my son. I didn’t want you, you look nothing like me, and your mother would screw anything on two wheels.”
I wanted to take a paternity test, but he was terribly nasty about the whole thing. My mother explained that he had several serious conditions that were hereditary and that this was his twisted way of finding peace of mind. He didn't want my future to be defined by illness. But guess what? Turns out he is my dad and I have a future of disease to look forward to. But heck, this isn't even the worst of it.
Another time, he had a completely unprovoked meltdown while sitting in his truck with me in our driveway. He said, “I hate my life, I’m going to lock myself in my bedroom, and shoot myself in the head.” I stole his .45 and threw it into a quarry. In response, he said, “I hope someday you have a child that you hate as much as I hate you.” Does his tragic parenting end there? Nope. Not at all.
Upon finding out that he had an extremely rare blood condition, he said “I’m going to die soon, you need to learn to be a man and not deal with it the way you deal with everything else, like a fool.” I didn’t talk to him for years after this. When I was 16, I finally confronted him, and the unexpected happened...You could 100% see in his face that he was almost in disbelief.
He sat there sobbing. Mind you, this is my Vietnam vet dad, he’d fight with another karate dad in front of a crowd for making a snotty comment about me, flip the principal’s desk for suspending me over defending myself from bullies. He’s a scary man. And there he was—sobbing and begging for my forgiveness. After that, he went to a doctor, and they managed his medicine.
He was still a weirdo, but he never said anything harmful to me again.
8. Spoiled Safari
I am a Bengali, and like all good Bengalis, we went to see tigers in north Bengal. Spoiler alert: there were no tigers. After one pretty disappointing day of missing two elephant herds and seeing no wild cats, much less a tiger, we stopped at a dried-up river bed. We were really tired, the sun was setting, the peacocks were screaming, the usual. Suddenly, we hear a growl.
The monkeys are going nuts, which is the tell-tale sign of a tiger nearby. The guide tells us to rush to our jeeps. We oblige, but just before boarding, I see my dad smirking, HARD. After an hour of waiting, we see no tigers and head home. The next morning, while everyone is freaking out over the growl, dad pulls me aside to tell me something.
He says that the growl was actually a burp. His burp. So I can proudly say that once my dad burped so hard the jungle thought it was a tiger.
9. Case Of Mistaken Identity
When I began dating my girlfriend, I ended up meeting her mother fairly quickly and we got along well. However, it wasn't until nearly three years later that I ended up meeting her father, as he was overseas working. Now, a bit of background on her father...he was a very no-nonsense, straightforward, Buddhist, Asian, Engineer who trained zealously in martial arts.
He had raised my girlfriend more akin to a son than a daughter, so his expectations of any male his daughters chose as a boyfriend were rather high. This was more so with the daughter I chose to date because she was both his firstborn and the one he invested the most effort into. Maybe a month before her mother's birthday, my girlfriend tells me that her dad will be coming down to stay for a few months so I would finally be properly introduced.
Needless to say, I'm a tad nervous as her father has been built up in my mind to be an amalgamation of Bruce Lee, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Bill Gates, and Hercules. It also doesn't help that I was the last thing an Asian parent would want their daughter to bring home: An Arts major with shaggy hair who dressed like a Bohemian and spent a great deal of the time distracting said daughter who was a very talented Molecular Biology student with videogames, city exploration, naps, laziness, pleasures, shenanigans, and fripperies.
The day finally arrived and, as had become a tradition at her household, I brought a cake to celebrate. Lo and behold, who else opens the door but my girlfriend's father. To be fair, he wasn't nearly as big or as muscled as I imagined. He was in his late 50s, but his build denoted that he had seen quite a few fights in his day. He had cauliflower ears, thick/muscled torso, toned arms, etc. and, like his offspring, he wore that signature scowl on his face. (Thankfully, I have the unique ability to remove that scowl from my girlfriend's face.)
Her father gave me the once over, took the cake from my hands, gave me a $20, and shut the door. I'm stunned for a good 15 seconds but I knock again to try and figure out what's up. Her father again appears, scowl unmoved, and glares at me before shouting back into the apartment, "Honey, grab me my wallet, the delivery boy wants a tip!"
Without going over the laughter and horror that my girlfriend and her mother had when seeing who the delivery boy was, that was my first encounter with my girlfriend's father.
10. Freezer Full Of Squirrels
One time, when my dad was in college, he almost caused a biohazard shutdown across campus. In central Arkansas, he was able to hunt a ton of squirrels. He did so, and put the frozen bodies in his dorm freezer: so that he could have a large cooking party once he was done. A few days after the freezer got full, he went home as part of Thanksgiving vacation.
Little did my father know, the school shuts power off in the dorms when the students leave. So, what happens to 20 squirrel carcasses after they defrost and stew in their own decaying muck? When he got back, he noticed a smell outside of his dorm. It was so foul he could taste it. In a moment of instant clarity, he knew what was going on.
Very few people were there yet, and he was one of the first to return. As he climbed up the steps to his third-story room, the smell got so bad he had to stop and puke twice. Once on his floor, he ran to get to his room so that he couldn't stop and think about what he was doing. His actual room had a literal gas cloud of rot.
Working on instinct more than thought, my dad ran in and grabbed the squirrel carcass/mush bag from his freezer. He opened his third-story window and chucked it out—onto the sidewalk. My dad could see the bag tumble down through the air and split immediately on impact. There was a crowd of people, including the local firefighters, to see what was causing the mess.
Luckily his bag went wide by about twenty feet, but as soon as it burst people ran. At the dean's office, my father was asked, “College ain't the right fit for you, is it son?” Dad agreed, and left that college without any kind of backlash. Then he finished his degree elsewhere.
11. The Boys Aren't Back In Town
When I was around eight years old, my mom took me shopping. We were walking towards the mall behind a group of young guys in their late teens and early 20s. They were laughing and joking, seemingly having the time of their life. It looked like a lot of fun. I pointed at them and told my mom that it reminded me of the song my dad used to play, “The Boys are Back in Town,” an old Thin Lizzy song.
My mom looked straight ahead and bluntly answered, "You will never experience that." It wasn't exactly the kind of answer I had hoped to get. All I could get out of my mouth was "...What?..." "You won't," was her final say on the matter. Way to ruin a Friday evening Mom.
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12. Helicopter Mom
My mom was very, very paranoid about what I did on the computer. Now, I was a very shy, quiet girl and never really did all that much to get in serious trouble. I was never interested in weird stuff, didn't look up anything like that online, and never bothered to clear the search history because of it. Yet she was a raging paranoid about anything I was doing on there.
I used the computer to message my friends, buy iTunes, and play Roller Coaster Tycoon. That's it. I was very open about this fact. But she would go through my history, stand behind me and blatantly eavesdrop on my messages about innocent topics like school or video games, constantly ask what I was doing, and she would freak the heck out if I ever shut the door due to noise bothering me.
She had an unfounded paranoia that I was in there looking at restricted websites, despite the fact that I never, not once, even attempted it. She also was insane about anything remotely sexual and was super dedicated to catching me doing something so she could yell at me about it. Yes, I did it, but never when anyone was home. I wasn't stupid. Still, her helicopter parenting didn't end there.
If I was ever in the shower too long, she'd shriek at me. Not only that, but she would burst into my room whenever I had the door shut like she wanted to catch me. One time, she started screaming at me over how "disgusting" and "inappropriate" I was because she was under the impression that she'd caught me. She did not. I was laying on my bed playing with my dog. I'm still confused about this incident to this day.
This not only made me super paranoid about deleting my texts and search history to the point where I still do it despite living alone and not sharing devices with anyone, but it also gave me a really weird complex about my body that was extremely unhealthy. I wasn't able to be comfortable enough to have intercourse until I was almost 21, and already two years into a four-year relationship.
I thought it was dirty and wrong and that I deserved to be punished for it. Catholicism didn't help with that one. So yeah. Don't be a freak about your teenagers' urges. No one wants to think about it, but learn to cope with the idea.
13. Sugar Daddy
One time, my dad was sitting on the couch in our living room. Mom brought out a bag of sugar and asked him to open it. He opened it like it was a bag of Doritos, and I mean, SUGAR. WAS. EVERYWHERE. He was only wearing his shorts, so there was sugar in just about every square inch of his visible hair as well as all over our couch and carpet. It took him four showers in a row to get it all off.
14. What’s In A Name?
I was the youngest and only child in my family to attend college. While in college, I was kicked out at the age of 20. My dad got furious over his burned dinner, and then later, instead of knocking on my door to open my window, he barged in and opened it himself. I protested and he overreacted and said, "his house his rules."
I told him that you don't just do stuff like that because I could have been naked or any number of things. It had nothing to do with the rules of the house; it was more about walking in on something awkward. He didn't take it well and kicked me out for talking back. Didn't talk to them for seven years after that. Eventually, though, they came back into my life.
My oldest brother only had girls, and I ended up having three boys. For each one of them, I was asked by both if I'd name one of them after my dad. I would inform them no and they would get increasingly agitated. Eventually, I just decided to be truthful and hit them back with a brutal response: "If you wanted me to name any children after you, you should have actually raised me better."
I haven't talked to them for three months now and it doesn't look like I will be for the foreseeable future after another incident. They used my credit card for $7,000 after kicking me out. I've spent my entire life fending off their manipulative antics. The nail in the coffin? My mother told me she had a life-altering disease that she did not actually have.
15. Family Flees Fuzz
I was with my family and we were driving down the highway. It was my sister’s birthday and her cake was in the backseat with us. Suddenly we hear a siren and there’s a squad car behind us with its light flashing. Instead of pulling over, for some reason, my dad starts speeding up. My sister's birthday cake was tumbling around in the backseat.
My mom and dad were arguing, so it somehow led to a high-speed chase. At the time that area was just bushes and cacti, so we went through there and eventually got away. I remember looking back, and just seeing a cloud of dirt—and behind that, a bunch of cop lights flashing. I then looked down and saw the cake all messed up, and still inside the transparent thing they come in.
This makes my dad sound crazy—and maybe he is a bit crazy—but he never treated us bad or anything, I don't even remember him raising his voice at us even once. But yeah, it's a cool memory.
16. The Facts Of Life
One time, when I was about 10, my dad called me into his room. He and my mom were there, completely naked, standing around and laying their clothes down ready to get dressed. They acted like the situation was completely normal and asked me about some random thing. I eventually blocked this memory out and thought it to be a dream. 10 years later, they told me that was their way of showing me what a body looked like because I was getting close to "that age."
17. An Eye For An Eye
When I was 12, my brother, who is six years younger than me, and I were playing knights in the garden and throwing spears at a blanket with a cross on it. This was a recipe for disaster. At one moment, I threw my spear, not knowing he stood behind the blanket. The spear went straight into his eye socket. He survived—but the rest of the day was a blur.
I remember blood everywhere, my parents yelling at me, then standing at the corner, waiting for the ambulance to come while crying for what seemed a million years. Everyone was ignoring me. Then, we went to the hospital, and it only got worse. The guilt was the worst. So much guilt. I was only 12, and the nurses were giving me the evil eye. However, the hardest part was still to come.
My brother went blind in one eye, but otherwise, was perfectly fine. After about a year he had to go to a doc for a prosthetic eye. My mum said that I had to come with them. I remember VERY vividly sitting in the waiting room, hearing him cry, "It hurts it hurts.” It seemed like an eternity—but when my mother emerged, she looked at me dead-eyed and said, "Now you know what you've done."
18. Who Should You Thank?
After doing extra work to get my grades up in Math and Algebra, for the first time in many years, I wasn’t afraid to go to the parent-teacher conference for once in my life. And when my principal and math teacher told my parents that she was proud of my improvement in math, my mother said, “Thank you for his grades,” to which my principal said “No, that’s all your son’s work. I did nothing different.”
My mother just stood there, shook her head in disbelief, and didn’t bother to congratulate me on my achievements. For some reason, she simply couldn’t fathom her child doing well. If anything positive ever happened to me, she kept thanking God as if I didn’t do anything to achieve it.
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19. It Always Lingers
I was sitting at dinner with my girlfriend and her parents, who I had just met 10 minutes earlier. We were having a casual conversation, when the worst moment of my life happened. I sneeze-farted. I tried to play it cool, but we all knew what happened. The worst part was that about 30 seconds after it happened, after everyone had moved on, the smell crept in.
20. It Was A Rocky Start
The first time I met my fiance's mother, we had to walk past her to go to his bedroom. My now-fiance said, "Hi mom, this is my girlfriend." I said hi, she said hi, and that was it. We were more formally introduced in the morning. However, the next time we saw each other, I came stumbling intoxicated into the house and told her how much I loved Buffy while she was watching it, and had a 5-minute conversation with their dog about how soft he was.
Two and a half years later, she's going to be my mother-in-law. Also, when her son and I were having a pretty serious argument a while ago, she said to him, "If you break up with her, I'm trading you for her."
21. That’s Not How To Treat A Lady
When I was 17, my crush arrived to pick me up to go hang out. He didn't come to the front door—he just honked from the driveway. So my Dad got all pissy, saying, “That's not how you treat a lady, honking is unacceptable.” He was so mad he didn't let me go out! He brought up that scenario repeatedly for years as a baseline for how my dates should treat me.
A few years after this event, I ended up marrying the guy who just honked. Sadly, my husband passed a few years into our relationship. A few years later, I was joking with my dad about how my husband had just honked on our first date. My dad looks at me and says: "Wait. That was the same guy??!" Yes Dad, that was the same guy!
He'd never realized that I'd married the honking guy! I didn't know that he didn't know! My kids love that story, it's pretty hilarious!
22. Ripped To Shreds
My mother has anger issues. She and my dad divorced when I was young, and I split time between houses. Mom just hated Dad, and the woman can carry a grudge. She hated the fact that I also loved him and enjoyed spending time with him. She would constantly try to get me to say that I loved her more, didn’t love him, etc.
That’s toxic enough, but there’s one event that really stands out: I was seven or eight and had said something to set her off, probably about weekend plans Dad and I had. She got upset, yelled at me, got more upset when I didn’t repent, and so on. Then, looking straight at me, she grabbed a cardboard egg carton from the recycling pile and methodically ripped it apart.
As she stood there, ripping the egg carton to shreds, she furiously said, “I wish I was allowed to do this to you.”
23. She Saw Too Much
I was invited to a boyfriend's house for dinner to meet his parents. When I got there, his father wasn't yet home from work so we decided to go for a walk. My boyfriend's mother told us to be back to the house by 5:00, so we were playfully racing each other back so as to make it in time. I got to the door a few paces ahead of him, opened the door, and witnessed a sight that will be burned into my memory forever.
I found myself face-to-face with his dad, who was standing stark naked in front of the door. I turned around and hid around the corner. His father kind of yelped and ran down the hall, and we were both mortified. It turns out he came home and was getting ready to shower when the phone rang, so he answered it naked since he hadn't expected us back yet.
24. Nothing But Fake Friends
The first time I met my future in-laws, I wasn't with my fiancée at the time. We were freshmen in college and one of her friends from high school was one of my roommates. Well, one day, he and I were hanging out at our place. I'm baked as heck and I think he was probably a bit intoxicated. Anyway, all of sudden, she knocks on our door and very sheepishly tells us her parents are here visiting and want to meet her new college friends.
She tells us she really hasn't made any friends but doesn't want to look pathetic in front of her parents, so she asked if we will help cover for her. She had told them most of her friends were at class but that she knew we would be around. So, my buddy and I went to her dorm and there were her parents...both of whom were nice enough, but I guess I looked even more baked than I felt.
Her parents kept asking if I had been studying all night or something because I looked so "tired," so I just went with it. Fast forward three months, we started dating and she was talking to her parents on the phone. She tells them about me and for the first few years we dated I was "sleepy Steve." I'm not sure if they have ever put together that I was really baked the first time we met.
25. Purse Snatched
My parents have been divorced since I was two. Even though I still saw my mom on weekends, I grew up as "a daddy's girl." My dad was always the one to really take care of me, spoil me, etc. Anyway, when I was younger, I had always wanted to go to Disney World but it was always too expensive. Finally, at 13, my dad decided, since my grandpa moved to Florida, we could go visit him and go to Disney World.
My dad has always been a little "Danny Tanner-ish" and wore a fanny pack—I was more than a little embarrassed. One of the days when we were in Florida, we decided to just go to the ocean with my great aunt. My aunt and I started feeding the seagulls and my dad was just chilling in one of those low to the ground beach chairs with his fanny pack lying next to it.
All of the sudden, the tide comes up and sweeps up my dad's fanny pack. My aunt and I are still feeding seagulls, and then out of nowhere on a packed beach—my dad starts yelling: ”My purse. My purse!!!” He then starts running and falling into the ocean. My aunt and I just started dying laughing. My dad did retrieve "his purse'" and he told us not to say anything to grandpa.
As soon as I got back to grandpa's house I said: “OMG grandpa! Guess what dad just did!”
26. Fruit Out Of The Blue
So we were having a family dinner over the summer and my sister had been at a BBQ the day before and the host gave her a big bowl of fruit salad to take home. So, we're sitting there having dinner and my dad is staring at the fruit salad with this weird look on his face. Then he says the stupidest thing. While holding up a blueberry, he goes, "What are these little blue things?"
We were like, "How the heck do you not know what a blueberry is?" Then we realized my mom hates blueberries so much that dude hasn't seen a blueberry in 45 years. Turns out he forgot they existed.
27. Putting On Makeup
My mother is very traditional, very much so the type of Southern woman who wakes up even on a Saturday to put on a full face of makeup and curl her hair. Since the time I hit puberty, so let’s say 12 or 13, I had her telling me that I needed to put makeup on every day. “You just look better with makeup on,” and “You’re too plain to go without makeup,” or my personal favorite of “Some girls are beautiful without makeup, you’re just not one of those girls.”
As a young and impressionable teen, it really wrecked my confidence to go and be seen by my family or, God forbid, in public without makeup on. To this day she still says that to me, but I’m happy to say that now, as a 21-year-old, I can go out in public and feel confident completely bare-faced. A mother should never tell their child that they aren’t beautiful without makeup on.
28. Dad To The Rescue
A long time ago I got pretty much peer pressured into going on a double date with a guy I hated. In fact, I’d already told him I hated him on many occasions. We both worked at the local fast food joint. I was fresh out of high school and naive and felt like I had to be nice. The guy had asked me out in a way that put me on the spot too.
It was on his day off in the middle of my shift, and he showed up dressed like he was going to a wedding. He brought me a bunch of flowers and asked me in the middle of a lunch rush. It was mortifying, and then it got worse. Everyone started chanting, “say yes, say yes.” I agreed and ran out on my shift crying, and feeling like I couldn't back out.
It was painfully obvious during—and after—the date that I was not interested. He kept calling me, texting me—even leaving me threatening and weird voicemails. He even drove by my house a few times. My parents, noticing my change in mood, asked me what was up, and I told them about the guy and played them the voicemails.
My dad then calmly asked me when we next had the same shift and I told him. My dad came to the restaurant after his factory shift. My dad is a big dude and looks scary, especially covered in grease and wearing a uniform. My dad burst into the restaurant, gave me a hug, and asked me where the guy was. Everyone is frozen in place, and slack-jawed.
Anyone that knew my dad knew him as a goofy, kind guy, so they were just in awe of this whirlwind that had burst in the door. I pointed to the kitchen and the dopey guy looked like he was going to wet his pants. My dad pointed right at him and said: “Leave my daughter alone or I will go back to prison.” He then told me he loved me, and that mom was cooking dinner.
He waved to some of my friends he knew and walked out the door like nothing ever happened. That guy went on break and never came back—and he never bothered me again.
29. How To Make Awkward More Awkward
It was the first time I had ever gone to a girlfriend's house to hang out and meet her parents. It was the summer before my eighth-grade year. Needless to say, hormones! So, I was an awkward, squeaky, barely teenage boy. Her parents were really excited to meet me because I was the first boy her daughter had ever introduced them to.
So, they planned a family cookout so I could meet all the family. I got there around 5 pm, and because it was in the country in Ohio, all the adults were already intoxicated. To avoid as many intoxicated family members as possible, my girlfriend and I decided to swim in her pool for most of the night. At around 9 pm, most of her family had left. Only her parents remained.
They were inside, still drinking, and my girlfriend and I decided we would have some "naughty time" in the pool, which in eighth grade meant me taking off my trunks and her taking off her bottoms. We hid them under the towels on the deck so it wouldn't be too obvious that I was naked. After about 10 minutes of fun skinny dipping, her parents decided to come out to check on us.
However, in their stupor, they decided instead to get in the pool with us. My trunks and my girlfriend's bottoms weren't easily accessible while remaining entirely in the pool, so I had to swim around naked while my girlfriend's parents were in the pool. I never knew how good of a swimmer I was until that day, because they never found out.
30. Crash Landing
My old man used to paraglide—amongst other adrenaline-fuelled things. One weekend my mom had taken me and my sister away to my gran's for the weekend. I think I was about 11. Dad goes paragliding alone from the hill near our house, but as he is coming into land, the canopy folds in on itself, and he plummets 30 meters to the ground.
He lands in a field. He messed up and knew it. He is in pain but gets himself up, walks the 20 minutes home—carrying the whole paraglider in a backpack—gets a lift from a neighbor to get his car from the top of the hill. He then drives himself the 30-minute drive to hospital. The doctors there assess him and send him home with painkillers.
He gets home and is in a lot of pain. He calls my mom, who is a senior nurse at that hospital. She tells him to lie very still and not move until she gets there. Two hours later we get home and she takes him back to the hospital and screams blue murder at the doctors for not x-raying him. Turns out he had two crushed vertebrae and could have been paralyzed.
He spent six months in a cast at home that we nicknamed his "turtle shell" and he never flew again. We could have sued the hospital but didn't.
31. Talk About Twinning
When I met my ex-girlfriend's father, I asked her what I should wear and she suggested a white t-shirt and a blue sweater. This was her suggestion. Cut to the introduction in the lounge and her dad is wearing the exact same thing. Of course, it got worse. We went to a local restaurant for a meal and a guy at the table next to us was wearing the exact same thing as well.
32. Meeting Due To Difficult Circumstances
I was dating this girl for about three months and got her pregnant. We decided it was best if we just got married. I was 27 and she was 20. I drove to my parents' house to tell them and at the same time she went to her parents' house to tell them. I offered to go with her, but she said, "You don't know my dad." This was true because while she had met my parents, I had never met her parents.
I was sitting at my parents' house, listening to them tell me how I was throwing my life away. Then, the phone rings. It was my girlfriend. She said I needed to go over to her parents' house because they wanted to meet me. I showed up at their house and was escorted to the living room, where I was asked to sit in a chair in the middle of the room. Thus began the most excruciating moment of my life.
Her family sat in a semi-circle around me and proceeded to grill me for two hours. "What were you thinking?" "You're seven years older than her, are you some kind of pervert?" "How do you plan on supporting our daughter and grandchild?" On and on and on. That was 20 years ago. I'm posting this from my in-laws' house sitting next to my 19-year-old daughter.
I'm still very much in love with my wife and her family still hates me and sees me as the dirty old man that took their daughter away from them.
33. Big Feet, Bigger Ego
I have an awkward story about dating the boss's daughter. I had just started working at a provincial park, so I got to meet my new boss and my future girlfriend's father at dinner at her house. So, we were having dinner at her parents' place and her dad asked me what size boots I wore. They provided them...the park, not her family.
He's shorter than average, maybe 5'4. I'm 6' tall but I have big feet, so when I said that I wear size 13, he gave one look at me that turned from "Wow those are big feet" to "Wow, this guy is probably hung like a horse" to "You're not going anywhere near my daughter." Of course, I still did.
34. He Hit The Showers…And The Toilet Too
Our family had a barbecue out by the lake, and the adults decided to start a game of volleyball. My dad, of course, decided to play and, as he always does, got way into the game. Somebody served the ball way past the boundaries and my dad, being the competitive man he is, still runs for the ball. He runs for it, then tries to jump for it sideways.
Somehow my dad flew into the men's room nearby, and fell right into the closed stall. He even left a huge dent in the door. So dad comes running out of there immediately—with the ball of course. Moments later some guy comes out of the men's room looking super confused. At this point, everyone is dying of laughter. That story comes up quite often when the family gets together.
35. Nature Too Well Preserved
One time my dad made me drive three hours from home to visit a nature preserve. He then began taking pictures of the birds there. Just one problem: all the birds were plastic. It turns out the flocks had stopped migrating back to the preserve, so they put up plastic birds for tourists. The funniest part was how long it took him to believe me when I told him they were plastic.
36. Father Flares Fire
The state of Michigan doesn't allow the good fireworks, but Indiana does. So, every June my dad would drive across the border and pick up a trunk full. One rather inebriated 4th of July, he reaches in the back, pulls out what appears to be an oversized confetti popper, and aims it at the tree before pulling the trigger. This was a mistake.
It was not a party popper. It was his emergency flare. It got stuck towards the top of the tree and turned the whole neighborhood orange. The authorities in my hometown wouldn't really turn out for reports of the good fireworks—unless someone lit a car on fire or something. But they will definitely turn out en masse for an emergency flare.
Dad went from boozed to drill sergeant in about two seconds. Somehow, we managed to shove the entire stock of the good fireworks into the garage, and used snow shovels to push the husks of the used ones into the parking lot across the street. When the three officers in squad cars and the Fire/Rescue truck showed up, us kids were playing with sparklers and Dad was standing with his hands on his hips, scowling at the tree.
“Why yes, officer, some punks were across the street, lighting off roman candles and huge fountains,” my dad said, “and they ran when one of their tricks got stuck in the tree. He went on to say that he was just about to call when they ran off. “Don't they know that roman candles are dangerous? They coulda hit one of the kids!”
37. Cannot Control The Comments
The first time my ex was at my house, he met my family's dog, who greeted him with copious amounts of slobber. Then, my grandfather walks in. I introduce them, they go to shake hands, and the ex tells my grandfather, "Sorry, I've got dog slobber on my hands." My grandfather doesn't miss a beat and tells him, "That's ok, I'm sure you've had worse."
38. Not The Perfect Meet-up
I met my wife online back in 1995 when I was 23 and she was a 19-year-old college student. She lived nine hours away and I had no car. So, when it was my turn to visit her, I got a cheap plane ticket. She came to pick me up at the airport around midnight but parked her car in the wrong place. We returned to her spot to find that the car had been towed away.
We took a cab to the impound lot and discovered that they would not release the car to us because her parents owned the car. My poor long-distance girlfriend had to call her parents around 1 am and ask them to drive us to the impound lot, which was an hour away from their house, to get her car out so the two of us could drive back to her apartment for illicit unmarried relations.
When her parents arrived, I introduced myself to her dad, shook his hand, and said, "I'm sorry we couldn't have met under better circumstances." He just grunted at me.
39. Asking The Hard Questions
My ex was Italian and we flew to Italy to meet her parents. We went straight from the airport to this huge family dinner with aunts, uncles, and cousins. My ex left for the bathroom and the father asked his wife to translate a question. The whole table was silent when she said, "My husband would like to know if you love my daughter?"
I laughed awkwardly and drank my drink, praying they were joking. No, they weren’t. The whole table was silent waiting for my response, so I mumbled "Err, yess..."
40. Found In A Compromising Position
I met an ex's parents for the first time while they were cleaning out their loft. The dad was in the attic handing stuff down the ladder to the mom, and I helped out to get brownie points even though I'd recently hurt my back. The mom was handing the stuff to me and I organized it into little piles. Anyway, the dad hands this toaster down, and I make the stupidest mistake of my life.
The mom drops it and is bending over fumbling with the wire picking it up, while I'm standing behind, facing her. I’m attempting to crack my spine by pushing my fists against my lower back and rhythmically swinging my hips back and forth. My ex’s brother comes out of his room and shakes his head at me as my ex-girlfriend comes up the stairs, and she also shakes her head at me.
It was only after I saw the look of utter fury from her dad in the loft that I realized what I was doing to his wife. I shook it off by jokingly trying to high-five the brother with my best Borat impression. Nobody was impressed. It was awkward from then on out. For four goddarn years.
41. A Bad End To A Grand Gesture
I met my wife freshman year of college. After finals, she went back to Connecticut and we spent the whole summer apart. Upon arriving back at school, my first stop was the grocery store to pick up some provisions, and, by chance, I saw her down the cereal aisle. So, I figure I'll make the grand gesture. I start running up to her and then I drop to my knees to slide into her like it's some musical.
But then, her mom steps in between us and I slide face-first into her butt. We are good friends now.
42. Fingers On Ice
My dad was a quality guy and very safe in all things in his professional life. However, when not working, he liked to drink hard—and I mean hard. It was the weekend, so he was pounding back some brewskis, while building something like a fence or deck or maybe an airplane. The dude was a handyman, mechanic extraordinaire.
So he was cutting wood in the garage for the coffin he was building. He had one of those spinning saws. I don't know what they are called. He realized when I was quite young that I was too lazy to ever make anything myself, so he didn't waste his breath telling me what the tools were called. He just kept his focus on the rocking chair he was building.
Anyways, by that time he's totally wrecked. He's cutting a two-by-four for the dog house roof and not completely paying attention. I was sitting on the porch actually playing my Gameboy, and I could hear the saw and him building his replica train station but he told me to stay out of the garage cause it could be dangerous. Good call.
So I'm sitting there and I don't hear screaming like you'd expect when a dude building a loft isn't looking and cuts off the tip of his finger. Instead, I just heard the whirring of the saw and then a weird noise which turns out was his bone being cut. The saw shuts off and what I hear is this very matter of fact, "Well that's just what I need on my day off—and I was nearly done building that dock."
Then he walks out of the garage and sees me, and he's holding the tip of his finger in the hand he just cut —between the thumb and pinky. And his middle finger is held up and he's holding his other hand over the top of it, and pressing down like he's calling a timeout. He looks me in the eyes and says, "Can you get the door for me, then grab me some ice to put my bloody fingertip in."
I ran and got him ice. Meanwhile, he grabbed his wallet and keys, and when he came and found me in the kitchen he's got his mangled hand pressed into his hip like he's striking some super model pose. He's just shaking his head, visibly annoyed. Then I held the bag of ice open, he dropped the fingertip in it; then asked me to seal the bag. I did and gave it to him, and he put it in his pocket.
Then he looks at me like he's working out the best next action and finally says, "Alright don't tell your mom about this, or she'll just freak out for nothing. I'm gonna go to the hospital and get this stupid thing sewed back on. If I'm not home by dinner, just tell your mom I went to the hardware store. Oh and don't go in the garage. It looks like a horror movie in there."
Then he drove himself to the hospital and sure enough from that day forward his middle finger was shorter than the other fingers beside it. But I still am not 100% sure my mom knows.
43. His Kind Of Guy
I had only been dating this girl for a couple months, but she wanted to travel back home for a cousin's wedding and asked me to go. I agreed, knowing that this meant I was definitely going to have to meet her parents. The wedding was in her hometown out in the sticks of south Texas. We got to her parents’ house just after dinner time.
Both her parents were on the front porch sitting in rocking chairs. We walk up to the porch and make our introductions. Her mother was a very nice and sweet southern belle type, seeing as she was from Louisiana. She asked if I'd like some sweet tea. Yep, this girl’s mother goes in the house to get the tea and this girl went with her to help.
This leaves me alone with her father. He seems to have a very sour look on his face and is not at all pleased to meet me. I later learned that this is just the way he looks. All the time. I sit down in the vacated rocking chair, and a small table separates us. He pulls out a small .38 special with a recessed hammer and places it on the table between us.
He says, "This is meant to be fired from a jacket pocket. You'd never see it coming." I look down at his gun on the table and then look up at him, then back at it, then back up at him, and he has these squinty eyes that seem to be drilling into mine. I then slowly reach behind my back and pull out my Desert Eagle 5.0 and place it in front of me on the table.
It is audibly heavy and has a satisfying "ta-chunk" sound when I lay it down. I said to him: "This is my Desert Eagle. It's meant to kill people. Efficiently." At that moment, his eyes lit up and a smile grew on his face that I didn't think could get any bigger without his face cracking in two. Very soon after, the girl and mother came back out with the tea and I grabbed my gun and holstered it and got up for her mother to sit down.
The father looks at the girl, points at me, and says, "I like this one." The father and I got along just fine. Ah....memories.
44. From Good To Worst
I was talking to my girlfriend's dad outside. For some reason, the conversation turned to grapes. At this exact time, my girlfriend came at me with what I believed to be a grape. I opened my mouth for the sweet nectar. It was nothing like I expected. It was not a grape. It was an olive. Now, the juxtaposition of flavors would be bad for most people.
However, in my case, it was the difference between one of my favorite things and the absolute worst food in the world. I mean, you would think I was allergic. So, did I calmly walk to the restroom and spit out this monstrosity? Nope, my fun brain decided I should scream like a little girl, literally push through every single one of my girlfriend's family to loudly spit and wash my mouth out in the bathroom. My father-in-law still asks if I want any olives.
45. Could’ve Been The Nail In His Coffin
This was my first boyfriend's experience with my parents. Dear God, it still makes me cringe. He was in a band and had a ton of female friends, most of whom he lived near to and had known for his entire life, so I felt like sleepovers were fine. The night before our middle school "graduation," he slept over with his friends and they decided to paint his fingernails.
Each nail was a different color. So after graduation, he and his mom were going to pick me up so we could go to some super sweet eighth-grader party. He gets there and I tell him to just put his hands in his pockets because I don't know how my parents would react to something so strange. That's when my middle-aged father decides to come inside from around the pool wearing nothing but his hot pink speedo to meet his second daughter's first boyfriend.
46. Home Invasion
One time my dad almost slit my throat because he thought I was a burglar. I had snuck downstairs for some reason. I was in the kitchen and heard him coming in, so I hid behind the kitchen counter. I heard my dad opening drawers and things. Next thing I know he had leaned over the counter and grabbed my head. When I realized what was happening, my heart stopped. He had a kitchen knife to my throat.
A split second later he realized it was me and dropped me. It was then I got yelled at because he had heard me breathing. He thought I was a home intruder, and I almost got in a world of pain. He was shaking from adrenaline. As a dad now myself, I can imagine the state of mind he was in.
47. A Pretty Good Wingman
I was drinking at a bar for a friend's birthday. This old guy kept hanging around our table chatting with us and was overall a pretty cool guy, buying us drinks all night and telling us funny stories. I was flirting with this chick who was a friend of a friend and we hit things off fairly well. Just as I was leaving, the girl grabbed me by the collar and started shoving her tongue down my throat and gave me her number.
As I turned around, the old guy smiled and looked at me and said, "I wondered how intoxicated you needed to be to try and pick up my daughter...I guess that wasn't enough but she usually gets what she wants anyways."
48. In Sickness And In Health
When I was 16, my also 16-year-old girlfriend of two weeks got so hammered at a party that we called an ambulance. I met her parents in the ER as their daughter they didn't know drank was having her stomach pumped. Also, in the ambulance on the way there, the heart monitor flatlined. I thought she had passed...It turned out the monitor had fallen off her finger.
49. Defending My Honor
I was maybe seven or eight years old and walking home from my friend's house after enjoying a snow day sledding around in her hilly backyard. Apparently, the neighborhood boys around my age (I am a girl) spent their day building a fort structure. I remember stopping briefly to admire it, but there were no kids in sight. Oh well, I turn and continue walking home.
Suddenly about five boys popped out the back of the fort and pummelled me with snowballs. I guess they also spent the day stocking up on snowballs and awaiting the perfect passing victim. They really messed me up with those snowballs. I am a stupidly petite adult and thusly, was a really tiny little girl and these dumb boys really didn't understand that they were going too far.
I was down on the ground and still getting nailed snowball after snowball mostly in the head/face area. After the initial shock, I made efforts to block the shots with my snow saucer and finally got on my feet to run. They followed me until they ran out of projectiles and retreated. Relieved, I stop running and was just SO upset.
I was barely even walking. Just dragging my feet, crying, trying to wipe my face with big stupid bulky gloves. Then my dad's car pulls up next to me. He had gone to work that day, despite the snow, and had just pulled into the neighborhood. "Hey kid, need a ride?" So yeah, I get in the car and he sees I've been crying.
At first, I wouldn't tell him why I was upset, because I was embarrassed and didn't want to be a tattle tale. Once we pulled into the driveway though, he wouldn't let me out of the car until I told him what was up. After my explanation, he told me to go inside and get washed up for dinner, that he'll be inside in a few minutes.
Ok, so “time warp” to 10 years later. I was planning a big high school graduation cookout at our house, and I was inviting all the kids from the neighborhood. A couple of those boys from the snowball incident told me they didn't really feel comfortable hanging out at my parent's house, to which I'm like: “what are you talking about?”
These boys then lay out this tale: On that fateful Snow D-Day, my dad drove back to the kid's fort and screamed at all of them to come out or he would call their parents. Once all the boys were lined up, Dad—still in his suit and tie—demolished their fort. Kicked it all down. Then from the rubble, he made big man-sized snowballs and made sure each kid got a violent face full of their precious fort.
50. Not Something You Ever Forget
In Grade 10, I was seeing a girl. We lost our virginities to each other and fooled around for about a month. One spring day, my mom comes charging down to my room, more upset than I have ever seen her. She rips my laptop out of my hands, telling me to stay in my room. When she said it, my face turned white. As it turns out, her dad came to my house and he knew about some pictures his daughter sent to me.
Also, both her parents were officers and they threatened to charge me for having possession of the photos. The next time I saw those people was at an Easter dinner two weeks later with her entire family. It was one of the most awkward situations of my life. I tried stuffing for the first time that day, and to this day it reminds me of this situation.
51. Not The Best Influence
The first time I met my friend’s mom was when she opened the door to his room to find that her son, and his friend, me, were drinking, had an 18-pack on the floor, a pyramid of cans on her nice table we moved into said room, and that he ditched school to get intoxicated and play GTA with me. It was the first and only time she ever came home from work early.
52. Son Sees The Light
I didn't see my dad much, he lived 80 miles away and was getting his life together. I tried to see him once a month for a weekend. I would bring my homework and spend a few days with him. One day, I'm sitting at his computer while he's watching TV in the same room, and he turns to me and asks if I want to "see something." Nothing could have prepared me for what came next.
He retrieves a cardboard box from his closet and sets it on my lap, and I open it. Staring at me in the face is a 15" giant girthy purple phallus. I look up to him with a confused expression, and he laughs out with a Cheshire grin: "I'm going to make a lamp out of it." We laugh about it for the rest of the weekend, making dumb jokes, it was fun.
Soon, I leave for home, and I forget about the jokes and the dong. I return a month later and open the door to his apartment to see that all of the walls had a faint purple hue. Looking down, I see this giant glowing purple dick suction cupped to my dad's coffee table. I drop my bags slack-jawed as he steps up behind me and claps twice, and the lamp turns off. My dad made a dick lamp and then gave it the clap. Legendary.
53. This Show Is Rated R
One day at 8 am, there was a knock at our front door. It seemed like a very early hour for someone to be knocking. Anyway, for some unknown reason, my dad answered the door in only his underwear. It was a salesman, who was obviously weirded out. After the salesmen left, my mom was mortified and asked my dad why he did that. My dad said, "If these people don't want a show, they shouldn't come for the matinee."
54. One Problem After The Next
My friend has the tendency to faint when she gets dehydrated. She and a group of friends were coming back from a cruise and were in customs. They had been partying all night and she didn't feel good. Just as they got on an escalator, she passed out, falling into her boyfriend, who caught her. Security called an ambulance and she was brought to the hospital.
Because they were in customs, her parents couldn't come in and her boyfriend had to go outside, introduce himself and explain to them what had happened. They all go to the hospital and are sitting around the hospital bed she's in, when suddenly the nurse comes in. She gives the room some shocking news. She goes, "Chelsea, we think you may be pregnant. You need to take a pregnancy test."
She described it as the longest moment of silence. She gets up, follows the nurse, leaving her boyfriend alone in the room with her parents, whom he had just met. He said it was the most awkward five minutes of his life. She turned out not to be pregnant and now they've been together for almost four years.
55. Cute, Corny, Or Confusing?
When I was in high school, I thought it would be cute to ask my boyfriend to prom by having a pizza delivered to his house with "PROM?" written in pepperoni. Well, my boyfriend's dad opened the door and threatened to call law enforcement on the pizza guy when he insisted that he "didn't order a pizza." Once everything was explained, I met his dad a couple weeks later. It was very awkward.
56. Making Tough Choices
I was going to meet my girlfriend's parents and we got to her house before they did. She made hot chocolate since it was the middle of winter, which I of course spilled on my lap because I’m stupid. She told me to take my jeans off. I refused, thinking that her mom and dad were on their way as we spoke. She pointed out that if I didn't, I was going to have first or second-degree burns in a very uncomfortable place.
I got my pants off just as her parents walked in. I stand up, "I realize what this looks like, but I promise, if you just give me a moment to explain..."
57. A Series Of Uncomfortable Events
My ex-boyfriend wanted me to meet his parents, and he told me they wanted to meet me too. We decided to drive up to their place in the Bay area, since we lived in Orange County at the time, for Thanksgiving. I'm white, and he and his parents are Chinese. I normally wouldn't mention this, but apparently my whiteness made them not approve of me, and therefore not actually want to meet me.
I didn't know they didn't want to meet me, otherwise I wouldn't have driven six hours and showed up at their house. It went more badly than I could have ever predicted. When we knocked on their door, his mother answered, looked at me and said, in Cantonese, "I told you not to bring the white girl here." More was said in Cantonese, but I understood none of it.
To save money, his parents did not have the boiler on, nor did they have heat in the house. Not having a boiler meant not having hot water, and therefore not having showers. To remedy this, they had a membership at 24 Hour Fitness, where they went every night to have a shower. They insisted that we go to 24 Hour Fitness for a shower literally 15 minutes after showing up at their house.
24 Hour Fitness has communal showering. I'm absolutely terrified of communal showering. I had to get naked with my boyfriend's mother 15 minutes after meeting her. At that point, she had never spoken a word to me in English. The first actual communication she showed me was to thrust a hairdryer in my hands. The next few days were excruciatingly uncomfortable.
Next to nothing was said in English at all, and I felt like everybody hated me. I spent several days just being as quiet, submissive, and polite as possible. I was sent to his mother's garden to pull weeds in the sun for a few hours, and after that she apparently began liking me. Later in the week, she decided I needed a checkup at the doctor. For what reason, I don't know.
It turns out that she scheduled me for a vaginal exam, conducted by a man. A man who I don't know. A man who spoke in really broken English. I explained to her that I was not comfortable with any of this. It was horrible and embarrassing.
58. Absolutely No Eye Contact
I went out of state for winter break to stay with my college boyfriend's parents. I had started my period the day we got there and didn't notice for an hour or so, so I had some...dirty laundry, if you get my drift. I had rolled a tampon really well in toilet paper and put it in the trash can, and put my underwear in my luggage. His mom wanted to take us to dinner and his stepdad wanted to stay home.
We left and when we came back, I walked into a nightmare. I found their little pug chewing on a pair of my underwear with toilet paper shreds strewn across the room. The dog had a taste for blood, I guess. His stepdad was watching TV looking straight ahead and would not divert his eyes. I picked up all the shreds and underwear real quick. I never found the tampon.
59. Dad Crashes Frat Party
One time my dad went to fathers weekend for my sorority. My dad likes to believe he's 21 despite being 50 with four kids. At fathers weekend, he got bored at our father's event and decided to recruit my roommate’s dad to crash a frat party. Well, he succeeded and proceeded to walk down our street until he found a party to crash.
He and his new friend knocked on the door and asked to see the place. Once inside, they made fun of the lack of good booze the party had and proceeded to buy a keg of "the good stuff" for the party. He then starts to make friends with the guys at the party and starts taking shots with them. Fast forward an hour, and now my dad has made friends with the frat dudes.
He’s showing these guys the music he used to listen to when he was in college. They ask him to go on the stage and play it on the speakers. Well, he proceeds to play some songs, and jumps on the table, and starts to dance on the table. The table then breaks and my dad is carried off as the coolest dad ever. It's been a year, and I am still hearing people talk about him.
60. Love And Other Drugs
I went to go meet my "girlfriend’s" dad. We hadn't exactly been together, but it was shortly after we were official. Anyways, we went to her house and we couldn't find her mom, so she yelled to her dad and got no response. She and I searched the house and we finally went downstairs to the basement to find her father with marijuana.
This was the first time she had caught her dad doing that and she ran upstairs bawling her eyes out. I was in one of the most awkward positions of my life.
61. The Typical Chat With Dad
I was invited to spend the night with this girl at her dad's house one county over from the one I lived in. I think I was 14 and she was a bit older. She wasn't the most attractive girl, but at this age I was trying to lose my virginity no matter what it took. When we get to her dad's house, I'm introduced to her older brother. He's like twenty-something and her dad is this huge muscular bald guy.
The girl and I start watching TV in the living room and, at one point, her dad comes up behind me, wraps a towel around my neck, and says, "If you touch her I will kill you." Then, he releases me and just cracks up and pats me on the shoulder like it's hilarious. We spent the whole next day working in this little ice cream booth while her dad carves animals out of logs with a chainsaw and tries to sell them for like $900 dollars each.
62. Girl On Fire
One time my dad set someone on fire. He was standing with a group of people having a smoke, and this girl walked up and asked for a light. My dad said sure and she leaned in as he lit the lighter. The girl’s hair went right into the flame causing her hair to catch fire. Apparently, someone had a little too much hair spray. Dad still tells people the story to this day.
63. You Missed A Spot
My brother and I spent the day cleaning the bathroom one day when we were young. However, I missed a dirty spot. Later I ended up overhearing my dad tell my brother: "The lesson you need to take from this is to never rely on your brother for anything." This one stuck out to me above the other insults I heard during childhood, as my parents were typically a lot more direct with their insults.
64. Fulfilling A Prophecy
My parents used to tell me, in so many words, that being myself wasn't good enough and that people wouldn't like me unless I completely changed who I was. They genuinely believed that there was something inherently unlikeable about me and that I had to pretend to be someone else to get anywhere in life. That really messed me up for life. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I went from a quirky kid with lots of ambitions to an adult with negative self-esteem and no personality. I'll never recover from it. They did thousands of tiny things to cut me down over the years, things I don't think they even realized they were doing, but nevertheless made me believe more and more strongly that I was just not good.
They told me I wasn't "normal" and that they wouldn't acknowledge my unique needs because I needed to learn how to deal with normal people, and told me that I had a hard time making friends because I didn't have blonde hair. They said people must be "intimidated" by me and that's why they didn't like me and told me I was bragging every time I was proud of anything I did.
They even tried telling me as a teenager I was being selfish and tried to forbid me from even saying the word "I." I still remember hundreds of the things they did and said to me that just made me think, "Wow, I'm doing everything wrong." I will acknowledge that I hold a lot of the responsibility for letting it affect me so much and I haven't properly dealt with its repercussions.
I should have dealt with my issues in a constructive way instead of a destructive way, which made me continually spiral until I lost every shred of dignity. I have believed for a long time that I'm just a "bad person" and there's nothing I can do about it, and even though a part of me knows that I can control my destiny and my actions, a much larger part of myself believes so strongly that I'm a bad person that it's overtaken my entire narrative.
Pexels
65. Better Safe Than Sorry
Well, I was 16 and dating an 18-year-old. So, one time, she comes to pick me up from my house and my mom sees her pull up in her truck. Before I can introduce them, my mom says, "If you're going anywhere with my son I am going to need to get a copy of your driver's licence and insurance before you guys go anywhere." Needless to say, that was the last time I brought a girl home…
66. More Than Just An Embarrassing Family
On my 16th birthday, I had my now-boyfriend come over and celebrate my birthday with my family and I. To give a little background, we met a few years prior, lost touch and recently reconnected. We were only texting at the time, because I wasn't allowed to date or hang out with boys by myself. So, this was the first time I've actually seen him in a couple of years.
I was nervous...My family knew this and mocked me for it. So, he walks in and I do introductions. He goes to shake my stepdad's hand and my stepdad says, "Hi, I'm Rob, and I just wiped my butt." I was so embarrassed. But I guess it wasn't too bad since I'm still dating my boyfriend six years later.
67. She Had A New Nickname
I met my high school girlfriend's parents during Sunday dinner. Her father and I really hit it off. During dinner, her mother, who is named Donna, kept asking me a lot of questions, to which her father joked that she had diarrhea of the mouth. I then joked that they should call her Donna-rrhea. Everyone laughed, except her mom...She hated me.
68. Low Grades
"I gave birth to you, gave you food and shelter, and this is how you repay me? You're worthless and will never amount to anything in life." That’s what my toxic mother said when we got into an argument over my low grades in middle and high school because of a possible unchecked learning disability that she doesn't believe in. To this day, she thinks I got low grades because I was lazy.
69. His Parents Were Super Sleuths
I wasn't allowed to have a girlfriend in high school, but I decided to get one anyway. She was a really cute Italian girl whose dad was way too into classic cars. I ended up sneaking over to her house for dinner to finally meet her parents, but I hadn't told my parents that I was leaving. Everything was going great, her dad and I were getting along great and dinner was amazing.
We sat down to watch a movie and all of a sudden, someone barged in the front door. My parents, being the sleuthy devils they were, started calling around my friends asking where I was after they realized I wasn't in the house. Eventually, they managed to call my buddy Austin and he, being a good friend, said that I was at his house.
Now, Austin lives right next to this girl Jenny who I was dating, and so I was actually parked at his house anyway. My parents were livid, so they drove to Austin's house and asked where I was. Austin’s mom answered the door and apparently cheerfully said, "Oh, he's over at Jenny's across the street!" At this point, my Dad, furious with me, walks across the road and barges in the door.
He looks me square in the eye and says, "Let's go Mike. Now." I don't talk to Jenny or her family anymore.
70. He Just Wanted To Help
I was off to pick up a new girlfriend in high school one day. She was super late, so I just chilled at her house. I thought, “Hey, look, wood to split! Yay!” So, I'm chopping away on the side of the house where I can’t see the driveway. I never heard her and her dad come home. So, I get a text, "We’re here, where are you?" I go to knock on the door, and her dad opens it to see me on the threshold.
I was sweaty, breathing hard and holding an ax. He stopped, stepped back, and we stared at each other for about five seconds. I panicked and dropped the ax, trying to say, "Oh hey, I was just trying to help," but dropped it right on my foot...So it turned into, "Oh hey, OUCH!" I’m no smoother today.
71. The Tables Have Turned
I was 19 and I met my girlfriend at the time’s mom and dad, for the first time. We had dinner, watched movies, and we even played a board game. It was fun. At the end of the night, I was about to leave and he asked to talk to me outside while I walked to my car. While we were walking to my car, he grabbed my shirt and pulled me close and started to threaten to hurt me if I hurt his baby. Something in me snapped.
Out of reflex, I broke his wrist, hyper-extended his elbow, and dislocated his shoulder. Her dad really liked me after that.
72. Dad VS. Armadillo
My dad is crazy about having a nice lawn. One time, there was an armadillo that was basically ruining our backyard, so he complained about it every time he went outside. After a week or so of armadillo infestation, I'm awakened at 4:30 am hearing shots fired. Then I heard some of the most magnificent swearing I've ever heard.
I ran downstairs to see what's going on, and joined my mom at the window where we watched my dad attempt to take out the armadillo. What he was unaware of was the apparent speed and the agility of the armadillo. The thing was running, dodging, and jumping into the air to avoid the bullets. My dad was chasing after it, shooting, and screaming his head off.
He eventually hit it, the armadillo was vanquished, the yard was saved, and I had the dirtiest vocabulary in my third-grade class.
73. Disturbed Over Dinner
Years ago, I was at my ex's for dinner for the first time, and found out that her parents are both incredibly weird. When I eat potatoes, I like to mash the heck out of them with a fork and then mix them in melting butter. When I tried doing this at the table, her dad noticed what I was doing, got up from his seat, turned his back on me and literally shouted, “That isn’t how you eat potatoes!”
Obviously, I didn't have a clue how to react. I didn't know whether he was being serious or if it was just his sense of humor, so I looked at his wife for reassurance. She gave me that "teacher look" that they pull when you do something wrong, got up from her seat, took both my hands in hers with the knife and fork in them, and cut the remaining two potatoes into quarters.
Her dad sat down again and we finished the meal in silence with him closely watching how I ate everything.
74. End Of Year Ritual
I always hated the end of the school year because we had to empty out our desks and take all our work home. My mom would go through our backpacks, but she would only go through my notebooks and make fun of my drawings, stories, and call them stupid, among other things. She would then read it out loud to my siblings and dad. Same thing with my diaries. They would just laugh.
Now they tell my kids, "Your mom always loved to draw, I don't know why she stopped!" I wonder why…
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75. Be The Know-It-All
My parents had extremely high expectations of me—expectations I couldn't possibly live up to. They wanted me to be a natural-born genius, and expected me to know the most random trivia, like which teams had won all the world cups, the capital cities of each country, etc. At the same time, they told me to "shut up" anytime I tried to ask a question.
The whole time I was in school, I tried my hardest to be the smartest person in the room, and even now, I don't believe it when friends tell me I'm smart.
76. Way Out Of His League
I met more of my boyfriend's extended family at Thanksgiving dinner. His uncle took one look at me and asked, "You're way too hot for him, how much did he pay you?" Awkward...Then I had to hear about their family of addicts and dysfunctionality for the rest of dinner.
77. It’s Just Jungle Fever
I was chatting with my girlfriend while she was on the phone with her parents. They knew of me at this point, and that was it. She is Black and I'm white. Her father asked her, “Why would he want to date a black girl anyway?” My official answer to this question would be that it's meaningless to me what her race/ethnicity is.
I honestly don't think of it very much unless we get nasty stares or comments, then I remember that we’re “supposed” to be controversial...even in a liberal college town. Out loud, I answered, “Pfft... jungle fever.” To which my girlfriend answered, “Oh, he says jungle fever.” I almost cried. His parents think I'm "whiter than cream cheese," so they found it hilarious that I'd even know what jungle fever is. They laughed for about five minutes.
78. Waiting By The Window
When I was younger, I would call my Dad and he would tell me “I’m coming over to get you.” Hearing that, I would sit by the window and just wait for him, but he would never come. My mom used to say that it was heartbreaking to see. I’ve seen him maybe 12 times in my entire life, I’m 40 now and it still hurts when I think about it.
79. Nobody Needs Braces
I desperately needed braces, but my mom refused the orthodontist's advice. Her reason? Totally brutal. She told him, "She won't ever be a movie star anyway." She also told Dad maybe it would keep me out of a home for unwed mothers if they let me buy the horse I wanted. Huh? I was only 11 and it pretty much screwed with my head.
Even good parents, watch what you say to your kids. It can have a lasting impact. It may sound cute or snarky sarcastic to you, but little kids have big ears.
80. Dad Misses Birth
This is a dark story, but I still want to tell it because it really means something to me. After my mom and dad got married, my dad would often come home late at night and was always very inebriated. Almost every night he wouldn’t be able to function. My dad never thought twice about his problem with booze until my mother went into labor for the first time.
My dad was too wasted, so my mom had to call our next-door neighbor to drive her to the hospital. My dad was way over the limit to drive his own wife to the hospital to give birth to his own son. But something good actually came out of it...Since that moment, he has never touched another drink.
81. Bats For Sure
Last night at dusk, I saw a father walking around a nearby pond and nature reserve by my house with his son and his daughter while I was walking my dog. There are bats there, which some people don’t realize because we’re in the UK and God forbid we have anything more exotic than a fox. Anyway, the kid, maybe nine years old, said, "Wow dad I just saw a bat!!"
And the dad just laughed and said “Heh…I don’t think you did...” My heart hurt for the little boy until they walked under a streetlight and the dad exclaimed, “OMG there’s loads of them!!!!!!!” And the little girl, maybe four years old, started screaming. Well done kid, you were right from the start!
82. Is It Cool Or Is It Weird?
My girlfriend's step-dad is Mexican. He said, "’Sup dude? How's it going?" Then, he went in for a regular handshake. I replied, "Chill homie," and went in for some odd high school gangster ridiculous fist bump thing. I ended up just grabbing his thumb and wiggling it. Her mom looked at me like I was weird.
83. Spoiling Everything
When I was younger I would frequently act without thinking, one time I kinda spoiled a trip to my grandmother's house at the last moment by doing something stupid, then later on at my own home, I overheard my family talking about it through a wall. In reference to my behavior, I heard my mother say something I'll never forget: "He finds a way to ruin everything" and my father and sister seemed to agree.
At the time, it really hurt, and even now, the idea of being a burden to my family continues to eat at me.
84. Making The Grade
Throughout my childhood, I had to earn anything I wanted with my grades. Even the smaller things. Want to hang out with my friends? Gotta get more than 90% next exam. Want a birthday gift or a cake? Top of the class. Want to go on a school trip? Tough, go study. Many times, my parents would say it because they knew I wouldn’t get the marks they said.
In one way it helped that I ended up becoming a person who really pushes myself to do really well in what I do, but it also really shattered my childhood because I don’t remember having much of a life. I had to earn my life through grades which I could never really reach.
85. Letting Their Prejudice Run Wild
My white middle-class parents made casually prejudiced comments about Hispanic low-income families around my white-passing but proud Hispanic girlfriend, now ex, who was also from a low-income family. It really made her and me incredibly uncomfortable, and yet they were completely unaware until I started calling them out on it.
86. Wives And The Way
My worst “meet the parents” situation was several years ago. I walk into his house and notice framed photos on the wall. All of them were stills from when they were on the show Wife Swap. That in and of itself is no big deal...until I saw the episode. They are crazy religious. Later, the father approached me and I stuck out my hand to shake and he just looked me up and down, turned to his son and asked, "Is she a subscriber to "The Way?"
Later on, we are all having dinner and his sister is telling the parents how she heard I was “loose” and they attempt to evangelize me.
87. The First Loser
When I was a small child playing Star Wars Pod Racers on the Nintendo 64 I finally got 2nd place in one of the races I had been losing on for weeks. I was so pumped about it, but when I ran to tell my mother—her response was devastating: “Wow! Ya know second place is the first loser.” My dreams were absolutely crushed.
88. Breaking Everything
If the tiniest thing broke at home—I remember once I broke a clothespin—it was the end of all things. Dad would fly off the handle about it. Or worse, if something broke around him, or he broke it, it was still my fault. I remember, once, my brother spilled an entire carton of OJ and it was my fault for "putting it back in the fridge wrong."
If a door handle broke, it was because I touched it three turns ago and I was "too rough" with it. And so on. Even after I moved out, things were my fault at the house. They never gave me a dime after my 18th birthday, but if they didn't have enough money to pay bills, it was because they had me. I remember, one time, their house flooded, and this was my fault because two weeks prior, I was at their house, and I washed my hands and "must've" damaged the faucet.
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89. Turns Out They Didn’t Like Him
I went over to pick this girl up for a first date. While there, I met the parents and they seemed nice. Or so I thought. While we were out, her parents called the authorities and told them I kidnapped her. It was really awkward nearly getting incarcerated.
90. Too Little, Too Late
My grandfather forced me to sit in his car and tell him I loved him when I was 12 because I literally did not know how to say it. He's the only relative that consistently has said it to me throughout my life, which I appreciate. My parents never said such things to me, either of them. Now that I am grown and can take care of myself, my dad wants a relationship with me and tells me he loves me.
My mom will sometimes text me that she loves me. I always say it back, but part of me wonders why they waited so long. And I do feel bitter towards them both. I NEEDED their love and affection as a kid. Now that I'm a grown woman, I've long since learned how to live without it. It does feel like too little, too late with both my parents. I don't make time for them now because they forced me into raising myself and figuring out life alone.
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91. He Couldn’t Control His Anger
I met my boyfriend’s father at his hockey game. He was sweet and bought me a hot chocolate and himself a coffee. About five minutes later, he gets booted from the arena for arguing with a referee and throwing his coffee at the referee’s face.
92. They Were Caught Off-Guard
My ex's mom surprised him with a visit while we were mid-intercourse. My clothes somehow ended up all over the apartment so I had to come out and greet her wearing nothing but his shirt and pretending it was a dress. She knew. Did I mention she was one of my bosses?
93. A Good Reason To Be Immature
My boyfriend at the time had parents who were nudists. He did not tell me this in advance. I saw way more of his father than necessary within the first five seconds than I ever needed to. I immediately ran back to the car, feigning illness. Maybe it wasn’t the most mature reaction, but can you blame me?
94. Pigging Out
I was around 16 at the time. I was in the passenger seat as my dad drove to Mcdonald's to get dinner for me, him, and my mom. I've been overweight my entire life, and I would have been around 260 to 270 pounds at the time. I asked for a Big Mac combo, and a 10-piece nugget. I liked the variety. He turned to me and frustratedly said, "Why do you always have to be such a pig?"
He apologized profusely a few minutes later, but it's always stuck with me, sometimes playing on a loop in my head. It's made worse by the fact that out of my parents, he's usually the sane and nice one. My mom is completely and insanely mean, and I'm used to that. Him saying something like that kind of broke me, and even though we're fairly close, it's never left my mind.
My mother once broke down crying when I was about six. When I asked her what was wrong, she went on a rant about how if she could go back, she wouldn't have been with my dad, and she wouldn't have had me. That screwed me up for years. When I brought it up in an argument when I was 16, she then accused me of lying, and said that I was always trying to make her the "bad guy."
95. Left In The Cold
When I was 15, my dad made my mom choose between me or him. He was angry at me for the dumbest reason ever: I'd refused to give him my email password. I thought my mom would take my side, but I was so so wrong. Without hesitation, she told me to leave. But that wasn't the worst part. It was the dead of winter. I had no coat and ended up wandering around town by myself.
After spending the entire evening freezing, I had no choice but to sleep under the stairs of the building we lived in. Later that night, my father gave my mother permission to let me back in. Years later, I told them about this trauma, and once again, they let me down. They screamed at me called me a "stupid liar" while I bawled my eyes out.
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96. Bloody Poker Game
Me and a few of my friends used to hold this poker night each week, which my dad used to play too. My dad got particularly inebriated one night and was foolishly getting on his bicycle to go home. It was icy outside, and we spent around 15 minutes trying to persuade him to get a lift from one of my friends. He refused.
Ten minutes later there's a knock at the front door, and when I opened it—I couldn't believe my eyes. There’s my dad with blood dripping down and covering half his face. All he said was: "I fell over." He then came in and fell over again. Next, he washed his face and went to sleep on the couch.
97. Not Hidden Well Enough
I met my ex's mom when I was 15. They were a highly Catholic family and he wasn't allowed to date. So, I would go over after school until it was about time for them to get home. We're making out and my shirt and bra come off. That was pretty escalated for us. So of course, the worst happens. Suddenly, we heard a car door slam outside.
He grabs my shirt and bra, hands them to me, and tells me to go hide in his closet. So, I do. Shirtless. His mom and he talk for what seems like forever just outside the door. She tells him she's gonna go take a nap, so he needs to be quiet. Afterward, she went into her room and he came and got me. Right as I am trying to get my bra on, she steps out of her room and sees me. We broke up soon after.
98. Don't Let Sleeping Babes Lie
I worked daycare and was told to never accept babies sleeping in car seats or sleeping children at all. So if Mom or Dad brought a kid asleep, I immediately woke them up and pulled them out of their car seat. This made so many parents displeased with me but it's policy.
I used to think it was to help the kid be on a schedule, then one day a grandma brought a baby asleep and he was not waking up at all. Just would raise his head, whimper, and go back to sleep. Immediately my boss called 911 and grandma was trying to downplay "he had a rough night, he's just tired, etc." I knew this baby, he wouldn't sleep if he thought he was going to miss out, we had music playing and kids loudly singing and dancing. In the chaos, grandma slipped out and at some point, someone called the parents.
Turns out Granny had a history of giving kids stuff to knock them out when she babysat, but this time she did it to a six-month-old and that's why he wouldn't wake up. I think they pumped the kid's stomach and he had a stay at the hospital. Legal actions were taken and the family moved away.
To clarify, the policy was put in place because my boss knew abusers have been known to do this. They'd break the kid's arm, dose them, dump them with the sitter who lets the baby asleep all morning then because the kid was with the sitter all day, it's easy to blame them for the baby's injury. Or worse, the baby died and they do this to blame the sitter.
So yea, to this day if I'm babysitting, I don't accept sleeping children. I flat out refuse to watch kids at their home while they're sleeping for the same reason. I've pretty much stopped doing any child care because as much as I love kids, watching parents make bad decisions on purpose when they know better, was killing my soul.
99. Peeping Polly
I usually sleep in my underwear during summer since it gets hot in my house, and I also have curtains in my windows. So one day I woke up and made myself a bowl of cereal since I was home alone. I walk past my window to the kitchen when I hear a knock on the door. I'm still only in my underwear, so I hurry and get some shorts on. I open the door and see this entitled mother and her daughter.
Mother: HOW DARE YOU WALK AROUND IN YOUR UNDERWEAR Me: Uh….I’m in my own house and I had the window closed with the curtain down? Mother: MY DAUGHTER GOT CURIOUS AND PEEKED THROUGH YOUR WINDOW AND SAW YOU IN YOUR UNDERWEAR. Me (stunned into silence for a bit): Well, it's my house, and I can be as naked as I want to be. And then I shut the door in their faces.
100. Same Difference
This happened a couple of weeks ago. It was the day of my grandmother's funeral. She passed in a hospital, and I was outside talking to the owner of the funeral home. This dude was also my godfather, and I had a very good relationship with him. It might sound weird that my godfather is the owner of a funeral home, but to me, it's not.
He's known me since I was a baby and he treated me like I was his son. Also, to me, his job is just like any other job, and it even has its benefits. Anyway, we were just outside the hospital, talking to each other. Parked in front of us were all the company vehicles, including the one you are all thinking about: The hearse. All of a sudden, this Entitled Mother approached us.
EM: Hello. Me: Uh....hello. She had her kid just next to her and he was holding a drink. EM: I was wondering if my son could take a ride on the limousine. She then pointed her finger to the hearse. It took me a while to respond for two reasons. The first one was because that day, I had so many thoughts going through my head, and a stranger coming to me out of nowhere caught me by surprise.
I am a very introverted person, and I find it difficult to talk to people I don't know. The second reason was because I was holding in my laugh. She legitimately thought that the hearse was a limousine. Me: I'm sorry to say this, but that's not— EM: Are you going to say no to a little child? At this point, I don't know what to say. Me: Miss, believe me. You don't want your son to go in that thing.
EM: Ugh...Why are you so stingy? Even if he spills his drink in the limousine, it won't be a problem. You have enough money to buy a limousine, so you'll surely have enough to clean it. This is when my godfather comes in. GF: Excuse me, miss. What do you want to do? EM: I want my son to ride the limousine! My godfather then said the most epic thing I have ever heard.
GF: thinks for a bit Well, sure he can ride the limousine. But only if he has a coffin to be in. The mom is a bit confused about this response. Then she takes a good second look at the "limousine," and realized her mistake. I have no idea how she confused a hearse for a limousine, perhaps the company logo was out of her view or something.
However, when it dawned on her, her skin got pale and she just walked away as fast as she could with her kid. My godfather and me just look at each other and start laughing.
101. Minors Must Be Accompanied
I'm a therapist. I was halfway through a counseling session with a couple with a four-month-old baby. I asked about the baby, and the mom said, “She’s in bed at home.” I said, “Ah, grandparents babysitting?” The dad went, “No, she is at home alone. Nothing can happen to her. We bought a special mattress. One where she can’t suffocate.”
At this point, my jaw was on the floor, and I was just staring at them for a couple of seconds. Then I asked how long it took them to get here. They told me about 15 minutes, so I said, “Alright, the session’s over. I want you guys to go home immediately and call me when you arrive. Please hurry. And never ever leave your baby alone!”
102. Ronald McSecrets
This one time when I was little, my dad woke me up at like 2 am said "Get ready, we're going to McDonald's.” I was so confused and kept asking why, but he wouldn't answer anything besides, "because" or "to have fun.” The rest of my family—my two brothers, my sister, and my mom—didn't come with us and they were still asleep when we left.
The play place was closed, and we just kind of sat there for an hour or so eating, then went back home. To this day, I still have NO idea why he frantically needed me out of the house, and he swears he doesn't remember that happening, but the whole thing was SO weird that I kept the toy that I got from the Happy Meal to remember it by, and I still have it to this day…
It's my only proof of this weird freaking night that my dad (almost scarily) hurried me to McDonald’s at 2 am. I have two guesses why. First, my sister pooped the bed and they were worried I'd make fun of her. Or maybe they somehow noticed something like rats in my room? Were they worried I wouldn't be able to sleep if I knew that there were rats and they needed an hour or so to get them out???
Either way, a very strange night that my dad refuses to tell me the truth about, which only makes me think it's something much worse. Like. I'm 23 now. If he said "Yeah, your sister pooped the bed and we didn't want you to know," I'd have been like cool, nice, good thinking. But he REFUSES to believe that it happened at all. WHAT HAPPENED.
103. Money Can’t Buy You Class
I've been a TA for a couple courses at my university, which is fairly competitive and the students are generally all top notch. Once in a blue moon, though, someone slips by the admission process. My worst experience was as a TA for a lower division math course. She was a freshman student, and spoiled doesn't begin to cut it.
Her family was clearly loaded, and I suspect she went to some insanely expensive private school that wrote her application for her. This girl would be in designer clothes and on her phone or laptop the entire time in lecture. Obviously everyone does this sometimes, but this girl was clearly just chatting with her friends and shopping for clothes all the time.
When she failed to turn in the first four problem sets, I sent her a quick email to let her know that homework contributed to a significant portion of her grade. I also said I'd still accept them. I never got a response. So she gets a blatant F on her first midterm. Like, it’s not an F that could be rounded up to anything significant.
She was at a point where she should've just dropped out and try again next semester. I sent another email saying this. This time I got a response, with her stating she could make the grade back next midterm. Alright, I think, suit yourself. So I continue through the rest of the semester. She's still failing...until something absolutely ridiculous happens.
At the last meeting of my discussion section, SHE SHOWS UP! Not just that, but with her parents. Oh my god, it gets better. She stays after the session to introduce me to her parents, and then hands me a stack of papers and informs me that it's all the homework for the semester. Meanwhile her parents are sitting there all proud of their little girl.
I take the stack graciously and, in my most professional voice, let her know that I'd be happy to take a look at it, but she won't get any credit. Her parents' faces completely fall. Her father starts to insult me. So I show them everything: The abysmal attendance record, the 0% homework score, the low, low, low midterm scores.
Now she's starting to tear up and the parents are seriously fuming. Not wanting to put myself in the middle of the rest of the storm, I mumble that I have a class to get to and sprint out of there...but not before I hear the student getting chewed up so loudly that people actually poked their heads out of classrooms. She never showed up for the final.
104. Bad Suggestions
After my twin brother lost his life in a car crash, my parents sat me down. When they began talking, my blood ran cold. My brother's girlfriend had been especially devastated by the loss, and they were worried about her, so they'd come up with what they thought was an ingenious idea. They wanted me to date my dead brother’s girlfriend.
