J.J., the oldest Secret, was at a friend’s house a few days ago, and the friend was text-messaging someone. His mother walked in, and asked for the phone, saying she wanted to charge it.
The friend mumbled “just a minute,” and continued typing at the speed of a Meister Brau diarrhea.
“I said give me the phone!” the mother shouted, starting to get cranked-up.
“Mom, I’m in the middle of a text!” the boy said. “Just give me a second.”
And the mother flew off the handle, smacked the kid in the face, snatched the cell phone out of his hand, went down to the basement and repeatedly hit it with a hammer, scooped up some of the shards, and hurled them into the woods off their back deck.
Hoooo-ly shit.
The mother supposedly felt “terrible” about the way she acted, and the next day went out and bought the kid an even more expensive phone. And so it goes.
My parents weren’t crazed like that. My mother could lecture you down to a smoldering nub, but never screamed and hollered and acted like a maniac. And my Dad has the demeanor of Atticus Finch.
The only time I can remember any such fireworks, was at our old house. So it had to be pre-fifth grade. My parents were arguing about something, and my Mom took her arm and knocked several (unbreakable) bowls into the floor. My Dad was eating at the time, and just continued as if nothing had happened. His expression didn’t even change.
And when he was finished, he got up to take his plate to the sink, stopped and said, “Huh. Does anyone know how all these bowls got on the floor?”
It was probably my imagination, but I thought I could see literal blasts of smoke shooting out of my mother’s ears.
But, for the most part, they (my mother) just lectured us. And lectured, and lectured some more. Wow! When one of our kids is on the hot seat, and Toney’s giving him a full 360-degree grilling, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for the kid. Because I’ve been there. Oh, I’ve been there plenty.
Toney’s mother, on the other hand, is (and reportedly was) capable of just about anything. When Toney and Nancy were very young, I’m told, Sunshine got mad about something and hurled a hanging plant through the picture window of their house.
Yes, Sunny is a very nuanced and complicated individual…
And I heard other stories at school, about parents who went nuts and threw a TV into the front yard, or hatcheted up a set of stereo speakers, or flung a pork chop and fried potato supper against the dining room wall…
So let’s hear ‘em. Use the comments section to tell us about Parents Gone Wild! They can be your parents, the parents of friends, stories you heard at school, or even yourself. We’re not picky.
And I know some parental outburst tales aren’t funny, especially if it was an abusive situation. But that’s not really what I’m talking about. I’m talking about otherwise semi-normal human beings, who momentarily lost it. You know what I’m saying…
Also, I’m toying with the idea of doing a few Surf Report podcasts. I bought some equipment (a big John Holmes microphone, etc.), and plan to give it a shot. However… if the results are especially embarrassing, I’ll never post the files; they’ll go straight to the shitcan, never to be heard by another human.
But I’m thinking about answering questions from readers on my first dining room broadcast attempt. So, if there’s something you want to know, now’s the time to ask.
If there’s murkiness in the narrative of my ridiculousness, or you want more info about some episode or other, send me an email. Or just post it in the comments, following an all uppercase: QUESTION. That’ll make it easier for me to find, after a few Yuenglings.
Obviously, I’m not going to reveal every little thing about my life. I won’t tell you my home address, or the real names of our kids, or anything like that. But I’ll try to answer all reasonable questions.
And speaking of our kids, I’ve decided to call them J.J. and Michael here. That will be their new internet names. J.J. is the older hooligan, and Michael is the younger. I’ll start easing into it, over time.
And that’s going to do it for today, boys and girls. If it wasn’t enough for you, check out the new post at mockable.
I’ll see ya tomorrow.
Velveeta is not Cheese- It’s Cheese food.
My father had some moments that would make and anger management class seem like a kindergarten sleep period. Once when my sister borrowed a boom box from one of her suitors, he spiked it on the floor like he had just scored the winning touch down at the super bowl. When my two younger brothers got caught mooching and munching the Brach’s candy at a local grocery store. They got beat from the time he picked them up until they got home. About a couple miles as the crow flies. A creditor phone and threatened to repo our furniture after he failed to make a payment, he told him he could take the furniture if he got his (@##@%$#*&%#, a whole lot of explicatives) past him. The creditor never showed up, my dad paid the bill off the next day and when they called to extend more credit the explicatives flew again. Just a few of the fun times with my dad.
@Gretchen – You are mean girl…
@tadpolegal – Funny, I put some Kraft cheddar and some Velveeta on a mouse trap and the damn mice went for the Velveeta every time.
Mean? What did I do?
@Shiny Rod- Mice are stupid. They take food from a wooden trap that snaps their necks even after they see what happened to all their other little mouse friends.
QUESTION
Can you tell us about the alleged “wedding” of Nancy and Nostrils? Were you there?
I would also like to know more about Mr. Tophat. I teach 8th grade and when a kid threatens to get home schooled I tell them tale of Mr. Tophat. They love it. When kids get expelled, and other students ask where they went, I simply reply that they will most likely be taking Mr. Tophat to prom.
My mom was getting a slab of bacon out of the freezer when I made some smart ass comment. Needless to say…I got whacked on the head with that slab of frozen bacon. That hurt.
My mom was a master of the yardstick. She routinely broke them on my brother’s butt. She routinely tells the “cute story” about shopping in KMart one day and a guy came out of the stock room slapping a yardstick against his leg as he walked. My brother of course freaked out thinking he man was gonna get him. She thinks that cute, I don’t think she gets it.
She also handsawed off the posters from my four poster bed one time because she thought I could have more options on bed placement in the room if the posters were gone. Guess what? It’s like cutting your own hair, a little here, a little more there, not quite even, a little more on the right. For years after I moved out she asked when I was going to take that off her hands. Ummmm, NEVER.
Fortunately she seems much more normal now.
My father has always been one of those big guys who never really had to whip up on the kids (I’m the youngest of seven), simply because he could reach for his belt and all bad activity would cease.
But there were a total of two situations that stand out:
The first time was when I was in about the 2nd grade and my older brother kept taking off on my bike. In total freak-out fashion, I went screaming into the house to complain and my dad asked what all the commotion was. I very ignorantly replied: “That, that, that… FUCKER took my bike!” Yea, that didn’t go over so well. And at the age of 45, I have not since used the “F” word in front of my dad.
The second time was not so long after that. Our family had a clean plate policy (which my parents now admit was wrong, by the way). The smell of cooked yellow squash can make me gag. But, that was what was on the menu.
As I sat at the table by myself for at least 45 minutes after everyone had finished staring at my squash, my dad walked into the kitchen and said, “What the hell is going on here?” I cried the words, “I don’t like squash” and just about then, my dad went to give me a solid whack but instead struck his finger on the chair breaking it! (The finger, not the chair). Oh shit!
Needless to say, I inhaled the squash. But my dad had to go to the emergency room and have the finger set, and before he got home, all the other kids in the family tormented me over what a bad, thoughtless kid I was for making my dad break his finger.
And my dad never found reason to hit me again, but my mom found a new tactic. Whenever I wouldn’t do something they wanted me to do, my mom would just look me square in the eyes and say, “Remember the squash.” Even as a 16 year old, that was some affective shit.
Whenever I lose my mind and get mad, people just laugh at me..(this includes my family.)
Question: Why doesn’t anyone take me seriously?
Question: Do you think I need psychological help?
Question: If you could change places with someone for a day (assume their life, body, identity,etc…) who would it be and why?
JJ & Michael?
Is this freaking Good Times now?lol
DynoMITE!
My wife and I and our 3 kids were in Lowes one afternoon and our oldest who was about 13 at the time was being his usual wise-ass self, picking on his younger brother and generally being disrespectful while tapping away on his gameboy. At one point my wife went to take it away from him and he grabbed it back from her. At this point I had had it just about had it and told him to “hand it over” with a look in my eyes that clearly scared the shit out of him. I then told the whole gang “let’s go” and walked out of the Lowes with the crew in tow. When we got in the car and started driving no one said a word until I pulled into the driveway of the local Goodwill store when the wise ass 13 year old asked why we were going there. I pulled to the drive through where people stop to drop off their old tax deductible underwear, got out of the car, walked inside and handed the gameboy to the nearest employee I could find. When I got back to the car, the wise ass gave me some backtalk about me not having the right to do that etc etc etc. My wfe was pissed that I gave away a 100 piece of electronic crap and the younger kids were thoroughly intimidated.
Other parents I have related this story to look at me like I just landed a jetliner in the Hudson.
Bill in NC — Holy cow, your cojones must be gigantic!!. Please tell me your wife didn’t go out and buy your son a replacement. That would just negate the usefulness of whispering “Gameboy” whenever one of your children gets out of hand.
My old man used to politely ask us before each and every car trip to go grab him a willow switch from the big tree growing in our front yard. If you came back with a puny little short one, he would instead go out and pull down an Indiana Jones sized whip to hold in between the front seats. Dad would turn it around on us if anybody got rowdy in the car, and was deadly accurate, to the point of whipping a cookie out of my brother’s hand as he snatched it from a picnic basket. Hilariously funny until you did something wrong, and then you cowered in fear of the willow switch.
QUESTION:
Where do you find all of those crazy pictures for the Bunker Cam?
QUESTION:
Did you ever install Linux on the old pizza box?
Wouldn’t matter to me either way, just curious.
QUESTION:
You have not had an apple butter craving in a few years.
Did I just remind you to have one?
QUESTION:
We want to know a little more about the “book”
No spoilers, just a short synopsis will do.
QUESTION:
Who are some of YOUR favorite web writers?
What are YOUR go-to sites? (Cannot mention the music one, we already know about that.
QUESTION:
How did you know Andy was the dog for you?
How did you two meet?
Why is he named Andy?
QUESTION:
What item can you NOT live without other than music and food?
I don’t have any crazy parenting stories about myself or others. But I am sure it is because I have blocked them all out.
The public humiliation for fucking cheese was epic.
OH!
If you are going to do a podcast, I am going to require some inflection in your voice this time around. You are NOT ALLOWED to read your podcast.
Hell, just let me interview you.
I’ll crack that damn shell of yours.
QUESTIONS, PEOPLE!!
Now who here hasn’t been beaten with a section of Hot Wheels tracks? Really.
OMG .. SAM
I think I was.
Good times
AND JEFF
Your chosen names for the secrets
is not acceptable.
Try again
I have a parent gone wild story from my grandmother…..
She was french and apparently had quite a temper. My father was apparently really agitating her when he was a kid, so she took a big swing at him. He ducked, and she dislocated her shoulder
Talk about throwing a haymaker!
I’m skipping my childhood stories as we’ve already had enough “hi-LAR-ious” abuse tales…
But I did see my sister-in-law lose it once on a 3 year old. Not physically, thank God, but she’d just had one of those days and suddenly screamed “Jesus Christ, stop breathing all my OXYGEN!” Quieted the tadpole down for a bit.
I liked “the secrets”…
Almost spit out my coffee over the cheese story and for some odd reason this is the most laughing I have ever done while reading the comments. My cube neighbors must think I am nuts!
QUESTION! Who is Mr. Tophat?
Bill in NC – even if he gets another gameboy, he’ll BELIEVE YOU next time. and, hopefully, the little ‘uns won’t test you, either.
I took away my son’s Wii controllers for ignoring me one time too many and now I forgot where I put them. oops.
At first I couldn’t remember a thing but something just popped up! Aaaah, the slow side effects of booze….
My dad has always seemed a bit bi-polarish. More spoiled than anything though. When he wants something, he turns into a child to get it.
When I was 15, my rich uncle died, leaving my parents his 80’s-something Nissan Z convertible. (At the time it was maybe 6 years old, but sweet as hell). My mom didn’t like paying the insurance on the car and was constantly bugging my dad to sell it. He kept refusing. It was also breaking down and stuff, so it was costing a lot in repairs.
One morning my mom was driving me to school, but had to follow my dad in the Z to a auto place to once again fix the car. She was pissed and bitching & when we got there she railed about selling it. Without warning, my dad got back in the Z, reversed like something in a movie, then drove as fast as he could into a nearby brick wall. Since it was such a short distance there was no damage to dad or wall, but the car’s front was pretty messed up. Then he got out, looked at the front end and started laughing, similar to the way Tom Hanks does in Money Pit. A maniacal, debolical laugh.
To this day he says he doesn’t remember doing that…..
@CitizenX – Don’t give Jeff such a hard time, he’s finally experiencing his “Roots”!!!
@Gretchen – An “I Fuck Cheese” halloween costume? Thats about as bad as a tea bag costume.
@Shiny Rod: Oh it’s in poor taste, but it’s not mean.
Well, mean to the cheese, maybe.
Where is the Wednesday update?
Did Toney buy a block of cheese this week at the store, and Jeff is out back o the compound givin it da bidness?
@bennigan’s nazi – after reading Jason’s post, Jeff removed all cheese products from the compound fearing the weiner tugging translucent might decide to whip up an little cheeze whiz!!!
When I was a freshmen in high school, we had a pretty good basketball team. One away game, we were getting “homered” pretty bad the whole game. At the very end, our post player John and I both got flagrantly fouled but neither ref called anything. John’s dad, Big John, a truck driver who was about 6’6″ and 300 lbs but the nicest guy you could imagine when he wasn’t at a basketball game, had been going nuts the whole game. Well, they didn’t call anything, time ran out, and we lost. At this point, I turn around and see Big John, who had been sitting in the fourth or fifth row, stood up, took one giant step ONTO the scorer’s table and landed about ten feet out on the court right in front of one of the refs. Meanwhile my dad and another guy are scrambling out of the stands to try and stop Big John from crushing this guy. We’re all stunned and just watching this unfold. This ref basically wets himself and just sort of crumples. The other ref is running for the door, the coaches are trying to grab people. Quite the scene. The next day, our principal calls the entire basketball team into his office and asks us if we feel like our parents are putting too much pressure on us. We say, no, of course not, why are you asking? Good times, good times… This was also the game where our coach told us at halftime to “get out there and rub their dicks in the dirt!”
I’m telling you, if you ever need to motivate a bunch of 14 year olds, that will do it.
@ Shiny Rod: Don’t you mean “Cheese Jizz”?
Damn, no update, I might get some work done tonight!
This is a public service announcement:
If you’re going to fuck cheese you should stay away from the harder stuff like Parmesan. Also, cream cheese seems like a good idea, but it isn’t. Burns your pee hole.
QUESTION:
Do the secrets know about the WVSR? Do they read it? If not, what the hell do they think you are doing in the basement all the time? Is there a chance they are reading it and you don’t know it?
ZAZU – you need to sign up for the top secret updates. Membership has it’s privileges.
“Then the transparent children acted out some sort of convoluted and disturbing scene with their LEGO characters. The oldest, as usual, dominated. He was cranking off a series of terrifying voices, sometimes layered as if several people were talking at once. It was scary as hell, like the phone calls in the original Black Christmas.
He kept shouting about someone called “Mr. Tophat,” and grew angrier and angrier at this fictional character, until his face was blood-red.”
Once, after finishing his business on the throne, my Dad discovered that he was a victim of the TP game. (Similar to the milk game, where you put the empty milk container/bag back in the fridge instead of preparing and opening a new one.) After realizing the roll was empty and that there wasn’t a spare nearby, he became quite enraged. Not sure how he cleaned up but he then proceeded to gather up every square of shit stick in the house – he emptied the linen closet and every other bathroom – and kept it with him for the rest of the evening, daring anyone to ask for it.
Jeff, here’s the latest blog to rip off your content, images and all:
http://thispiggy.com/2009/04/15/fast-food-reality/
I’m sad when JK says “see ya tomorrow”. Which is now today and still no update…….
Good Morning Surf Reporters….
Check it out! Your fast food comparison page is being Dugg this morning!
http://digg.com/food_drink/Fast_Food_Reality_PICS
Congrats!
@ Luke – They give props to the surf report at the bottom of the page. I was about to get hocked off about it too ’til I saw it, way down at the bottom.
Yes, but couldn’t they have found their own bastardized fast food to take a pic of? It’s not real hard!
I had a normal, boring childhood. No stories.
QUESTION: When you trim your nose hair, do you pluck it or use a mechanical device?
QUESTION: I’d like to hear some stories from the early days of the printed WVSR. Speaking both as someone just curious about the roots of this institution, and as someone else who spent much of their “youth” in an unusually close relationship with their Glue Stick and P.O. Box (though mini-comics were more my thing).
QUESTION: Where is our new update?
Leave Jeff alone, he’s busy researching my Yuengling question. Of course, the state of WV has screwed everything up and delayed us getting the golden elixer another month. Bastuds!
QUESTION: Has the ever-so-reliable internet once again shit the bed?
I feel like biting someone….
Hey, Tammie.
Bite Me!
I just left me a semi-snarky comment at that ripoff site that attributed Jeff’s hard work way the FUCK down the page. Can’t let the bastards get away with that kind of backhanded compliment!
Oh, and as for ‘losing it’ moments – as someone who was once a kid, and as someone who is now a parent, I have my share. The best one I’ve heard though is from I guy I used to date, who, as a kid, was so very naughty one rainy (and presumably very LONG day) that his mom, after shouting at all 3 sibs repeatedly through the day, finally snapped. She screamed “WATCH ME!” to the hooligans, picked out a nice can of spray whipped cream from the fridge, and started spattering dairy graffiti all over the kitchen walls. Word has it that the house got very quiet very quickly thereafter. Effective AND tasty message-making! Inspired!
Haroxdan, I was wondering who’d “bite” on that golden opportunity. I should have known it would be you…