Thread inspired by another thread - what would your mum do if you were kidnapped by Parisian sex traffickers?

[Preoleai]

I couldn’t sleep last night, and ended up reading the thread in classics inspired by the Liam Neeson film, Taken. Laughed so much that any chance of sleep went completely by the board! And then I started wondering what my mum would do.

I think she’d probably first need someone to tell her what sex traffickers were, and that, yes, there really are such people in the world. She’d need a long detailed explanation as to why they chose me, where they found me, how many of them there were, how old they were, where they lived, what their parents did, what cars they drove, what their children were called - you get the picture.

Then she’d ring her friends to explain what had happened and to ask what she should do. Having heard their advice, she’d decide she couldn’t act on any of it because she’s not clever enough (she is) or not brave enough (she is) or doesn’t speak french well enough (she doesn’t).

Then she’d go round to Katie next door to ask her to feed the cat, and end up staying for an hour and a cup of tea. Because offending Katie is of course worse than losing her daughter to sex traffickers (who she still wouldn’t really believe existed).

Then she’d need a bit of time to hoover the stairs (a daily activity that CANNOT be forgone. I’m not sure why).

Anyway, finally, at some point - perhaps about six weeks after learning of my plight - she’d arrive in Paris. By which time I’d have been spirited far far away. She’d have a conversation with the concierge of her hotel who would tell her that of course sex traffickers didn’t exist, she would sigh with relief and say that she knew such awful people didn’t exist. She would return home, happy in the knowledge that all was well, and very pleased with the Eiffel Tower tea towels she’d bought for her friends and Katie next door.

I’m not sure at what point it would occur to her that I was nowhere to be seen and that she hadn’t heard from me in a while.

I love my mum but if I have to rely on her to rescue me from the traffickers, I’m toast!

What would your mums do? :)

My Mum would be annoyed with me that it was French sex traffickers and find a way to blame it on the fact that I'm overweight.

Track us down and kill them by nagging.

Make my dad do something about it.

She would put her glasses on, and Have Words with them in her Headteacher Voice. The kidnappers would be shit scared and give me straight back.

My mum would find them and Suffocate them by wrapping them in a parcel with multiple rolls of tape, impossible to get into or out of.

Thank you OP, I had forgotten how funny that thread was.

My response is probably the same - back in the day she would have moved heaven and earth, but nowadays DH would have to sort it. Mind you, he would be accompanied by an awesome supply of sandwiches, maybe some sausage rolls, definitely some cold sausages, some pancakes (as long as the shop was open before he left, because they have to be fresh), some more sandwiches but this time with no ham in them (in case the kids accompany him and they have gone off ham in the last 24hours). Then there are the drinks. Would one flask be enough, coke or Diet Coke, maybe some Fanta just in case. Oh and then, in case he needed a desert, there would have to be some chocolate biscuits, definitely chocolate Mini rolls, but chocolate might melt in the heat so there would be some plain biscuits too, probably digestives or maybe rich tea, mmm but then maybe some shortbread. And then there will be crisps, oh my, would he be ok with just Tayto or would he want some of them fancy modern type brands, salt and vinegar might be too strong so better get bbq too.

Etc etc.

NI born and bred and very proud of it.

Mine would meditate, send some distant healing and ask her spirit guides for advice.

@gospelsinger I think you must be my SIL!

My dad probably wouldn't notice

My darling mother would not have been impressed.

She'd have given them short shrift and had me home in good time to peel the spuds for dinner.

And it would've been my fault and I should've known better.

I needed the laugh that some of you have provided. And I’m sorry for those of you with awful mothers. My MIL would have contacted the sex traffickers, sent them a spare key to get in to my house easily, told them when to catch me on my own, told Dh I must have run off with another man - she always told him I was a bad’un - and moved in. She would probably have given the traffickers some handy hints on effective torture techniques.

I'd get a lecture for sure on why France and Paris in particular are stupid places to visit, and she has never understood my fascination with Paris. Then she would tell me not to worry, they would soon return me when they spent much time with me because I would annoy them so much (meant kindly and affectionately). Then panic would set in and her and my dad would phone the police.

Mine would probably say “Oh well I’m sure it will sort itself out” and go back to her knitting.

My Mum would probably Google 'what to do when your daughter gets kidnapped by Parisian sex traffickers' and then make lots of phonecalls and wait patiently while she was put on hold and passed from department to department. She would go down all the official channels and speak to the embassy and things like that because she believes in stuff like that. If she had to go to Paris herself she'd probably have a lovely croissant and champagne on the Eurostar, enjoy flexing her French in some Police backroom, pick up a snazzy outfit at some point and when I was inevitably returned to her (as she always gets her way) she get me to admit that I'd been rather silly hadn't I but that her trip to Paris had been entirely wasted in fact it had been rather jolly. She would then show me her new outfit and tell me about the croissant. If I showed any signs of the trauma I had most probably just been through she would say I was making an awful fuss and she was the one that had to go all the way to Paris. Oh but while she was there she did speak to this very nice gentleman at the embassy and picked up this lovely outfit and had the most delicious croissant and at this point I would probably consider returning to my abusers.

I posted on the original thread too (different username)

Firstly my DM would roll her eyes heavenward, tut loudly and if it happened on a Monday morning I'd have to wait until after she'd been to slimming world.

She'd have to "put on a bit of makeup", then convince my dad to take her, because she's "okay to drive to sainsbury, but I prefer it if your dad drives now"

Between the two of them needing a cup of coffee, wees, not being able to find the car keys, dad trying to get Paris up on the satnav, having to stop for wine gums "for the journey", stopping at random garden centres for more coffees, wees, "perhaps we should get a nice hosta??", lunch, "ooh look this one has an Edinburgh Woollen Mill, you could do with a new jumper " they might make it to Paris in a fortnight.

Couldn't be rescued on a Tuesday, Friday or Saturday (golf)

Wednesday or Thursday might be okay at a push, No chance on a Sunday because they need all day to do the crossword in the Telegraph.

My mum would get my brother to look up Paris on 'The Google Maps' and then have a bit of a dithering about it being a bit further than she likes to drive on her own.

She would decide to go anyway because "no one else will bother, will they?" followed by some mild mannered grumping about how she does "everything round here". First though she'd have to pop to the garage to check her tyre pressure. She would ring me to ask me what the correct tyre pressure is even though a, I have a totally different car to her and b, I'm kidnapped in Paris. This wouldn't stop her from leaving me a voicemail that begins "hello, it's me... your mum... I just wanted to ask..." followed by a stream of consciousness lost of questions. Only around 45% of these will be relayer to her original reason for ringing me. She would then end the voicemail by saying "I'll try your landline".

While at the garage checking her tyre pressure she will buy some top quality road snacks - Murray Mints (you can't hurry a murray), mint crumbles, and mint imperials. We always arrive wherever we are going with very fresh breath.

After getting home she would get my brother to come over and programme the Sat Nav for her then off she would go.

Ten minutes later she would return and get my brother to reprogramme the Sat Nav because she has accidentally deleted the destination while trying to get it to talk in a celebrity voice. She will insist she bought the model capable of doing celebrity voices despite my brother and my dad telling her that she didn't.

She will again ring me even though a, I don't know which model of Sat Nav she has and b, I am kidnapped in fucking Paris. Another voicemail will be left and she will try my landline just in case she can catch me at home instead.

She will dig out the instruction book for the Sat Nav to check how to make it do the celebrity voice. When she finds out that it can't she will swear that it used to do it and she drove all the way to Hull with Sarah Millican doing the directions.

She then realises that actually it wasn't the Sat Nav. It was a Safah Millican audiobook she was listening to.

She gets my brother to set up her phone to the car sound system so that she can listen to audiobooks on the drive to Paris.

Off she goes. The Sat Nav says the drive will take 10 hours.

Two days later she arrives in Paris having made a detour via Primark, Next, and the wrong exit of the A1 where she had to drive around for a bit while the Sat Nav recalculated the route and she tried to work out how to rewind Sarah Millican.

She will walk into the kidnappers den with some nice pyjamas that she saw for them in Primark. She'll comment on how nice the den is looking and if they have any dirty dishes in the sink or ironing in the laundry basket she'll quickly take care of it before heading off again. If the kidnappers give her any lip they will very quickly see her transform into the ultimate 5"2 tough-nut and will be sorry they messed with her. She was once mugged at knifepoint and the mugger did get her handbag but he also lost his knife when she slapped it out of his hand and when it all went to court she got told off by the judge when she referred to the mugger as "that cheeky little shit over there". She will tell me to get in the car and of course I will, I don't want to be on the receiving end of it.

We will sit on the kidnappers drive way while I reprogramme her Sat Nav for the return journey and she gets me to set up her Sarah Millican audiobook, although she will tell me everything that happens in it so that I don't need to actually listen to it. She'll ask if I'm getting changed first or am I going dressed like that? She'll also ask "do you not check your voicemail? I rang you" before wondering if she should check her tyre pressure again.

Whenever the story is retold she will insist that I was not in Paris, it was Peterborough, wasn't it? And that she came straight to my rescue with no delay at all. She'll also insist that she used the celebrity voice setting on her Sat Nav.

Well it would definitely be my fault because I am a woman and I must have done something to make the men kidnap me as men never do anything wrong, only woman.

She would phone her sister and her best friend and tell them and when they started to panic she would then phone my brother and tell him because it would occur to her that she would look bad to the rest of the world if she didn't take it seriously.

She would then phone my brother once a day for an update while she watches tv and answers the phone to everyone while revelling in all the attention she had got from it. And when I got home all my family (except brother) would blame me for putting my poor mother through such a stress.

Would you guess we are not a happy family.

KKSlider this should go into classics for that post alone

^^

KKSlider agree

Had me in stitches 🧵

She would plan to kill them and her rage driven by wanting to save me makes me sure she COULD kill them to protect me

But she would definitely get lost and walk the same streets of Paris for days instead ...

My mum would blame me for going out on my own. She would say she warned me walking the dog in broad daylight in the park was dangerous and asking for trouble. She would delight in being proved right. She would phone around the family to tell everyone, but not actually help in any way, or even switch the TV off. Then she’d probably say, as she has many times in the past, allowing me to go to university was a mistake. And say i might have qualifications but Ive obviously got no common sense as i let myself get kidnapped by ‘partisan traffic cops‘ (because she’d only be half listening).

I have seven siblings. It would take a while for her to notice she was missing one.

When she did, she would tell my dad, they would spend an afternoon talking shit about the French and reminding anyone who intervenes that French is NOT a race and it is therefore not racist.

She'd probably use it as an excuse to take a holiday to Paris and would fit my rescue in in the last afternoon before she needs to leave. She would talk the ear off my kidnappers ("cheese eating surrender monkeys" would probably enter in somewhere) and I can imagine it culminating in
"YOU ARE NOT AN INTERNATIONAL SEX TRAFFICKER. YOU'RE A VERY NAUGHTY BOY."
I would be handed over to get her to stop talking and she would spend the flight home telling me that

• I'm bound to get a cold, having spent all that time half naked
• That said, the last diet really has done something for me, there was probably never a better time to do this. After all, I'm not going to be young forever and if you're going to be a sex slave, you may as well look good doing it.
• She's had a lovely time in Paris. Not the people, obviously. But the food was nice.
• She was right about the French, wasn't she?

She would forget about it two days later.

My mum is so deaf she wouldn't hear the phone ringing to tell her I had been kidnapped. If she was notified by text she wouldn't see it either as her phone lives in her handbag permanently.

If she was successfully contacted, Dad would have to drive and that would instigate Much Swearing. I would have to be picked up after lunch and before teatime as otherwise they would miss the 6pm news and he won't drive in the dark.

I posted on the original thread too. I think my mother would go to pieces, she's not good in a crisis, and send my dad after them. Dad would get me home then I'd never hear the end of it from mother about putting myself in a risky situation, stressing her out and making her worried sick.

I know this is all meant mostly as a laugh, (except for those who have awful mothers) and there are some top notch mothers mentioned here but taken as a whole, a lot of it reads as rather ageist and fairly patronising.

We'll all be old one day. But I'm post menopausal, so feel free to just ignore me.