Anyone else have a parent like this?

[tuliprosedaffodil]

This is about my mother but could be anyone.

She has a habit that drives me crazy. Whenever I see her (or we speak on the phone) and we have a conversation and she tells me a story she narrates the whole thing.

So she'll be telling me about for example a neighbour who has annoyed her (everyone annoys her). Our conversation will go as follows:

Her: "So I went round there and said 'John you need to the turn your music down' and he was like 'no, I like it'. So I turned around and said 'well, the rest of the neighbourhood doesn't'
Me: "Oh dear, that sounds annoying Mum. Are you doing anything nice this afternoon?"
Her : "Well, not relaxing! Anyway, I said 'John I've asked you nicely, could you please turn it down' and he was like 'well I could a bit' and I was like 'that would be great, I just want to hear Gardeners World without your music over the top' and he said 'Oh Gardeners World I love that' and I said 'yes it is nice' and then he said 'oh your roses are really flourishing this year'

Etc etc etc. That's how she speaks all the time. It's even worse when she's telling a story about work involving people who I don't know at all. She could rattle on for hours in this way. She does it all the time too for example if she's here like she was in the garden over the weekend (she's part of our bubble) and my in laws were here too. My in laws obviously don't know anyone that she works with or really anything about her job and no exaggeration she talked like this for fifteen minutes about a long and boring thing that had happened at work. It always has to be about how someone has crossed her and she's put them in their place too. I was cringing!

She isn't elderly, she's late fifties!

Anyone else?

I know someone who does this. Around two thirds of the way through the monologue they'll throw in "so, to cut a long story short....." for good measure.

I find it quite sweet, but couldn't deal with it too regularly

Both my mother and MIL are like this except my MIL has to pause at the end of every statement to obtain the agreement of my FIL. His response has now become a range of mumbles indicating some form of consent given he's asked to do it a hundred times a day
MIL: so we went to the big Tesco this weekend didn't we Jim?
Jim:hmmmmunm
MIL: and we saw Mary there didn't we Jim and she said to us 'oooh I'm glad to see you' didn't she Jim because she wanted to ask me about the pineapple cake I'd made for Janice's coffee morning because she liked it didn't she Jim?
Jim: uuhhhhmmmmmhmm

MIL: so I said 'use the plain flour Mary!' And she said 'ooh why?' didn't she Jim and I said, well...
Jim: hnnngggguuuhhhmm

My mum was like this, when DH first met her he recalls her rabbiting on to me about betty and joan and then gladys and elsie at the golf club and trish from work and her friend josie their husbands malkie and bob and on and on with me smiling and nodding and making appropriate comments, When she paused to go and make a cup of tea he asked me incredulously how did i know all of these people ? Never heard of them says I 😁

@mnahmnah

My mum too. And she will repeat the same story, but when I say she’s already told me, she will still re-tell it in detail again!

Also obsessed with the weather. I’m about to ring her and you can guarantee she will start with ‘well, today has been...’ and go into an hour by hour account of the weather today. Combine that with one of the detailed mundane stories and you’re in for a treat

Ha ha My mum will tell me the same story umpteenth times to the point that I can practically tell the story word for word. She will do what your mum does and repeat the story even when I tell her that she has recounted the same story several times Sometimes it’s annoying, but there will be a day when I will no longer hear her stories and will miss them

I'm like this 😂😂😂 I also quite enjoy it when people tell stories this way as well 🙈🙈

I've got to the stage with my Mum when she starts whittling about her neighbour downstairs, daughters dog's arsehole....I cut her off and ask "do I know these people ?". She knows I dont so I stop her

And yes she will talk for hours about poor Baxters arsehole being sore while her grandkids who she hasn't seen in nearly a year are trying to talk to her

I'm not sure if it an age thing as my mum has been putting me through this since I was around 10 ( so she would have been 35) I remember sitting there not knowing where to look awkward eye contact for half an hour of me listening to these shit stories.

She has got worse as she has got older though

She will give me the impression she needs to tell me something really important ( I will be worried she is going to say someone has died ). She then proceeds to tell me all of the minor details e.g; " I said hello how are you ? " he said yeah I'm good thank you how are you ?" I said yes I'm good thank you" so anyway then he said . This goes on for absolutely ages . Every detail.

Even when she was calling to sadly tell me my cousin had a miscarriage it was all irrelevant details causing my anxiety to build up " have you spoke to your cousin today?" " no mum, why" " well yesterday she didn't have much movement so she rang the triage line ..." but this story started at 8 am with reduced movement and ended 2 days later with a very sad outcome but I have to sit and listen to 2 days of he said she said very sad detail until she gets to the very sad point of the story. So i have spent ages listening to all these details at some point in the story thinking oh it sounds like her baby is ok thank god to then ending with her not making it but the story was do detailed I would rather know the sad outcome at the start otherwise I'm wondering throughout the whole chat if the baby is alive :(

She will even text me in the morning with a huge paragraph of daily gossip. E.g: good morning it's your cousins birthday today, your other cousin starts their new job, my sister is walking to walk today she said it's so lovely the patients are having the covid vaccine and bringing biscuits in . I saw sally today she said to be remembered to you ( never met the woman) she said her daughter is 10 now and I said I can't believe she is 10. Do you remember bob( never met him) he moves house today etc

It's so annoying !

I can see I have put very long paragraph oops sorry! Just really passionate about how frustrating this is!

@daffodilsandprimroses my mum also does this ! For every single person !

Same here with DM. The bit that drives me particularly nuts is the absolute determination to get the timeline 100% correct. So I went to Waitrose on Monday morning, ooh no wait that can't be right because that was the day the window cleaner came so it must have been Tuesday, was it Tuesday, oh yes it was because I'd been to the shop for the paper first thing and then I saw Dave on the way back, you know Dave, the one that lives in the little bungalow (I have no idea who Dave it but I dare not say in case that prompts another loop of explanation). Anyway I went to Waitrose on Tuesday, it was about 10.00, or was it 10.30, now let me think.......it must have been more like 11 because your sister popped in a bit earlier to drop off the garden chairs, did I tell you what her neighbour said to her yesterday......

The entire point of the story will be something like she went to Waitrose and the carpark was very busy or they didn't have XYZ she wanted to get, so next time she's going to try Sainsbury's, even though that's 8 miles away and Waitrose is only 6 miles away. I live at the other end of the country, I do not need all this detailed supermarket/traffic information!!

We do have fairly normal chats a lot of the time, but once she's started the telling of a story, there's no stopping her, even with a 'mum can you get to the point please I'm busy and I can't stay on the phone long'. She does laugh at herself though tbf.

@CongealedCrags my mum dies this keeps talking bc about Joan and Shona. Joan owned the house next door then died and now Shona owns it but I have never clapped eyes on either of them but get detailed descriptions of their lives. I fell down my stairs and texted my mum ‘hurt myself falling downstairs’ response was ‘Joan has died’ ffs I don’t know this Woman and are you not concerned that your daughter has fallen and injured herself?