I am unreasonable. But don't ring me at work about stuff that I can't do anything about and then get huffy when I say I'm busy!

[ILoveTomHardy]

So anyway my mum lives in Spain. My DS(9) goes over there in the summer holidays. This year he took his ipod touch. While he was over there my parents set up a new itunes account for him. and put my mum's bank details in. I did not know that she had put her bank details in.

So my son comes back in September and he has a voucher (£30) for his itunes account which was a present from my brother, who also lives in Spain. I put the voucher code in for him.

Today I am at work. My mum rings me at work. I say "you will have to be quick Ma because I'm busy" because my boss is standing in front of me. My mum gets all huffy and puffy and sulky and says it's important.

Apparently she has had money going out of her bank account to itunes. She has just noticed this. She has contacted the bank who have said they will involve their fraud department. Before they do she wanted to see if it could be my DS and his itunes account.

I made the following points to her:-

1. My DS had a perfectly adequate itunes account before he went to Spain. My parents closed the old account and set up a new one. Why? God knows, but they didn't tell me that my mum's bank details were on the new account. A 9 year old is not to be trusted with other people's money.

1. I am at work. Before my mum retired and she worked FT, neither my brother or I would have phoned her unless one of us was actually on fire. And even then we would have tried to put out the flames before ringing her at work because SHE WAS VERY, VERY BUSY.

1. The amounted debited from her account? £5.98. Couldn't this have waited for 90 minutes until I arrive home from work?

1. If they were the ones who set up this account then why can't my mum or dad log on to the account and remove said bank details?

This is not the first or even the twentieth time that my mum has rang me at work about things that can wait for a couple of hours. I don't get pissed off at her ringing me. I get pissed off at the passive aggressive sighing and huffing and puffing about the fact that I can't drop everything to speak to her.

:o sorry but your OP is funny, esp the bit about trying to put out the flames first.
YANBU though.

Sorry, but this is tres amusing.

Thank god it isn't £5980.00...

Ha ha! She is a bloody nightmare sometimes. And she's a very, very young 64 and only been retired for eight years so she must remember what it's like to be at work and getting personal phone calls.

I agree OP. I find with my parents and PILs, as they get older they are finding the 'putting things in perspective' abilities alluding them. Also the 'realising what's a major thing to you may not be that important to anyone else' ability seems to be a distant memory. The chosen method of dealing with things seems to be 'ring Koala repeatedly till she shouts at us and then we can play the martyr' technique.

Having said this, my Dad has never worked in an office and has never in his whole life grasped why me and my mum can't just chatter away on the phone, or drop everything and pop out/go home early/not go in if we have something he deems as more important. So that's not just age.

How odd that they set up a different account tho

Haha, yes my mum does this too, I think it's a mum thing!

If it was £5,980 it would constitute an emergency so she might have been let off with the sulking and pouting.

Her mum was even worse. My mum used to do her hair every Saturday. My mum had had a full hysterectomy and was laid up for six weeks. My gran still turned up with her laquer in one hand and her comb in the other expecting a shampoo and bloody set. And got the arse when she couldn't have it.

And she used to do the "I could be dead for all you care" routine if you didn't ring her every day. Priceless.

HA! My, not at all infirm at the time, Grandad quite seriously told my auntie she shouldn't see her daughter or dgc's (or stay with them to help when my cousin had had a c-section and had 4 kids to looks after) as he should be her priority and she would have plenty of time to talk to/see people when he was dead.

That's an incredibly long post for someone who is busy at work .

koala are you sure your grandad wasn't related to my nan in some way. This is exactly how she used to think. That she should be the priority every time, over every one because she would soon be dead and then we would all be sorry. She started like this when Grandad died in 1981. She lived for another 30 years!

Koala . That is brilliant.

My gran used to say that she could be lying at the bottom of the stairs, and no-one would know. She might even starve to death. Er no Gran, you have five children, eighteen grandchildren (most of whom had the code to the key safe), a cord to summon the warden and a mobile phone permanently in your pocket. I do not think that starvation was on the cards at any time.

Food poisoning from out of date tinned corned beef however was a distinct possibility.

Mintyy- yes. My boss has buggered off and I am wagging it until five, when I can go home.

Oh god these are funny. I have a relative who does this. I answer the phone as it's an unknown number and I think it could be nursery. When I realise it isn't she gets the right hump. After 7pm for chatting PLEASE.

I can remember another time where my mum had tried ringing me over the weekend. My landline, not my mobile. I was out all weekend. I have no answerphone. On Monday morning I had an email (to my work email) saying she needed to talk to me and that she had rang loads of times and couldn't reach me. Before I could ring her reception said my mum was on the phone.

Well I was shitting myself. Had something happened? Was someone injured? Was someone trapped down a mine shaft??

No, apparently she "just wanted a chat". A bloody chat?? After ringing my landline (according to her at least ten times) she had decided to frighten me into talking to her by making out something bad had happened. I wouldn't mind but I speak to her at least twice a week so it's not like I'm avoiding her.

What are you thinking giving your mum your work number?

If it's your moby, let it go to voice mail.

tsk.

(nearly five o clock)

I'm sure it must be nearly wine o'clock. Or Mojito o'clock? It's been a long, long day.

Wine o clock at 6 sharp. Also, Friday night is chocolate night in our house :)

An aged and very sexist relative in his late 70s got his mid-80s bed-ridden with very severe osteoporosis wife out of bed to cook his tea because he could not possibly be expected to do it himself and for once none of the children or grandchildren was available. And she did it, silly woman. I couldn't bring myself to speak to him any more once I learned that.

But I sympathise. I only got my mother to stop calling for a chat at 8am by some spectacular rudeness that caused weeks of fall-out. Apparently that's when she could be sure of getting me. No, just switch off Foyle's War and ring me mid-evening like a normal person.

I had to answer in case it was work.

I've got some jelly tots, starburst (allthough they should still be called opal fruits in my book) and some Sports Mixture (yuck) for my DF. It's sodding football tonight too so I might have to have a bit more wine than normal.

I am lucky with my mum. She waits for me to ring her. If she wants me in between, she will text me, as she knows it is hard for her to guess when its a good time. I always call her back and nobody is grumpy.

Could yours learn to text you instead?

You have my sympathy if you have to watch football. I would be in the bath or watching something nice on IPlayer.