Utterly insane things your parents did when you were growing up

[GetOrf]

My gran thought that liquid paraffin applied to my skin as achild would stop me from burning (in the tropics). God knows why she thought that. I stank! And was wary of lit cigarettes. Needless to say it didn't work and I fried.

She bought a 6 foot long chest freezer from a shop which was going bust, and put it in the hallway. Our house looked like Iceland (Kerry Katona, not volcano) when you walked in. She bought half a cow from a local farmer to put in the deep freeze. We could have had fillet steak, but no, she kept that for best (?) and we ate the offal. Never did eat that fillet steak, it was probably still in the freezer when she died.

Would refuse to pay the council to remove old ovens or whatever, so would wait until the dead of night, we would dress up like burglars and would fly tip the oven (by hoiking it over a 6 foot wall into allotments, or shioving it down a rough path and pushing it into the sea over the harbour wall). Ilfracombe residents of the 80s - that oven on the beach in August was mine.

Same happened with hanging baskets - she would refuse to buy Busy Lizzies or lobelias or whatever to make her hanging baskets, so we would sneak into municipal parks at dead of night and nick 'em.

What eccentric or frankly insane things did your parents or guardians do?

My parents were original back-to-the-landers. At various points we lived on a First Nation reserve in a converted box car of a train, a canvas tent (but only for 7 months) and various log cabins (sans amenities).
There is a pic of the one they live in now on my profile, that they built with the help of locals when I was 7.
My Dad was a "give a man a hand up" kind of guy, so would hire anyone to work. Anyone.
Due to a very drunken worker, our front door ended up a triangle shape, so it had to have an extra door panel added to even it out!

There are loads more.....

When I was 17, I had to ask my mother to PLEASE stop putting my toothpaste on my toothbrush and leaving it on the side of the sink for me every morning.

thanks chaos. She really was (and is!)

She used to take us for picnics... in the local graveyard

She told my friends my middle name is marietta (it's not)

She used to leapfrog over the dustbin on the way back from hanging out the clothes.

her and my dad used to have snowball fights and he'd chase her down the road and shove snow in her knickers

she once kicked my dad and he went flying over the sofa (she did martial arts!)

My dad used to do crazy dances round the living room. Once, his trousers fell down and he went face first.

My mum dared me to do the walk like an egyptian dance round the garden. I did. A neighbour was walking past, didn't miss a step, simply said Hi and carried on walking

We were known as "the crazy buggers on the corner"

My mum told people I dressed in black, with a black hat and veil and picked nettles to make tea

She told me about her friend who had a pet tarantula that was so friendly that it would climb up to your face and gently stroke your cheek with its leg.
She also told me about giant cockroaches that make very loving pets.
On those last two, I believed her! And I would tell people all about it. They would nod and smile politely. The last person I told all about it was my now husband. Who was not so polite . That's when I realised it was bollocks. At 24y old.

My parents kept a zoo! cats (sometimes nearly 20!) we had rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, rats, hamsters, gerbils... The cats would lay curled up by the fire with the rabbits and guinea pigs. My now husband didn't believe that until I took him to the house and showed him!

We used to have massive water fights

Then the not so fun stuff - never had loo roll. Grew up wiping my arse on newspaper and pages from books

ran out of gas / electric regularly.

christmas presents regularly sold in january

eating only food in house - christmas hamper - by light from gas cooker on christmas eve cos electric gone again!

That's all that's coming to me atm. There are hundreds more

Ironing wallpaper.

Brillo pad on dirty windows.

These stories sound like something you'd find in an Ealing Comedy. My childhood was so so dull

Hully - you know you wanna...

My mum used to get up in the dead of night and move our toys around to make us believe they were alive. My brother still has night terrors and I'm pretty sure that's not a coincidence.

Breaking the sofa being Errol Flynn and the wicker washbasket being ali baba and the forty thieves (mother again strangely)

Driving the car with the wrong key which would fail occasionally and getting the big teenager boys from school to push start.

Stickers on another car.

Jeez, mine sounds lame compared to this lot.

oh, I forgot about our bedtime song

I can't remember the whole thing, but it ended with "I'm a big bad troll and I'm mean, I don't mean maybe... I'm a big bad troll and Iiiiiiiiii'm meeeeeeeeeeannnnnnn..."

Every night.

When I was 14 My Dad decided that it would be a good project for me, on my own, to build a brick porch on the front of our house over the summer holidays.
I arrrived home from school to find a huge pile of sand, bricks, cement, door and window frames on the front lawn and a design and some scanty instructions drawn in pencil directly on to the kitchen table.

Thankfully my mother intervened in the nick of time.

Dad made lovely elderflower 'champagne' which I will always treasure in my memory -- but he got the elderflowers by hoiking one of us up to the top of a really high wall near the house and have us reach out precariously for the elderflowers, with traffic slowing down as drivers gawked, and pedestrians stared.

Taught me to wield an axe at a tender age so I could contribute to firewood chopping duty. Steadfastly refused to consider central heating..

Trips to mountaintops up through forestry tracks in the family car, with all of us screaming hysterically in the back as we slipped and slid upwards, through muddy patches where we would often get stuck, with dad changing gears strategically and the engine adding its own complaints to the general air of terror... Happy days.

LeQ, your family sounds fantastically batty

OTOH, I took my DCs to a neighbour in order to get them infected with chicken pox.

My parent thought it was a good idea for everyone to learn how wonderful baby farm animals were, and would randomly show up at the local school with goat kids, a calf, puppies, or chicks.
Mum would just walk into class, and let them loose to "play" with the kids, totally ignoring the teacher. Or the dirty stares and tut tuts when a goat peed on the floor , or chicks shat on the carpet!

My childhood was so mundane

Also, something common but still insane.

My mum insisted that we called her closest friend Aunty X.

I was about 15 when I realised for the first time that Aunty Xs children were not my cousins

My grandad used to let me and my brother (both under 10 at the time) fence each other with full size sabres and cutlasses. I could barely lift the fucking thing, yet we were encouraged to swashbuckle our way round the house. Health and safety weren't completely ignored though...he put a cork on the tip of each sword

Mum made my brother learn Latin when he was a teenager. This was during lunchtimes when normal boys were out smoking and playing football. Luckily I escaped such madness. Tiger parenting was alive and well in the 80's .

My dad used to tell such whoppers.

he told me and I believed him for ages that he-
Had a glass eye
Was a part time Dr
Used to be a little girl
Zebras were horses with their PJs on

Actually, my grandma was the same.

She used to ride donkeys at the seaside (she was a tiny little woman). Pretty funny to see a little old lady on a donkey though

She also swung round a lamppost while singing Marlene Dietrich's 'falling in love again' - on holiday on the isle of wight

She invented Pincer & Crab. A game that involved sitting on her knee and being pinched by Pincer (left hand) and Crab (right hand) who just loved to pinch you. We loved it

When I was little, I caught her in her undies - she'd been ironing her clothes to wear - and I said "GRANDMA! You're a dirty person." Ever after that, she was the Dirty Person. She thought it hillarious

She had a flashing mac. Not actual flashing, you understand. But fully clothed flapping

hmmmm, yup. I'm fairly sure it's genetic.

That'll be why I dance to the 'music' in Tesco and go down the slides when I take the boys to the park. And why I make them do the wizard of oz walk down the street with me.

Oh, I've remember another Mother one - she leapt out in front of a young chap and whipped open her coat and yelled NOBODY expects the spanish inquisition.

He nearly had a heart attack.

mathanxiety -ah yes the great elderflower hunt. I remember it well. Be thankful that you had plants near your house,our hunt took us to plants hanging over the A702

Why/How I'm still here is possibly due to the care of the drivers.

My Dad used to chain his car up to the house at night.

Clearly a crook-look was not enough.

lequeen you've really got to stop, because im laughing something silly on the floor dc's are starting to look worried, i cant explain to them she wipes away a tear oh dear! Your family sound absolutely barking but what a happy family to grow up in.

Kaumana, I'm just sorry you never drank any. It is delicious.

Worth the effort? Maybe...