To ask for your best examples of brass-neckedness to entertain us all on this dull day?

[Salmotrutta]

I've got one from decades ago.

My older brother was about 18 and going out with a girl of about 16.

It was pretty short lived as she seemed to be a bit spoiled etc. and they were only teens after all.

My brother was the one who ended it but girl seemed to think Mum was behind it.

Mum wasn't but she had asked to girl to help bring in washing during the rain when she stayed over at our house one weekend as mum was in the middle of something when rain started.

This was apparently a criminal act to ask someone for a bit of help so girlfriend moaned to brother (who I think had got rather exasperated by her anyway by this point) and he ended it.

Apparently this did not go down well.

Next thing, her little sister phoned my Mum and castigated her for being the cause of all this! Little sister would have been about 14 and mum would have been about 45!

That didn't go down well either.

Bloody hell, Gordy! And you passed up the chance to get back with him? He sounds a catch.

Yes gordy - what were you thinking letting him slip through your fingers like that...

Just remembered another from the wedding - it just seems to bring the brassneck out of people.

So there is some random half cousin on FIL side that DW has never met and they phone up MIL and say that DW aunt cant come (before she has even phoned or RSVP) and that she wants to come instead, and she also needs to bring her daughter!

They did come as we had drop outs, though since this she is going to get married and FIL is quite vocally boycotting as they have only had evening invite.

My ex was a brass necker of the highest order. There are so many instances but this one always sticks in my mind.

Ex called me one Friday night, clearly inebriated, demanding that I go to the cash point and drive into town to met him in order for me to lend him "50 quid but 25 would do" because he'd seen a friends sister head in to a night club with some chap who was "undesirable" and he absolutely had to go in too to keep an eye on her but he'd run out of money (as per usual)

I very scarastically told him that whilst I would love to help:

A - it was 12.30 am and I was in bed
b - he was my ex of approx 4 weeks and actually I didn't have to do anything for him
c - given he already owed me money I wasn't about to lend him anymore
d - even if I had any desire to help him in this terrible situation (i didnt) he should have remembered the date as I was actually 100 miles away on a trip arranged months before and couldn't help even if I had wanted to.

There was a silence and then he uttered the immortal words "well colleysmill you've just made an awful situation even more untenable!" And hung up on me.

Needless to say it turned out only part of the story was true except he omitted to tell me the friends sister had previously turned his advances and actually he was following her round town trying to chat her up. So not quite the emergency he claimed.

he uttered the immortal words "well colleysmill you've just made an awful situation even more untenable!"

I'm soooo going to use that sometime!

...without the "colleysmill" obviously!

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your nominations, we've now moved this to classics.

Unfortunately I am far too identifiable, otherwise I'd have a few corkers to add to the thread .

it's funny now but by heck I was fuming at the time! The cheek of that manchild was unbelievable

Many years ago I worked as an events and conference co-ordinator for a large company. During the recession this was one area where there were cutbacks and I was made redundant.

As I was single at the time with a mortgage to support I needed to find a new job very quickly. I saw a fantastic job in the trade press which would have meant promotion.

I spent ages working on my CV and showed it my boss (who wasn't being made redundant) for her input.

A few days later I found out that not only had she decided to apply for the job but that she had copied my CV virtually word for word. Obviously she had more experience as the role was similar to the one she was doing.

Felt really betrayed as I thought that she was a friend as well as my boss.

Turns out that there is a god as neither of us got the job.

G'wan AmyMumsnet - you know you want to tell us...

Some of these are just astonishing - and what is most astonishing about it is that the poster lets the perpetrator get away with it! Some of you must be terrible doormats...

Oooh, SIL immortalised in Classics forever!

Stacklady, the brass-neckers get away with it the first time (or even the first few times) because they manage to make their behaviour seem normal, while the 'doormat' thinks, 'Surely this is not right?', but, being a nice person, gives Brass the benefit of the doubt (having a bad day... I must have taken that the wrong way...maybe that's just how that family works...). Sometimes Doormat has to put up with it to keep the peace with the in-laws. Or whatever.

Then Brass is deeply shocked when Doormat jumps up and bites. And Doormat looks back on the incident with unconstrained glee for YEARS!

Congrats on starting a great thread, salmotrutta. It's been so nice to know what good company I'm in!

Wednesday evening the phone rings.It was my OH sister.
She said to him "I know you are moving house on Friday but I have decided to go away for the weekend and I need you to service my car before I go "
He said no.

I think I may well be doormat ..I really do have lots.
When we were at college I didn't get any spending money off my parents. But I had a weekend job so was actually 'richer' than lots of my friends. One friend 'borrowed' money off me -in dribs and drabs and for important things - like a pregnancy test once - she kept a tally and was definitely going to pay me back...owed me about £30.

Then she got a full time job in the holidays. When she got her first paycheck she came to eat in the restaurant I worked in with her boyfriend both kitted out in brand new clothes - they'd been on a spree - spent over £100 plus the cost of the meal...she said something like 'why not - I worked hard for this money' - paying me back was never mentioned again .
Late teens I lived away but was back visiting another friend - staying at her parent's house overnight. Friend wanted to go somewhere odd and I'd never been before - turns out she was having a fling with a married, older man who worked there. At the end of his shift she wanted to 'spend some private time' with him - but I couldn't go back to her parent's without her. So she suggested I went back to this man's friend's house and she would come and pick me up in an hour or so. This guy was really creepy, gross, a real 'dirty old man' - after I'd been there (just him and me) for 30 mins or so he put a pornographic video on. Obviously trying to get me in the mood .... yuk, yuk, yuk. I decided I'd better leave - I hung around on the street for a couple of hours and still my friend didn't appear...in desperation I went back and hung around outside her house ...I was freezing, tired and worried about her. At 7am someone started moving around in her house - so I knocked and her mum let me in - said I'd lost friend and I was really worried about her - turns out friend was fast asleep in her bed. Decided she couldn't be bothered to come out of her way to pick me up...decided I'd be fine staying with her 'bf' s friend. Worse I found out later she'd told her parents it was me who'd gone off shagging a stranger

Conversation with Brown Owl:

BO We're all going on Pack Holiday! The first week of the holidays!

Me Er, I'll be in France then.

BO But I've booked it! I need you to come! We're all going! I have to have the adults! Etc

Me Sorry, but you never said.... our holidays booked.

BO But I've booked it now!I need you to come! We're all going! I was so excited! I need you! I've booked it now! We're all going......your husband can take the kids to France!!!

Me Er, no.

I used to do babysitting for a couple of local families when I was at university.

Once I was asked to do a Saturday afternoon for a family with two primary school aged kids. Turned up at the appointed time to be told it was the eldest child's birthday party, and a dozen 9-10 year old girls were expected in an hour. Birthday Girl's parents showed me where to set up the food and drinks before they headed out the door for the afternoon and evening.

I had to admire their inventive approach, although was somewhat peeved that I didn't get a bonus when they paid me.

DH and I were about to move to a new flat about 2 mins away from where we were living. We arranged to hire a van for a half day and expected to drive less than 10 miles in total from collecting van, moving and returning the van.

A colleague of DH's was also about to move from a shared house about 30 miles away into her new house which was about 5 miles away from us. She couldn't afford a van and asked if she could share with us.

I still don't know what DH was thinking when he said yes. We ended up having to hire the van for the whole day instead of half so no saving there. We got up early and moved all our stuff into new flat and then without anytime to unpack or get organised we set off to help her.

We drove to her house about 30 miles away where she directed us with what to load onto the van while the friend that she had brought to help her floated around smoking weed. Neither of them ever lifted a box.

We then drove to her new house and she started directing us again. In the end I lost it as she watched us lifting box after box and barked 'upstairs, front bedroom' and I said 'We'll put it downstairs, front door step and you can take it from there." She was not amused. (Stoned friend was running across front gardens trying to catch neighbour's cat at this point)

Then to cap it all she only gave us half the money for the petrol so with the van being hired for longer than we needed it and us having driven about 80 miles rather than 8 we ended up out of pocket.

She never said thank you. A week later we saw her at DH's work's Christmas party. She still never said thank you, never offered to buy us a drink and went on about how tiring moving all the boxes was. A few weeks later we heard she'd started an affair with another married colleague who lived in her street.

lilmissneurotic I used to babysit for this woman who tried anything she could to get out of paying me. It would always be a couple of quid short and she'd say she would drop it in but she never did. Then she started trying to partially pay me in unwanted food items from her kitchen.

The final straw came when she got back three hours late, I told her how much she owed and she went into the kitchen, came back and thrust a half-eaten box of chocolates at me. There was a bit of an argument and eventually she said grudgingly that she'd drop the money off tomorrow. She didn't turn up, but a week later asked my mum if I could sit for her again. My mum refused on my behalf but apparently the woman was extremely put out and made some sneery remarks about what a good businesswoman I was. My mum replied 'she is, that's why she doesn't work for people who try to pay her in their leftovers'.

The little bits of brassneckness get me a lot it seems though nothing really bad-just people thinking that they're entitled to your stuff or your money.

Housemates that steal your food or your belongings and then make you out to be the bad guy when you protest- I had many of these in my years of university house sharing.

One such incident was a housemate who regularly stole food and I don't mean the odd slice of bread-whole bags of potatoes would disappear. I'd make a week's worth of soup or similar and leave it on the stove to cool and he'd eat IT ALL!!

I was the only one in the house with a PC, and I had it in the communal living room instead of my bedroom. as that meant other people could use it when I wasn't. BUT because of my being nice and doing this, people assumed it was as much their's as mine. One guy once refused to get off it when I needed it. I left the house and went to my friend's to use hers to study as she said she didn't need it that day and I got a nasty text off this guy saying he paid rent and was therefore fine to sit there (on my chair!) for as long as he wanted. I replied that he didn't rent my PC and he retracted and admitted that he thought of it as a shared PC and had completely forgotten that it was mine. He had his own laptop!!

Another housemate said she'd made some house rules. One was 'No eating or drinking at THE (my) computer desk. I sarcastically replied that as that was my desk and my computer and my chair, I could do whatever I wanted at it. Queue open mouthed look from her..But But, you might get crumbs or spill something on it!
'Yes, I might. If crumbs bother you, get your own-It's me who cleans and services the bloody thing!

After a couple of days thinking, I finally have one - and it's a humdinger.

After I split from my ex, we have shared custody of DS. This generally worked ok as he only lived a few minutes down the road. Or so I thought.

One day, picking him up from nursery they told me DS had not been in at all for the past couple of weeks on exes days with him. I just assumed the XP was keeping him off for a reason (maybe on holiday from work) and asked the nursery to let me know if this continued.

It did, and I asked XP what was going on. He announced that he was taking DS out of nursery and putting him in another one - without any consultation or discussion with me.

I consulted a solicitor and they wrote a letter to him stating that (paraphrasing) removing DS from his main source of childcare without consultation was completely unreasonable and could he explain himself.

It turned out that not only had he already registered DS with another nursery, he had moved 50 miles away, without telling me, and (the icing on the cake) told them that his new wife was DS's mum. I found this out because I called the nursery, introduced myself as DS' mum and they did not know who I was.

It may have taken you a couple of days flippinada but that's a stonker!

Yes it is, isn't it? Someone probably had my XP in mind when they coined the phrase 'brass neck'.

Needless to say, the shared care arrangement did not last much longer.

On holiday in Tunisia at the moment. Yesterday, we got a taxi back to the hotel. DP went to get in the front and the driver asked him to get in the back, his mate then got in the passenger seat and we dropped him off on the way He then also stopped for a ciggie Luckily, a 20 minute journey cost three pounds so not too bad but had it been at home the driver would have got short shrift.

I know I can't begin to tell you how much I regret letting him go ...mainly because I don't

We once had a 'getting to know you' party at our house for dh's new work team.

We laid on loads of food and drink, and everyone brought drinks too.

Everyone had a really good time and virtually all the beers we bought were drunk. Which was fine, it's why we bought it.

The next afternoon dh was at work and the doorbell went. It was one of his team who asked for the six cans of beer he had left behind from his twelve pack. He'd had WAY more than six cans and I'd seen him merrily dipping into the fridge for bottles repeatedly and he'd eaten loads too.

I was so gobsmacked I handed them over without a word but dh was livid at his cheek at drinking our alcohol and eating our food all night then asking for the beer he brought with him back the next day.

Rude!

Years ago we invited MIL over for Xmas dinner.
(my OH is very handy and works very hard running his own business hardly ever has a day off etc,you get the picture)

So I went to collect MIL from her house.She stands at the door waving for me to come in.I get to the door and she says "its you,I was hoping OH was picking me up because I've got a few jobs I want him to do"
I said well he wouldn't have had time now because dinner in on the go and it is Xmas day and he deserves at least a couple of days off,you know how hard he works so you can ask him another day.She huffed as usual.

Get to my house eat Xmas dinner,play with kids...
MIL says she is ready to go.OH says he will take her.
He comes back about 3 hours later,yes she did get him in to do the jobs,I was furious.
For that reason plus some other of her selfish ways she has never been invited back at Christmas.