A fun New Year's thread/game for my friends at CAF

[KCtheMommy]

I thought it would be fun to post something that, for a period of time in your life, or someone in your family’s life, believed to be true, but was so obviously not, or so silly it made a total mockery of conviction.

For instance, those deodorant “rocks.” My friend and her brothers were forced by their crunchy mom to use them through Jr. High and High School – she swearing they worked. The kids knowing they stank! LOL Deodorant rocks! LOL She’s traumatized to this day!

The reason for the idea came from me just laughing at Ian – as he’s watching the survivor guy show. I opened the fridge right now and there is some leftovers from Christmas hanging out (which I should be cleaning out but here I am at CAF having a much better time). I say “So babe, you know there’s some nasty Christmas leftover’s in there – why don’t you go do the survivor guy thing on the fridge?” I immediately dive into a mockery of survivor guy:

*"So yeah, I am digging in, carefully approaching the potatoes which I now notice is spotting just a touch of mold. If I build a fire out of wet, smokey wood, I could kill the fungus, and while it’s an old way of dealing with it, I think it’s effective.

I’ve found a useful bowl of stuffing, the likes of which might help me catch tonight’s dinner, or should, I might have to move up kitchen to do so. It’s a shame this hasn’t been removed before, I bet it even tastes good."*

So while he’s rolling his eyes at me and giving me the look of “NO WAY, it’s all you babe” he’s chuckling. Then it hits me – "Hey Babe, remember the time we lived in Long Beach and had the mold in the bedroom, and you got that weird skin thing going after you cleaned it up and for MONTHS you thought it was because you were allergic to BLEACH? Remember THAT? You wouldn’t let me wash anything in bleach! I had to separate your whites from our whites? Turns out you are actually allergic to MOLD? Yeah you found that out on the boat right??

YEARS he made me wash his whites without bleach. My saying “Hey E? Why do you think after 26 years you would ALL OF A SUDDEN have an allergic reaction to bleach? BLEACH! That kills almost all allergens?” Didn’t matter – he was convinced. It was bleach. Once he figured out it was mold I threw a bleach PAR-TAY! I think he did too.

So come on – I know you guys have silly stories of things that you were convinced worked, or either ailed you, email hoaxes you fell for, infomercials you wasted big money on – anything…



Let’s start the new year off with past mistakes learned from and those which provide comic relief to others! (I am going to post another one right below this, it’s too good not to, but this post is long enough!)

 

[KCtheMommy]

So when Ian deployed to the war I made the decision to move into a home on the same property of my mom’s home, renting out my own. That’s my foolish year contribution right there, thinking I could live on the same property as mom and grandma, but yeah, that’s no so “ha-ha” so I’ll skip it.

So I live in a very cool 1923 Craftsman (four blocks from beach) at the front of the property with my two kids. She lives in back of me in a modern two-story HUGE home with most of the living space upstairs including the kitchen, living room what-not. My Grandma lives downstairs, great except the fact she’s 80 and she has to transverse the stairs for a glass of water or a bite to eat.

OK so anyway, shortly after moving in, my mom came home from Costco with a water filtration sink system – like I had at the other LB home – PUR I think. She “decides” it should go in my home for some reason – for my kids probably. She informs me that she will be coming to get bottles of water – gallon size at that, from my “purified” tap and carry them back to her house, to which she has to go upstairs with all this water. I posed the idea of just getting her own and it’s worth the money not to have to do this – but she wouldn’t hear of it.

One year later Ian is returning from the war and we are moving our brood (THANK GOODNESS) to Washington to live on post. She has decided she is retiring and moving to Vegas. Cool. Whatever. I can’t wait to mosey at this point.

So one day creeping towards Ian coming home and her selling the property she comes into my house to say she’s just going to take the PuR system off of my faucet and move it upstairs. So she starts to undo it, talking about having to replace the filter. I say “now that you mention it, it’s odd, I don’t remember that thing ever freezing up from clogged filter – have YOU changed it?”

“ME? Noooooo? WHAT (insert screechy mom voice)?? You haven’t changed it???”

“Mom – it freezes up when clogged – haven’t had to.”

“Well maybe Grandma did.”

“Yeah right.”

At which point the thing comes apart in her hands…

NO FILTER!!!



My hand immediately goes to my mouth. Tears spilling down my cheek. Gut about to bust, pants about to be wet as it dawns on me – out loud…

"BWAAAAA HAAAA HAAAAAA YOU have carried GALLONS UPON GALLONS UPON GALLONS OF TAP WATER ACROSS THE DRIVEWAY AND UPSTAIRS FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR!!! YOU NEVER PUT THE FILTER IN??? BWAAAA HAAA HAAAA"

At this point my mom is laughing so hard I think she did wet herself. All she can mutter out is…

"po…

pahh…

poouahhhrrrr

grandmaaaaaaaaaaa…"

Yep that’s right my 80 year old granny hauled tons of tap water from my house to hers. Across a driveway. Up a flight of stairs.

At least she laughed when she heard the news. And punched my mom in the arm. And threatened to take her out of this world she brought her into.


Tap water. Goodnight. They had their own.

 

[samcarter14]

In grad school, I went through a time when I was dissatisfied with the Catholic church and started attending a nondenominational evangelical Christian church. (probably because my boyfriend was a member, I was young and silly. ).

My mom, rightfully so, was upset. I tried to explain to her that I was still a Christian (actually still a Catholic, I never got baptized in that church), and how there were lots of different Christian denominations.

Me: “See, there’s the Methodists, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians–”

Mom (very brightly): “And the Jews!”

dead silence

Me: “Um, Mom…Jews aren’t Christians.”

Mom (disbelievingly): “They’re NOT?”

Me: “Well, um, no. They don’t believe Jesus was the Messiah.”

Mom: “Well, why on earth not?”

And no, she wasn’t pulling my leg, she honestly and truly had believed Judaism was a sect of Christianity. It’s sad and funny because it’s true.

 

[Lots2Learn]

I’m headed off to Mass or I am sure I could list a TON of ridiculious things I didn’t know or thought I knew. But the one that comes to mind: :doh2: :blushing:

I didn’t realize until just a few years ago that the US Capital and the White House were two different buildings.
I’m almost 40 years old. How could I have not known that!!!

 

[dulcissima]

When I was little, about 5 or 6, my uncle had this really cute little car called an Opel GT. The fuel tank cap was in the back, on top of where the trunk would if it had a trunk (the body style is similar to a Corvette or a 260Z). Well, my uncle told me that the car didn’t run on gas, that it was a wind up car, and that what was actually the fuel cap was the winder. He said before he went anywhere he had to wind the car up. So, I used to always wind it up for him before he went anywhere. If you turned it clockwise you could just turn it and turn it forever. When he was getting ready to go back home to Seattle from our place in Northern California I spent almost an hour winding it up for his long drive. I was a good deal older before I looked back on that and realized it had all been a joke. Good one too.

 

[samcarter14]

Okay, I’m going to embarass myself by sharing something I truly believed from age 6 till I was about 9.

My parents never sat down with my brother and I and talked about how babies were made. They simply put a book that explained it into the bookcase (we were never forbidden any books in those shelves) and figured we’d find it, since we were voracious readers.

Well, we did. It was a typical 1970’s book, and it showed the couple in a forest. I don’t know why. Very Adam-and-Eve.

I was the youngest, one of two, and I had been pondering why my parents hadn’t had more kids. Suddenly it was very clear. This couple went out into the forest and made a baby. Clearly it only worked if you were in the forest, not in a bed. Since my parents never went to the forest, but slept in a bed, that’s why they hadn’t had a baby again. I thought about asking them if they wanted to go to the forest, but my brother said I shouldn’t.

It took THREE YEARS for me to figure out that location didn’t matter.

 

[Feanaro_s_Wife]

For instance, those deodorant “rocks.” My friend and her brothers were forced by their crunchy mom to use them through Jr. High and High School – she swearing they worked. The kids knowing they stank! LOL Deodorant rocks! LOL She’s traumatized to this day!

I found out the hard way that the deo stones only work for certain people…after going through a few weeks of “detox” only to find out I still stunk, lol. But they work for my mom:shrug:

At which point the thing comes apart in her hands…

NO FILTER!!!



My hand immediately goes to my mouth. Tears spilling down my cheek. Gut about to bust, pants about to be wet as it dawns on me – out loud…

"BWAAAAA HAAAA HAAAAAA YOU have carried GALLONS UPON GALLONS UPON GALLONS OF TAP WATER ACROSS THE DRIVEWAY AND UPSTAIRS FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR!!! YOU NEVER PUT THE FILTER IN??? BWAAAA HAAA HAAAA"

Tap water. Goodnight. They had their own.

OMGoodness I don’t think I have laughed this hard in a long time!!!

He said before he went anywhere he had to wind the car up. So, I used to always wind it up for him before he went anywhere. If you turned it clockwise you could just turn it and turn it forever. When he was getting ready to go back home to Seattle from our place in Northern California I spent almost an hour winding it up for his long drive. I was a good deal older before I looked back on that and realized it had all been a joke. Good one too.

I seriously have tears pouring down my face…TOO FUNNY!

Suddenly it was very clear. This couple went out into the forest and made a baby. Clearly it only worked if you were in the forest, not in a bed. Since my parents never went to the forest, but slept in a bed, that’s why they hadn’t had a baby again. I thought about asking them if they wanted to go to the forest, but my brother said I shouldn’t.

It took THREE YEARS for me to figure out that location didn’t matter.

LOL… I don’t know if I can keep coming to this thread…I really don’t want to pee my pants

 

[puzzleannie]

when MIL remarried and moved into new husbands 100 yr old house, she insisted on some modernization so we had a dishwasher installed, with a garbage disposal (required by this brand). Her husband wanted to know how you clean in and throw away the garbage it processes, as if it had a bag like a vacuum cleaner. this guy used to sell appliances at Sears years ago, and he was serious!

 

[Galnextdoor]

To all previous posters!!! Your posts were hilarious, especially the tap water post and the babies made in the forest posts!

Have you seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the father thought Windex was a cure all for everything?

My parents are like that. With my mom, it was vinegar. She used vinegar in the laundry. She rinsed our hair in vinegar, because she said it made it soft and shiney. Imagine walking around school smelling like a pickle.:bigyikes: She put it on our cuts and warmed it before putting it in our ears when we had an earache. For my mother, everything was better if you used a little vinegar.

For my father, the cure all was alcohol. He is a first generation American and has all these concoctions he used to make for us when we got sick. When I was a teenager, I never minded coming down with a severe head cold, because my father would insist I drink a hot toddy. It was some kind of concoction with lemon juice, honey and a little bit of whiskey. My mother would alway protest. She felt I needed to gargle with vinegar. My father would make the hot toddy and stand there while I drank it. Then he would ask if I felt better. Of course, I always felt better. It didn’t do much for the cold, but I always felt much better about having one.:whacky:
“See…” he would say to my mother, “See… she didn’t need any of your vinegar. She needed a toddy to break everything loose.” He was always very proud of himself afterwards.

 

[bluerose]

My BIL (the priest) lived in Rome, then Spain, then Brazil for many years, hadn’t been home for a long time (just short visits after he was ordained, but none during the time he was preparing for the priesthood.)

Anyway, the time comes for us to have my in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary, and of course, Father is coming for the whole week to celebrate and just have a huge family reunion. This is in June. We’re discussing what we want to do while the whole family is together (for the first time in years) and my DH suggests having Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family. My MIL hesitates, not sure about all the work, although we encourage her by saying we’ll do the lion’s share and it will be so special because Father hasn’t had a Thanksgiving dinner in years.

MIL says, “What are you talking about? He has Thanksgiving dinner every year, same as we do!”

We say, “No, Ma, he’s been living in Europe and South America. He hasn’t had a Thanksgiving dinner since he left the States.”

MIL is silent. “They don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Italy and Spain and Brazil?”

Our turn to be silent. Is she joking? “Uh, Ma… Thanksgiving is an AMERICAN holiday… like July 4th? It’s only celebrated in the U.S.!”

I can’t remember who laughed harder… us, Mom, or Father when he heard about it!

 

[happymommy]

My one older sister is named Rhonda. When I was little she told me that the Beach Boys had written the song, “Help Me Rhonda”, for her and of course I believed her.

My husbands grandmother never let any of her children drink milk while they were eating soup. She thought the cold milk after hot soup would make their teeth crack

When my father married the first time, the photographer took all of the photos for the day…without film in the camera…

At our oldest daughter’s baptism, my husband family went on and on about how much our daughter’s Godfather and I look a like, we’re cousins. They kept saying, I think it’s the eyes, yes you can really tell you two are related. Neither of us had the heart to tell them that he is adopted!

Before we had kids I was the assistant manager of a shoe store, well, one day I was helping this older woman try on a pair of shoes and I noticed what I thought was a dryer sheet sticking out of her pant leg, I was going to remove it and throw it aside so she didn’t see it, trying not to draw attention to it. so I gave it a quick pull and undid the hem of her pants!! It was iron on fusing…oops…boy she was mad and didn’t buy any shoe

 

[monicatholic]

when i was very little, i loved the show Flying Nun.

back then, two of my dad’s sisters were Dominican sisters in full, traditional habit.

we were visiting my grandparents in the Bronx and my dad’s sisters also came, from the convent, to visit their parents-- my grandparents. enthralled with their habits, i asked them to show me how they flew. they laughed and instead, brought me outside to show me the tan station wagon in which they had arrived.

i was so disappointed and embarrassed i cried.

 

[Galnextdoor]

when i was very little, i loved the show Flying Nun.

back then, two of my dad’s sisters were Dominican sisters in full, traditional habit.

we were visiting my grandparents in the Bronx and my dad’s sisters also came, from the convent, to visit their parents-- my grandparents. enthralled with their habits, i asked them to show me how they flew. they laughed and instead, brought me outside to show me the tan station wagon in which they had arrived.

i was so disappointed and embarrassed i cried.

You mean they can’t fly?:bigyikes:

 

[mom2boyz]

For some reason my grandparents thought that unless the toast was burnt it would ball up in your stomach. I don’t remember what would happen then, but apparently it wasn’t a good thing. The toast was always burnt at their house and it wasn’t a place you could decline to eat the toast. To this day I can’t even stand if the toast is a little overdone.

 

[monicatholic]

wait. wait. did happymommy tell a shoe store mishap story?

please indulge me:

i was 12, it was 1974. I had seen, for the first time, the ‘real deal’ Earth shoes on an older teen who was all John Denver-ish about things. I wanted so much to be like her.

i asked my mom for Earth Shoes. they were expensive-- about $50 at the time.

my grandmother, who lived with us but worked in New York City, was familiar with the new brand Earth Shoes and assured us there was only one ***best ***place to buy Earth Shoes, and that was the ultra-natural-chic Earth Shoe store in Manhattan.

Grandma was gonna take me into Manhattan to buy Earth shoes. We planned to make a day out of it. I shoulda known better. My Grandmother was ***a don’t-giveadamn ***kinda gal. (She’s 90 now and still that way. People who don’t know better think it’s a function of her age, but she’s always been irascible.)

But the auspicious day came and we entered the pine-paneled, laid-back, hipster-chic Earth Shoe store. The excessively cool (and cute) Rocky-Mountain-in Manhattan shoe salesman fellow was kneeling in front of me measuring my foot. My grandmother, wanting to see a pair of shoes displayed on the wall just over her head, stood up and turned around. She’s a short woman and this action put her backside in direct height proximity to the kneeling salesman’s face, who was only just inches from my grandmother.

She passed gas directly and loudly and voraciously and mercilessly into the poor guy’s face.

He looked up at me imploringly. I buried my face in my hands. My grandmother walked off as nothing had happened.

We two sat there, frozen in a cloud of foulness, not knowing what to do. I bought the first pair of shoes I could get a hold of and beat feet out of there.

Sorry to derail. We now resume our regular programming…

 

[SarahR]

We had a bathroom scale which had the words “Not Legal for Trade”.
I used to really wonder how many goods one could barter for in exchange for a bathroom scale like ours…and if anyone had gotten busted by the authorities for trying.

 

[LIZA3213]

Okay, I’m going to embarass myself by sharing something I truly believed from age 6 till I was about 9.

My parents never sat down with my brother and I and talked about how babies were made. They simply put a book that explained it into the bookcase (we were never forbidden any books in those shelves) and figured we’d find it, since we were voracious readers.

Well, we did. It was a typical 1970’s book, and it showed the couple in a forest. I don’t know why. Very Adam-and-Eve.

I was the youngest, one of two, and I had been pondering why my parents hadn’t had more kids. Suddenly it was very clear. This couple went out into the forest and made a baby. Clearly it only worked if you were in the forest, not in a bed. Since my parents never went to the forest, but slept in a bed, that’s why they hadn’t had a baby again. I thought about asking them if they wanted to go to the forest, but my brother said I shouldn’t.

It took THREE YEARS for me to figure out that location didn’t matter.

 

[LIZA3213]

Okay, I’m going to embarass myself by sharing something I truly believed from age 6 till I was about 9.

My parents never sat down with my brother and I and talked about how babies were made. They simply put a book that explained it into the bookcase (we were never forbidden any books in those shelves) and figured we’d find it, since we were voracious readers.

Well, we did. It was a typical 1970’s book, and it showed the couple in a forest. I don’t know why. Very Adam-and-Eve.

I was the youngest, one of two, and I had been pondering why my parents hadn’t had more kids. Suddenly it was very clear. This couple went out into the forest and made a baby. Clearly it only worked if you were in the forest, not in a bed. Since my parents never went to the forest, but slept in a bed, that’s why they hadn’t had a baby again. I thought about asking them if they wanted to go to the forest, but my brother said I shouldn’t.

It took THREE YEARS for me to figure out that location didn’t matter.

Don’t be embarrassed - I think it’s the cutest story

 

[Galnextdoor]

… She’s a short woman and this action put her backside in direct height proximity to the kneeling salesman’s face, who was only just inches from my grandmother.

She passed gas directly and loudly and voraciously and mercilessly into the poor guy’s face.

He looked up at me imploringly. I buried my face in my hands. My grandmother walked off as nothing had happened.

We two sat there, frozen in a cloud of foulness, not knowing what to do. I bought the first pair of shoes I could get a hold of and beat feet out of there.

Sorry to derail. We now resume our regular programming…

:blushing: :blushing: I couldn’t help, but laugh.

 

[pentecostbaby]

I was a really, really picky eater. Whenever I refused to eat whatever everyone else was having, Mom made me Kraft Mac and Cheese. My aunt Nancy and aunt Sue convinced me one day that the Kraft company had gone out of business. I cried.

My babysitter didn’t want us to go in the basement, so she told us that the Gremlins lived there. When the pipes would knock and hiss, she’d say, “Hear that? That’s the Gremlins.” I was petrified.