Nothing screams "I have no power" more than your mom's extremely bizarre and/or undesirable BF when you're like 7 years old.
Okay so first let's acknowledge how hard single parenting must be. I barely manage to eek out cooking for 1, being on time for doctor appointments, and not spending my money almost entirely on band t-shirts so I can't save any money.
But when your head's on fire taking care of work, yourself, and your--possibly multiple--kids, it might put your love life in a total fugue state.
u/lifeingminor asked, Children of single parents, who was the worst person your parent has dated?
Major Beefcake
My mom dated this guy named Rick. He always smelled like beef. All the time. He would come over and the living room reeked of BEEF!! I would beg my mom to let me leave whenever he came over but she said that would be rude. So I just had to be in the same house with that rotting meat basket called a man. He was over one morning when i had a late start. I went to school and a girl called me "Beef Bitch". I cried for hours. Rick and my mom broke up because he got a job in another state and they hadn't been dating too long so they decided to split up. My mom still wont tell me why he smelled like beef. She says it's his personal business
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Picturing This One in Those Candy Cane Stripes
Ronnie, He was a carny that my mother met at the local fair....whirlwind relationship that didn't last long, he didn't appreciate being dumped. He broke into the basement of out house late at night and used a set of tires and gasoline to start a fire under the stairs......I woke up in a house fire.
I taught my kids to tie their shoes and never trust a carny
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They Were Outta Dip, I Didn't Know What Else To Bring
This woman brought a loaded pistol to a party my dad was at because she couldn't get in contact with him (this was before cell phones)
What is Convenient About Marrying Elvis??
A a semi famous at the time Elvis impersonator/singer for a band that had some success and he's incredibly cocky and arrogant. My mom ended up marrying him but they live in different states and only see one another here and there. It turned out to be a marriage of convenience after a few years.
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It's the Cat That Gets Me With This One
One wanker called Darren. I have a viral infection once that mimmiced meningitis and he kept banging on about if I died he wasn't cleaning it up and that I may need a wheelchair. I punched him once when he tried throwing my cat outside into the rain. He's fu**ed off now thank god
And How Exactly Did She Expect That to Happen?
My dad started dating a woman who firmly believed that I was part of his "old life" and that he needed to cut ties with me.
I was 14 and became terrified my mum would find someone who would do the same, and I'd end up with no family.
Specific About a 10 Year Old is a BAD SIGN
Some guy she met at a bar. He was really interested in meeting her children; specifically 10 year old me. Within two hours of him coming into the house he had invited us all out to a nude beach nearby. It was very freeing, he insisted, and he thought I would love it there. Mom didn't make him leave the house for the night, and I slept in her room with the door locked.
Old Flames
My mom got back together with her old high school boyfriend for whatever reason. Guy was like 60 but looked about a minute away from death. Super lanky, reeked of cigarettes. Not a bad guy but his general hygiene and health made him hell to be around.
Who In God's Name is This Person's Uncle
His name was Jeremy, the only man my mother ever had around me. He would beat me and try to bribe me with toys, but I wasn't a normal child, I wasn't interested in toys and couldn't be manipulated. A very long story short, I told my big uncle, the criminal, the one that was fiercely protective of my mother and I and Jeremy was literally never seen or heard from again. Whatever my uncle did to make him go he did a damn fine job, he made sure I knew he was always there for me.
Polite, I guess?
My mom dated a guy named Mike, he had this weird rule that when he called the house (this is 1997-98 before we had caller ID) he would let it ring twice, hang up and call again when we would be good to answer it. I was probably 10 during this, I remember not liking him and would answer the phone first ring every time just to piss him off. He wasn't a bad guy, just a giant douche.
The Spook!
The spook. My mom had a thing for government operatives during the Vietnamese war, particularly this guy Roy. Once when I was on the phone too long and she out with him and was trying to reach me, he had the phone company operator break into my conversation and put her on the phone to me. He was also running operations in Cambodia and Laos. Creepy guy.
Just As Fast As He Came In
Definitely the guy, who after over a year of dating my mom and seemingly caring for both her and I, called her one night and said he never loved her and to not contact him again. No signs showing this is how he felt. He broke my mom for awhile. I definitely wanted to find him.
Thumb Ring's are Strange Beasts
I mean there were so many but I think it's a tie between the pathological lier, the one with anger management issues and the weed addict with the thumb ring.
Woah.
My dad DATED this lady that had like 4 kids. They lived with us for a couple months cause their "apartment wasn't ready". It was weird. Also she's the lady my dad cheated on my mom with and she cheated on her husband.
Little of the Secret Sauce in There
My father dated a weird lady who used to casually tell me how he was an amazing lover (I was like 9, so disturbing). I'm also pretty sure she tried to kill me once. She had really long fake nails and "lost" one as she was making cabbage rolls but didn't say anything until after I almost chocked to death on it. My choking did not seem to surprise her one bit, she didn't move a muscle to try to help me or even apologize after.
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Dammit, Chad
"Chad" is the only swear word in our house. Our mom used to date this douchebag when my littlest brother was a couple years old, and sadly he picked up some of his habits. Funniest thing was is this a**hole got karma big time. He adored his cars so much and every time he got a new one he'd hit a deer.
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At Least You Can All Go Out for a Drink
My dad is currently dating a girl my age. He's 53 we're 22. So there's that.
Walter White as a Stepdad
He turned out to be a high profile dude related with crimes. I can literally search his name on google and articles about his deeds will appear.
Ok, who is watching the clock? Those seconds aren't going to count themselves. The only way to understand time is to be its witness. Although that can get depressing. Let's focus on the light and cool.
History...
Calculate Figure It Out GIF by OriginalsGiphy"If you are an 80-year-old American, you have lived through approximately 1/3 of our nation's entire history."
Those Days...
"The 80s were 40 years ago."
"This is what messes me up because I was born in 82 and graduated high school in 2000 so for some reason my brain is stuck on the 80's being twenty years ago. The 70's thirty years ago etc etc. I have to stop and realize sometimes that my concept of how long ago things happened is way off."
Time goes by...
"We observe that light travels at 186,000 miles a second, but given the vast size of the observable universe, that's a snail's pace. But from the point of view of a particle of light, time doesn't even exist."
"Time slows down as you approach the speed of light, and theoretically stops completely when you reach the speed of light."
Years Gone By...
"MLK Jr. and Anne Frank were born in the same year."
"Betty White was born in 1922. Automatically pre-sliced packaged bread loaves became commercially available in 1928. Betty White is six years older than sliced bread."
Long Live the Queen!
queen elizabeth images GIFGiphy"The queen and Marilyn Monroe would've been the same age."
"And Marilyn Monroe and Andy Griffith were born on the same day!"
- osme1
I swear Liz is going to outlive dirt. Wait, I believe she already has. Well she won't be alone, she'll have Betty White. At least she better have Betty. Time is nothing without Queen Betty.
TV Time
Season 2 Omg GIF by Paramount+Giphy"Happy Days was a TV show made in the 1970s-80s about teenagers in the 1950s. Similarly, That 70s Show was made in the 90s-00s about teenagers in the 70s. If a similar show were to be made today, it would be about teenagers in the 2000s."
- VVillyD
A Croc
"If a T-Rex imagined a creature as ancient as the T-Rex is to us, it would be a Stegosaurus. If that Stegosaurus imagined a creature as ancient as the Stegosaurus is to us, it would be a Crocodile. If that Crocodile imagined a creature as ancient as that Crocodile is to us, it would be a Shark."
On the Clock
"On a twenty four hour clock the amount of time that humans have been on the earth would total around five seconds."
"How about this one: If Homo Habilus first appeared at midnight, 24 hours ago, that means the first Homo Sapiens appeared at 9:25 PM, or about 2 and a half hours ago. The first human civilization, in lower Mesopotamia, appeared at 11:57 PM, or about 3 minutes ago."
"The Western Roman Empire fell at 11:59 PM, or 1 minute ago. Everything that has happened since - the Crusades, the Plague, the discovery of the New World, the world wars, all of it - has happened in the last minute of human existence."
And that's just OUR Sun...
"The span of our lives are so insignificantly small that our Sun will last another 5 billion years. That's 9 zeros people. Our eldest live to around 100 in the best places. That's 50,000,000 (50 million) times longer than any person can reasonably expect to live. And that's just OUR Sun. The universe as a whole has probably existed for magnitudes longer than that already and will continue to exist until the end of time as we know it."
Tell Me a Story
william shakespeare GIF by will herringGiphy"We know what a good storyteller Shakespeare was but there were Greek playwrights who wrote shows nearly 2,000 years earlier that are pretty good, too."
I hate time. Only because I'm petty and irritated of the amount I squandered. That's neither here nor there though. Time marches on and continues to amaze. I'll keep watching.
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