If there's one thing we can rely on marvelous parents for, besides love, support, healthcare, a house, food, and clothing, is to remember us at out lowest. Mistakes are easy to make and, thankfully, good parents are there to pick us back up, dust us off, and make fun of us for the rest of our lives.
Reddit user, u/unsanemaker, wanted the best of our worst when they asked:
What is something you did long ago that your parents still bring up today?
Do You Know...?
When my brother was really little he was really into WWF and WWE. He wanted to be a wrestler and he started calling himself "the muscle man" but he couldn't pronounce "muscle" so it came out "muffin".
We still call him the muffin man, hes 27.
Get The Point?
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Ugh. When I dated an...interesting... guy for a bit in high school. He was really into swords. Every new guy I meet, the first thing they say is... But how many swords does he have? They think they're pretty damn funny.
If he had enough time to go out with you he wasn't studying the blade enough.
Good point! Unfortunately I wasn't sharp enough back then to get a handle on things.
I Can Hit The Point. I Promise.
Throwing a dart into my brothers bare foot because I convinced myself I was good enough to throw it exactly between his toes.
This...Feels Like Their Fault
A few years ago I was eating dinner with my mom and brother and started choking on a piece of food. Couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. I fell out of my chair and writhed on the floor before managing to dislodge the food.
The entire time my mom and brother laughed because they thought I was joking, and then yelled at me for not letting them know I was choking. Almost four years later if I even remotely choke on anything they remind me to fall onto the floor so that they know I'm being serious.
Yeah. This Makes Sense.
I didn't get to walk in my high school graduation. Had to go to 2 weeks of summer school (over some bullsh-t, but whatever). I've graduated college, graduated graduate school, walked at all of them just for my mom.
I'm now a full time college professor and my mom STILL holds not walking in my high school graduation over my head.
Can't Argue With Science
When I was turning like 5 or 6 my mom joked that she was taking away my birthday because I was growing up too fast. I freaked out because I'm a kid and I love my birthday.
Now I'm 27 and every year on my birthday she says I'm a year younger because she took away my birthday that one time.
A Perfectly Good Dirt Snack
When I was 6 or 7, I was outside playing on our swing set. As I was swinging, I was looking at the ground and saw a fruit snack. It was covered in dirt but I stopped swinging, picked it up, blew the dirt off, and was about to stick it in my mouth when suddenly I hear my mom banging on the dining room window, motioning me to come inside. She told me if I wanted a fruit snack I just needed to ask and then she gave me a pack of them.
She has told this story to every friend or boyfriend I've ever introduced her to. It's not even that funny or great of a story. But it's the one story she has that she thinks will embarrass me. But I was a kid, and I saw a fruit snack.
Of course I was going to try to eat it.
Do You Know A Better Way?
Whenever my parents are talking with other parents about shenanigans pulled by young children my dad likes to bring up the time he came home from work to see 3 year old me up on the kitchen counter, with an entire package of cinnamon raisin bagels having been split in half and de-raisined. He asked me what I was doing and I very proudly exclaimed "I'm eating raisins!"
That's Quite A Technique
I was trying to perform the Heimlich maneuver on my sister to show our dad what I had learned that day in school but instead, I was just...violently humping her back because I didn't know you were supposed to tighten your arms around the diaphragm.
To this day they call it the "Humpback Maneuver"
A Bite To Forget
when I was younger (at least 4 years old), we were at Disneyland [Paris] with my cousins family. when walking around the park, I got tired and my uncle decided to give me a piggy back ride. I don't remember doing this but apparently to my dad, he hear my uncle shout "OW!", when questioned, my uncle said I had bit his ear. full on bit his ear.
Showing The Goods
A bit late but my parents love to tell the story about a young boi (me) standing naked at our window. The window is directly at a main traffic road.
Best part is I did it because my twin gave me 5 bucks. The call from the neighbours my mom received were worth it I [guess]
Stroganoff? No, Never Again.
When I was around 12 I decided to cook dinner and dessert for my Mum's birthday. For main I cook beef stroganoff, we sit down to eat and it is...completely inedible. Mum is asking me questions trying to work out where it went so wrong. Turns out when the recipe called for a cup of stock, it DID NOT mean a cup of stock powder straight from the tin.
Thinking dessert would salvage the night I dish up golden syrup dumplings (with ice cream). Instead of the dumplings being soft and delicious, they are more like golden golf balls. No spoon could break them. I used plain flour instead of self raising flour. The ice cream was great. Mum still laughs and imitates me resting my head in the table in defeat. It happened nearly 20 years ago and I will not ever live it down.
I have not made beef stroganoff since.
Confusing Swimming With Something Else
My dad played with a travel softball team throughout my childhood. I went to surrounding states all of the time for his games. We were at a hotel pool when I was three, about to head inside. My mom was holding my newborn little sister, and she and my dad were talking to one of my dad's teammates. When I was younger, I was obsessed with swimming, and I snuck back into the water.
I was holding my breath and underneath, and I also didn't know how to swim. My dad jumps into the pool fully clothed, yanks me up, and asks me, "What were you doing?!" I looked him dead in the eyes and said, "I was swimming!" Not missing a beat, he told me, "You weren't swimming, you were drowning!" I can't go around a body of water without this story being brought up.
You Just Need The Right Motivation, Is All
My brother and I were in the playroom and I was laying on the mat on my tummy maybe two metres away from my brother. He then went into the kitchen to ask my mum for a knife and fork and when my mum came back down with him she saw me laying next to the plate grabbing at the pancakes. My mum then asked my brother "____ did you move your sister over here?" And my brother replied "no she was on the mat". I crawled for the first time, towards pancakes. This gets brought up every time we have pancakes.
Time Is Nothing To Kids
When I was a kid, like 4-5, I apparently walked up to my parents and said "I broke my arm falling from a tree when I was 23."
So when I turned 23, any time I'd climb they'd make jokes about it.
I keep reminding them it was PAST TENSE. Past lives and sh-t.
Confusion As To What We Are
When my brother was 5 and I was 3, we were at the YMCA swimming pool, and out of nowhere, my brother says really loud, "Dad? Are we Mexican?" Now, my brother and I are biracial, so we look Mexican, but we aren't.
The ENTIRE pool went silent as my dad had to explain to my brother that we weren't.
"I made it and it was mine."
That when I was learning to use the toilet I never wanted to flush my poop down because "I made it and it was mine." My mom's absolute FAVOURITE story of me...
It's All. Your. FAULT.
My Jewish mother still reminds me how she was in labor for 10 hours before I was born.
It's like it was my fault, and that I had some control over it. She says "You don't remember, but it's the truth". Of course I don't remember, Ma!
That's just the typical Jewish guilt machine working its wonders.
A Funeral To Never Forget
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So when I was 6-7, we were visiting Georgia cause one of my uncles was dying. It was a really solemn affair, not a lot of fun, and sort of a miserable time for everyone. So little me, a bit bored, and looking for something to get my mind off of things, started chasing their cat around because I loved cats. A lot. Like in that little kid way that cats hate, where you just pick them up in a bear hug and squeeze them until they claw at you to get away.
So I'm chasing this cat, and it runs through its cat tunnel on the cat scratch post/palace thing it had. Obviously, I launch myself flat out into this thing after it, and wedge my arms against myself with my elbows, and my hands just stuck right in front of my face. I made it about halfway through the tunnel.
I struggled for like 20 minutes by myself trying to get out, and man, I'm just STUCK. So finally I started crying, and my family heard and came over. I'm all embarrassed cause I can't get out, and they're just laughing like crazy. Finally, my oldest brother says, "I'll get him out!" grabs me by the ankles, and with all his might His 13 year old self could muster, yanks my jeans clean off.
My whitey-tightey bums just out there for to see. I was mortified, and they just laughed and laughed. Like several of them fell onto the ground laughing. They did finally rescue me by pulling my hands through, so I wasn't so wedged in there. I guess all in all, it helped them get some laughter in a sucky time. It gets brought up from time to time, but really it's fine.
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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