Strange Things You Remember Your Parents Saying

[CO Liberal]

One year we were on vacation, camping in Virginia. Out of the blue, my mother asked my sisters and me, "What was the name of the water boy in 'Gunga Dhin'?"

We all look at each other for a moment, and then my older sister said, "I don't know, Mom - what was name of the whale in 'Moby Dick'?"

Wee all had a good laugh over that one. And for years after that, whenever Mom said something that was a bit off the wall, we'd ask her "Hey, Mom - What was the name of the water boy in 'Gunga Dhin'?"

And Mom would answer "MOBY DICK!!!"

:-)

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. Though they've belted you and flayed you...

By the livin' god that made you,
You're a better man than I am....
Gunga Din.

(That's from memory, may be off a bit -- but a great verse.)

[Green Mountain Dem]

2. My dad was always saying.....

If you don't stop doing that you will go blind....well I just turned 60 and I don't even wear glasses!!

[RoeBear]

4. Are you serious!?!

Did you really whack off in front of your Dad?

[Green Mountain Dem]

5. nope....

but he caught me a few times... he never bothered to knock!!

[ant]

3. this nursery rhyme

...that they would say when we hurt ourselves somehow.

In spanish (excuse spelling errors):
Sana, Sana
Culito de rana
Deja el dolor
Para manana

Translated:
Heal, heal
little frog's ass
leave the pain
for tomorrow


In addition to being confused by the frog's ass, I don't understand why the pain wasn't wished away completely. Merely postponing it didn't make any sense to me.

[notadmblnd]

6. When ever my mom heard one of us girls accuse another of something

like farting, she would say "a skunk smells his own hole first"

I have several I remember my grandfather saying, the first one is the best advice I ever got.

"Don't believe anything that you hear and only half of what you see".

the next one was just fun to play with him

Theres an old deadm skunk in the road, I one it
You two it
I three it
You four it
I five it
You six it
I seven it
You ate it!

and the last one is a little tune he would sing with his hands in his pocket as he paced the living room (maybe he was mad at my grandma)


Oh I wish I was single again
I wish I was single again
Cause if I was single
My pockets would jingle
I wish I was single again.

[Insider]

7. Deniece and DeNephew

anytime somebody said the name Deniece, my father said "and denephew?" and we laughed every single time.

edit:
and when somebody disrespected (her call) or ignored my grandmother, she said that he/she "didn't even say 'dog, kiss my foot'"

[CO Liberal]

8. Here's One From My Father-In-Law

That the lovely Mrs. CO Liberal just told me:

"When you're hot, you're hot,
When you're cold, you're cold."

:shrug:

[Bjornsdotter]

9. Open the Lights....

Hi,

Since my Dad is not a native English speaker he would muck up the language quite a bit....much to my amusement.

Some of his best....

Open the lights
Put fire on the stove
Close the TV

For the cartoon Rugrats...he called it Roooograts
Nieman Marcus.....Marcus Niemus
one mouse, two mice, three meese


Cheers,
Kim

[pagerbear]

11. Some of those things make sense

In some languages the same verb is used to open the door and turn on the light, and the same to close the door and turn off the light.

[Bjornsdotter]

21. True..

Hi,

Yes, you are right....when I'm speaking Swedish I also say open the lights, or close the TV. When I'm speaking French I'll say I have a sickness of the heart for a stomachache.

Regardless, it still sounds funny to hear him say it. Believe me I catch a fair amount of grief everytime I go to Sweden, I still talk like a child and sometimes I use words only a child would use.

Cheers,
Kim

[pagerbear]

23. I had a voice teacher who spoke mostly German

Well, she was American, but had been living and singing in German-speaking countries for years and years, and had just returned to the US. It took her quite a while to remember where to put her verbs.

[LizW]

10. My dad loved long drives in the car

In 1962, we made a six week drive across the USA and back in a pickup truck/camper. Seven people, three generations, ranging in age from 70 years old to 6 mos old.

Daddy loved to point things out to us along the way, and he would yell to us and point out the sights we should be noticing.

Somewhere in the Rockies, we saw bears for the first time. "Look at the bears! Look at the bears!" Daddy yelled. We all laughed, and from then on, every time he pointed out ANYTHING, no matter what it was, we would yell back, "Look at the bears!"

Daddy died in 1990, and our family still occasionally points things out to each other from the car by saying "Look at the bears."

[maveric]

13. You fit seven people in a pickup?

They didnt have King Cabs in 62.

[LizW]

16. 3 kids and 2 grandparents rode in back

It was one of those built-on camper things with a sleeper up over the top of the pick-up cab. It was pretty cool, had a tiny stove and refrigerator. But it blows my mind now to think that we lived in the thing for 6 weeks!

It actually had an intercom system to talk from the cab to the back. But as I recall, the thing didn't work worth a crap, so Daddy just yelled to us through the glass of the back cab window. :)

[RoeBear]

27. That's a cute story...

...thanks for sharing it.

[pagerbear]

12. "It'll make clean come"

Meaning that garment is good enough to cover your vain, ungrateful ass!

[Kadie]

14. "Take a bite out of my old rusty heel"

My mom used to say that to us when we were kids. I haven't a clue what she meant.

[amerikat]

15. "If wishes were horses, beggers would ride"

My mother had a ton of interesting sayings. She got many of them from her mother.

Anything that was disorganized or untidy was "The Devil's Knitting Bag"

"Never stick anything smaller than your elbow in your ear" Q-tips still freak me out.

About chewing gum " A chewing boy, a chewing cow. There is a differance I must allow, the intelligent look on the face of the cow."

And my favorite that my mom claims she never said( said it all the time ) "OH CHRIST ON A BIKE".

i'll kick this thread because I can't remember them all right now.

[Ramsey]

17. My dad had this pun

If he had asked you to do something and you hadn't done it, making the excuse "I haven't gotten around to it yet", he would then hand you a round piece of paper with the following written upon the paper: "TUIT".

The he'd say, "Now you have ".

I swear he kept a supply of these in his pocket.

[amerikat]

19. We made "round tuit's" in woodshop

The teacher had us make them on the bandsaw. He would open the doors to the shop and kids would try to throw coins in a bucket and the winners would get a "round tuit".....also called a "wooden nickel". I think he retired in Tahiti with all that change.

[neebob]

18. Whenever anyone said "So can I,"

My mom would make a fist and ask if they wanted a sock in the eye. As I recall, this was a joke from her childhood. I didn't get it, and it made me paranoid about saying "so can I."

Oh, and here's another one: I can't remember the phrase that brings this on, but the last word rhymes with pie, and if you say it to my mom, she says, "Hard pie." This, too, is a joke from her childhood. Now it's gonna bug me until I remember what the phrase is. It's a common one, and every time I hear it I automatically think hard pie.

[catzies]

20. "Don't ever try LSD. I did it last night and it was terrible."

Thanks, Mom. :hippie:

[NickB79]

22. Mom and Grandma both said some crazy stuff

When the movie "Titanic" came out, I was talking about how many people died when the boat sank due to lifeboat shortages, and my mom actually said to me with a straight face, "Don't tell me how it ends!" She was serious.

When I was 14, I was over at my grandma's place relaxing in the living room watching TV with my brother and sister. My grandma is the stereotypical grandmother, very sweet, kinda plump, grey curly hair, bakes cookies and cakes, works in her vegetable garden, etc. My mom and my aunt were talking with my grandma about what she was going to do with her life now that she was a free woman again (she had just gotten a divorce from my grandpa at age 64). I just had to overhear this part of the conversation, where she said she was going to go out to California to visit her brother for a while. Oh, and to "go get a big black one" while she was there. That was probably one of the most disturbing images a 14-yr old can imagine.

[trof]

24. "Must be a football game."

Remark made by my grandmother as we drove past a huge automobile junkyard.
So now, every time we see one, somebody says..."Must be a football game".

[noonwitch]

25. Mom-"It doesn't hurt the first time if you're married"

Thanks, mom.

Her grandmother told her not to swim in pools with boys, or she might get pregnant.

[ChickMagic]

28. Is your mom related to my mom?

She told me you couldn't bathe during your period.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. What I remember

As we left for school, she'd always say, "See you in the funnies!" (For you youngsters, "funnies" is the old term for newspaper comics.)

If I was embarrassed about how my hair had turned out or a new zit, she would say, "Ten years from now no rooster will crow about it."

When we kids didn't want to wake up in the morning, my dad used to do what his Norwegian parents did in that situation, grab us by the ribs and roll us back and forth saying, "Bakke brød, bakke brød." ("Bake bread, bake bread.")

My grandmother had a hearing problem and refused to get a hearing aid for about twenty years, so she'd mishear new words and make up pronunciations for them which would then stick in her memory. "Star Trek" was "Starcraft," and "egg foo young" was "foo num num."