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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Where does your father store his barnacles?
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
Are there things perculiar to your family that you assume everyone does because your family does? The title is inspired by a visit to Down House where Charles Darwin lived. Apparently one of his children asked a playmate "Where does your father store his barnacles?'
In my family it was painting of anenomes. One of members of my fathers family was keen on painting the things and every house I visited on my fathers side of the family, including my parents, had a picture of them As a small child I assumed everyone had one somewhere.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
Posts: 2035 | From: London | Registered: Jan 2007
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
Oh definitely. In our family, if you saw mint sauce on the dinner table that meant one thing in particular; the only food upon which you would ever consider putting mint sauce: roast potatoes.
I was in my 20s before I found out that was considered unusual or that it was considered an accompaniment to lamb.
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
Not nearly as quirky as barnacles, but as a printer's daughter, I did not realize till I was at least in junior high school that other people had to BUY paper, or just didn't have it in the house. I think we always bought loose leaf and exercise books (or "scribblers" as we called them then) for me to use in school, but for drawing, writing, making notes, etc. at home, there was a seemingly endless supply of scrap paper that came home as odds and ends left over from print jobs, or samples given to my dad by paper salesmen, or whatever. The idea of going out and buying paper for everyday use was as foreign to me as the idea of not always having stacks of it around the house.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Mark Wuntoo
Shipmate
# 5673
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Posted
I'm not telling you where I store my barnacles ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.
Posts: 1950 | From: Somewhere else. | Registered: Mar 2004
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
My father reads aloud from the newspaper and books. We used to gather around and listen to him read P.G. Wodehouse stories as an evening activity.
My brother and I were shocked to discover that other families don’t do that, and actually find it obnoxious.
(Dad also drives without the radio on, which my wife finds completely strange.)
Edit to add- not a printer’s son, but when your parents are self-employed lawyers who move office occasionally, you always have heavy-stock paper airplane paper with obsolete addresses on it. My daughter gets to benefit from that one now.
[ 14. January 2018, 19:13: Message edited by: Og, King of Bashan ]
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
It seems most families eat salad before the main meal. Mine always had it after.
My mother also thought that potatoes and butter were bad for you. I never had butter on anything, and almost never potatoes until I was into my 20s.
My mother also thought that if you had a cold, you should have a small glass of sherry before getting out of bed, a thimble-full really. This certaintly started when I was preschool age. It made none of the family particularly interested in drinking wine nor alcohol in general.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
My father painted 30mm (mostly) lead figures of soldiers and others (camp followers, musicians) from the American Revolutionary War. He bought kits, researched the regiments meticulously, and individualized them, often putting each figure into a detailed vignette.
He ended up doing one from every single regiment in the ARW - including American, French, British, American Indian, and German, as well as recognizable likenesses of George Washington and Banastre Tarleton - and it's an amazing display. My school friends were always impressed, mostly in a good way.
The Pater gave away a few of them to other family members and friends, but I have most of them now, in his display cabinets. I need to dig out the illustrated catalogue he made of them and review who's who.
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
It seems most families eat salad before the main meal. Mine always had it after.
My family, too!
In my childhood years, I always assumed that mothers cook meat, but don't actually eat it. My mother is a natural vegetarian from babyhood. She can't abide the taste or texture of meat or fish or fowl. The first time I spent the night with one of my girlfriends when I was in grade school, I almost got sick, and was shocked when my friend's mother ate meat.
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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Ohher
Shipmate
# 18607
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Posted
When I was small, I believed that grandfathers of necessity conformed to only model I'd known: they were short, spoke in a near-incomprehensible Scots brogue, and played the bagpipes. This despite living next-door-to, and quite friendly with, my best friend's grandfather, who spoke with a heavy Italian accent, brewed wine in his cellar, and wouldn't have known one end of a set of pipes from the other.
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From the Land of the Native American Brave and the Home of the Buy-One-Get-One-Free
Posts: 374 | From: New Hampshire, USA | Registered: Jun 2016
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Aravis
Shipmate
# 13824
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Posted
The first time I went to a beach with my husband and suggested making a sandcastle after a swim, he said, "Which one?"
I didn't know what he meant, but found out his dad is very keen on archaeology and the structure of castles, and they'd always attempted models of specific castles: Harlech, Raglan etc.
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Not nearly as quirky as barnacles, but as a printer's daughter, I did not realize till I was at least in junior high school that other people had to BUY paper, or just didn't have it in the house. I think we always bought loose leaf and exercise books (or "scribblers" as we called them then) for me to use in school, but for drawing, writing, making notes, etc. at home, there was a seemingly endless supply of scrap paper that came home as odds and ends left over from print jobs, or samples given to my dad by paper salesmen, or whatever. The idea of going out and buying paper for everyday use was as foreign to me as the idea of not always having stacks of it around the house.
My dad was in the Royal Air Force until I was 17 and any number of things came home with him. Nothing dramatic like half an aeroplane but we could borrow some impressive tools and never had to buy scrap materials, batteries or nuts and bolts until I was sixteen.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There are a good few dialects of Chinese, many of them mutually incomprehensible. My father knew them all. He was also something of a gourmet. His practice when going into a Chinese restaurant was to treat the menu as a list of mild suggestions. He would (in the proper dialect) demand the presence of the chef. When this person appeared from in back he would open conversation, rapidly develop mutual relations, home town, interest in clams, etc., and then they'd develop a meal from there. We always dined hugely and magnificently (he was also a big tipper). But alas, none of us have his fluency in languages and we can't duplicate his habit.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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St. Gwladys
Shipmate
# 14504
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Posted
My mother was supervisor in a factory that made paper cake cases. We never had to buy any, and always had rolls of waxed paper to pack sandwiches in.
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"I say - are you a matelot?"
"Careful what you say sir, we're on board ship here"
From "New York Girls", Steeleye Span, Commoners Crown (Voiced by Peter Sellers)
Posts: 3333 | From: Rhymney Valley, South Wales | Registered: Jan 2009
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Most people think of pancakes as a breakfast thing, but in my childhood we had pancakes and bacon for dinner. Sometimes we had eggs and oatmeal for dinner too. Breakfast was almost exclusively cold cereal.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Diomedes
Shipmate
# 13482
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Posted
My parents were arable farmers East of England) and we only ever ate vegetables that were home grown. We had months of brassica/root vegetable monotony through the winter and spring until the delights of summer crops brought a very welcome respite, I remember as a child being invited to a friend's house for tea and we had peas (frozen, I realised later) - in the winter! It was mind-blowing!
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Distrust simple answers to complicated questions
Posts: 129 | From: Essex England | Registered: Mar 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
Not my family of course, but I remember reading that Ronald Reagan's grandson noticed the photograph of the president prominently displayed in his kindergarten classroom, and just figured every kid got to have their grandfather's photo up for a week, and his happened to get drawn first.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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luvanddaisies
the'fun'in'fundie'™
# 5761
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Posted
I assumed when I was small that everybody shared a birthday with a parent as my father and I had the same one. I thought it must be very weird for my mother having a birthday on her own.
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"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." (Mark Twain)
Posts: 3711 | From: all at sea. | Registered: Apr 2004
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
It was totally normal for my family to pick up our reading books and sit together in the lounge at least when on holiday*. If the lounge had chairs arranged around a window with a good view there was a chance that this was our preferred activity of the holiday.
Jengie
*I only know that it was unusual because a friend came to spend a holiday with us and was surprised at my family doing it. I think we must have done it at home but no recollection.
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
We never, ever, are salad and I loathe it to the present day.
We were never salad either ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) , but we ate it with every dinner (during -- not before or after).
Now in hot weather (which is much of the year here), I will often make a large salad as my entire dinner.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
I didn't realize everyone didn't stock kosher salt in their pantry. When I first moved out on my own, I went and bought some, along with all the other pantry items my mother had. Eventually, I realized I had no use for half of them! Turns out she had the same box of kosher salt for probably a couple decades! Also, cream of tartar was another "staple" I still never use except if I make one particular recipe, but I thought one needed to have it around.
For the most part, though, we knew we were different from our friends' and classmates' families, so I don't know if I can think of much to share.
We did get paper scraps like Trudy describes, because some friends of our parents ran a print shop out of their garage. (I particularly remember a LOT of that pale green cut into about 11x6" strips.) My dad had a bunch of old art supplies we got to use - oil crayons, pastels, etc.
And we ate our salad with dinner, like Pigwidgeon's family. We always ate at 5 pm (which meant, M-F, that my dad wasn't there; he always worked overtime) because my sister was diabetic and on a schedule. I didn't realize that was considered early.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
My mother also thought that potatoes and butter were bad for you. I never had butter on anything, and almost never potatoes until I was into my 20s.
OTOH, in our house we always had buttered potatoes, whether baked, boiled or mashed. My mother's secret for creamy mashed potatoes was to heat the milk and melt the butter into it before adding it to the potatoes. I never even knew what sour cream was until being asked in a restaurant if I wanted it for my potatoes.
My mother always kept a bottle of Argyrol in the pantry, although I don't remember it ever being used for anything. When I left home to set up house for the first time, I was disappointed that I couldn't find a bottle of it at the local drug store.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
I never assumed other people lived the same way my family did. I was always surprised when I spotted something familiar at a friend's house. "Oh look! Your mother has a measuring cup just like my mother's!" I don't know why I thought we were unique.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
[I]n our house we always had buttered potatoes, whether baked, boiled or mashed. My mother's secret for creamy mashed potatoes was to heat the milk and melt the butter into it before adding it to the potatoes. I never even knew what sour cream was until being asked in a restaurant if I wanted it for my potatoes.
My mother thought butter was one of the five basic food groups, and my father insisted on potatoes with every meal. (Mom occasionally substituted noodles or rice -- with butter, of course.) I don't think I ever heard of sour cream until I moved to Arizona and had it with Mexican food.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
My family was the very, very last of our acquaintance to still have a black and white TV. When my friends came round, they assumed it was broken and asked what had happened to the colour.
So were we. Finally, we got new neighbors, of whom one worked for Motorola. Invited over for drinks, he took one look at our B&W set, and said, "I can get you a really good price on color." There was something the Pater was yearning to see in color on PBS, so he took him up on it.
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
We had black and white TV until I was in college, and that was 1980. When I wanted to see the Rankin and Bass animate The Hobbit on TV, my parents actually rented a color set for the occasion. Why they didn't just buy one I do not know. Like I said they finally did in the 80s.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
I didn't realize everyone didn't stock kosher salt in their pantry. When I first moved out on my own, I went and bought some, along with all the other pantry items my mother had. Eventually, I realized I had no use for half of them! Turns out she had the same box of kosher salt for probably a couple decades!
My parents had one of those large boxes as well.
I feel like more and more recipes call for coarse or kosher salt these days, so I go through it at a pretty good clip- I probably use it more often than the fine grained stuff.
It did take me years before I stared consulting expiration dates on my spice jars. I swear that my folks have bottles of seldom-used spices that date back 15-20 years. (You also never see the back of their refrigerator, because there are so many random bottles of stuff that my dad used in one recipe and then never used again. My wife cured me of that habit).
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
(You also never see the back of their refrigerator, because there are so many random bottles of stuff that my dad used in one recipe and then never used again.)
I think I feel a new thread coming on: How often do you clean out your refrigerator?
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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wild haggis
Shipmate
# 15555
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Posted
Easy. When it gets dirty!
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wild haggis
Posts: 166 | From: Cardiff | Registered: Mar 2010
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Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
We had black and white TV until I was in college, and that was 1980. When I wanted to see the Rankin and Bass animate The Hobbit on TV, my parents actually rented a color set for the occasion. Why they didn't just buy one I do not know. Like I said they finally did in the 80s.
We only got colour TV in the early 80s too, and only because the black and white one finally died. In the UK the TV licence is cheaper for black and white than colour (I believe the black and white one does still exist). So when friends would come round and scoff at us for not having colour, I would say "Oh yes, we're so poor even the cat is black and white because we can't afford a colour one!"
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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
We only got a colour telly when Dad's attempts to buy a new B&W one we're met with "well, you could buy a colour one and turn the colour down"
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
My dad held onto Betamax well into the 80s, and possibly the early 90s. Always told us it was a superior format.
There came a time when even the local video store gave up so he finally made the move.
Posts: 7800 | From: On the border | Registered: Jul 2001
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Mrs Shrew
Ship's Mother
# 8635
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Posted
Not me, but my husband - he grew up in the middle of nowhere, and the TV signal was dreadful (completely unusable if the weather was bad).
They went to visit family in a city when the kids were small, and the kids were all happily watching TV when their uncle came in and noticed that the picture was terrible, because their aerial had come detached. When he asked why they hadn't called for him, my husband merrily explained that the picture was much better than they got at home...
Posts: 703 | From: York, England | Registered: Oct 2004
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
My kids showed us up a while back in someone else's bog, pointing at the loo roll holder on the wall and going ' what's that?? '.
I made one after that.
It's funny how things being technologically-mainstream just before one has many memories (perhaps age 6 or 7) make them seem like they've always been. My kids must think about mobile phones and the internet like that - not a novel observation.
Now this thread (and stories of late technological adoption) have reminded me our 'new' 13-yr-old car has a CD player. I think I might go and sit in it now, just for kicks. First CD...something from the Christian sub-culture, just for you lot...might have to be Bruce Cockburn, as I only have Larry Norman on lp
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
My father regularly ate hot dogs for breakfast, the way one eats breakfast sausages. Imagine my surprise to learn that no one else’s family cooked hot dogs for the morning meal.
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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MaryLouise
Shipmate
# 18697
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Posted
Because my father was Scottish, we ate salt with our oatmeal porridge for breakfast. When I went to boarding school and put salt on my porridge, the hostel superintendent thought I was playing some kind of nasty prank and sent me to detention for spoiling good food. I felt the same dismay about fellow hostel inmates who sprinkled sugar all over perfectly decent plates of porridge.
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“As regards plots I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots.”
-- Ivy Compton-Burnett
Posts: 646 | From: Cape Town | Registered: Nov 2016
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gill H:
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
We had black and white TV until I was in college, and that was 1980. <snip>
We only got colour TV in the early 80s too <snip>
You were early adopters compared to us ![[Biased]](wink.gif) . When I said we had black and white an eternity after everyone else, I was talking mid nineties. After the family finally got a colour one for the living room, the black and white set came to university with me in 1998 (it gave up the ghost not long after).
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
The parents of our best friends have just got a television! A very nice one too, but that is only because one of them is 75 and they get a free TV licence!
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Puzzler
Apprentice
# 18908
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Posted
Not as late getting a TV as some of you, but I was the last person in my form without one.
We went next door to watch Princess Margaret’s wedding on TV and my dad promised to get one in time for the next royal wedding, imagining that to be years away.
He kept his promise and we got one a year or so later when Princess Alexandra (I think) got married. But it had doors on the front and was only to be used with permission. That is, until my mum’s elderly aunt came to stay and introduced us to the delights of various soaps and other forbidden delights.
Posts: 27 | From: England | Registered: Jan 2018
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
We lost our TV when colour came in. We had had a black and white TV, kept in my parents' bedroom, only to be watched for agreed children's TV programmes such as Blue Peter. That one sadly died when my youngest sister screamed in frustration as it was being switched off - it possibly had valves as it had been handed on to us originally.
As it was the beginning of the summer my parents deemed TV unnecessary until the autumn, whereupon some friends invited us around for supper and to admire their new colour TV. We watched The Flintstones, something compered by Bruce Forsyth plus other not very good TV and my parents came away forswearing a replacement TV.
This was the 1970s. I, and my sisters, went through secondary school with no TV.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Some friends of mine did not have a television and were always being pestered by the Licensing Authorities who couldn't believe anyone didn't have one, and assumed they must be breaking the law.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
The licensing authorities do keep pestering. They also send detector vans around to check. I have had many years of being entertained by this as I only had a TV as an adult when my sister bought us one so my daughter, her god-daughter, did not have to go to secondary school without a TV at home. That one scarred.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Helen-Eva
Shipmate
# 15025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sarasa:
Are there things perculiar to your family that you assume everyone does because your family does? The title is inspired by a visit to Down House where Charles Darwin lived. Apparently one of his children asked a playmate "Where does your father store his barnacles?'
I would have found it impossible to comprehend (until about age 13) that everyone did not know that anecdote. I have discovered that there is NO SUBJECT that cannot be turned to evolutionary biology in the presence of my dear mother.
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I thought the radio 3 announcer said "Weber" but it turned out to be Webern. Story of my life.
Posts: 637 | From: London, hopefully in a theatre or concert hall, more likely at work | Registered: Aug 2009
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Curious Kitten
Shipmate
# 11953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I only had a TV as an adult when my sister bought us one so my daughter, her god-daughter, did not have to go to secondary school without a TV at home. That one scarred.
I still don't get why we couldn't have put the money towards a computer.
Posts: 107 | Registered: Oct 2006
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
(Dad also drives without the radio on, which my wife finds completely strange.)
My husband does that, too, but I've found out all I have to do to get him to turn it on is to start humming.
My father brought home lots of scrap paper, too, from his display business. What our friends were most surprised and tickled with was the tracing paper.
Our friends were most surprised to find out we had a roller coaster in the back yard. Our father had built the tracks going down the hill and made little cars for us to sit in out of crates with roller skates attached to the bottom. It wasn't dangerous because the hill was steep enough to give us the thrill without ever being more than a few feet off the ground.
What was dangerous, although no one knew it back then, was the small jar of mercury we liked to play with. Spill it out, watch how it rolled around, pull it into pieces, make marbles out of it. We should all be dead by now.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
What was dangerous, although no one knew it back then, was the small jar of mercury we liked to play with. Spill it out, watch how it rolled around, pull it into pieces, make marbles out of it. We should all be dead by now.
Me too! I've often wondered what all I can blame on mercury poisoning.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
My parents , non- early- adopters, never had an automatic washer and dryer until they retired. I grew up with a scary wringer washer, huge basins for rinsing ( memories of plunging my arms elbows deep in freezing water, after managing to keep them out of the dangerous wringer) and clotheslines in our basement and attic as well as outside. When I went away to school I had to feign expertise with the machines in our dorm laundry room. Ditto blenders and microwaves, appliances we never had at home. I never used a dishwasher until I moved in with Dear Spouse.
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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The Intrepid Mrs S
Shipmate
# 17002
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Posted
My brothers were born 12 and 14 years after me, so they assumed that all families consisted of a Mummy, a Daddy and an Annie, and then whatever children they might have. Reading children's picture books, there was always - for instance - a Mummy duck, a Daddy duck, an Annie duck and all the little baby ducklings. No idea how old they were when they realised not all families came with a home-grown au pair!
Mrs. S, scarred for life...
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Don't get your knickers in a twist over your advancing age. It achieves nothing and makes you walk funny.
Prayer should be our first recourse, not our last resort
'Lord, please give us patience. NOW!'
Posts: 1464 | From: Neither here nor there | Registered: Mar 2012
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I've just discovered one of these from my own children's perspective; very timely on the cusp of our move to new Ship quarters ....
At supper Friday night my dad was drinking out of my Ship of Fools mug, so the Ship came up in conversation. My son, now 20, said, "You know, when I was a kid you always had Ship of Fools open on the computer and I grew up just thinking it was one of the sites everyone used, like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Ship of Fools."
This led to some reminiscing about the times I included Shipmeets in our family vacations, including the time in 2006 when a pair of Shipmates let us do laundry at their home in England while we were on vacation. I had never realized that my kids grew up thinking the Ship was as ubiquitous as Facebook and Google!
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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