Stupid Things I've Been Told

Throughout my life I've had moments where people simply nay-say what I've told them... This became a very real trope (until I took up a marshal art and became very good at it) in my life and lead to a loss of confidence on my part, today lets take a look at some of them which I still remember:

English (1991)    AMBULATE

I used the work "ambulate" in a sentence, I was 12 or 13.  My mother immediately said "There's no such word", and I said "there is, it means to walk, and it's where the word Ambulance comes from"... She flat refused to accept this and really made me unsure; she was wrong, she has been wrong about many things, but this was one of the earliest times I actively recall her being dead wrong.  Her response also made me second guess myself, so much so that I sat and read the dictionary, other kids at school ribbed me about this for years after, but I read the dictionary.  I was right, ambulate is a word, it does mean to walk.

Engineering (1985)    METAL SPARKS

My Dad was in the door way of my Grandfathers garage, angle grinding part of the front of the family car, and there were metal sparks flying all over the place, to the left of the closed wooden door was a fabric cover over some garden furniture.  The sparks were flying and landing on this dry fabric.  And I said "that's going to catch fire".... I was 7 years old and I could see this cascade of burning sparks would set light to the fabric if it carried on.  My Dad turned to me and said "don't be stupid, there's nothing in a spark".  As though it was a zero weight particle an ethereal nothing, of course, we all know that a spark is a red hot but admittedly tiny fragment of metal, not only could it have set light to the fabric, but it could also have gotten into someones eye... But, I was seven, I was clearly wrong... No, no I wasn't.

Electronics (1992)    CD PLAYER

I was sat in the library with a selection of the annoying, ignorant, bully children who were my class mates, when one of the boys Richard ventured something about CD's, about their spinning... of course CD's spin, we all know this, that's why they're round and the lazer is set to slide back and forth.  Richard wasn't known as a braniac, but he was right.  Immediately a boy called Zahid took the utter and total michael out of Richard, really horrible child this Zahid was and he was one of a bunch of morons in my class... Martin, Martin, Paul and Zahid were a group of utter moronic and bullies; each with their own insecurities; and they took it out most days on me, but this day they dragged this poor Richard lad into it, who looked quite abashed, I decided to stick up for him... Well, never had I been so quickly and thoroughly insulted by a moron who knew nothing but how to ride his mouth.  Zahid, I hope your now very bald head knows just how wrong you were, and what a moron you looked flat arguing that CD's don't spin, because they do.

Computing (1984)    TYPING

Sat before the first BBC Micro that the school had bought and the teacher was trying to explain LOGO to us, he was leaning over the computer typing one handed upside down, and I could tell what he was trying to type... For I had had a computer at home for the last year, and I'd been typing in simple BASIC programs, so this LOGO thing looked very rudimentary even to my six or seven year old mind.  So I offered to do the typing for him, he was copying off of a sheet, he'd have been able to tell the class the command and then see me type it in and the turtle robot (or just the screen) complete the command.  And better yet, I'd have been so much quicker making the class feel far more interactive.  This teacher, Mr Allison, turned his eyes down on me like I was a dirty stinking urchin (which I likely was) who not only couldn't understand what he was doing, but it was far far beyond anything I could ever do with a computer; see we were a school intended to produce manual workers, no-one expected a kid from that school to end up being a programmer... I'd hazard a guess that a fair few are now, and I look back on that day thinking... Why did he say I couldn't possibly type?  When I could and can....

Computing (1993)    FLOPPY DISK FORMATS

I was always curious about computers and when my senior school created a "lab" with twenty Acorn A3000 computers I was eager to give these 2megabyte machines a whirl.  My machine at home was an Atari ST and it's floppy format was compatible with the Acorn machine (they both being nearly perfect compatible matches with MS DOS's format on the IBM PC).  But this lab was always closed, not always locked, but closed... But I started to let myself in; and one day I was caught in there, learning, programming and typing notes, by one of the teachers; I don't remember this guys name, he was never my actual teacher, but his lab was his coveted land and I think he was a little put out that I was there with two of his machines going doing different things at the same time, not just that, but I was doing things so much more quickly because I'd learned that the Acorn OS came with a RAM disk, and with 2MB of RAM I could assign 500-720K and basically copy the Floppy disk straight into RAM, work on it incredibly quickly, and then sync the data back to the disk... So I could do the work I was doing incredibly quickly.  He didn't like this, he didn't want to learn, he just wanted to make me look a fool.  So he asked me what the disks I was using were.  So I showed him, "You have an Acorn at home?"  No, I have an ST... Silence, he just stared at me, and he paced off to his desk and pulled a disk out his desk... "Go home and make me 10 copies of this".. and he handed me a box of blank disks... The disk was Lemmings... This teacher was literally giving me homework to commit copyright fraud... I didn't take that disk home, but I did return to his lab... turn on all the machines, and copy the disk once.. then with the two copies copied it on two more, then on the four machines I made the next four copies, and then I had the last two machines running the write of the disk as he walked back in... A mere ten minutes later.  "That should have taken you all night!".... Why... it's binary maths... 1 becomes 2... 2 becomes 4... 4 become 8.. here's your last two... "Aren't you the IT teacher?".... he just stared as I handed him his contraband and left the room.  I didn't like the man, but I was a black-belt in karate and knew who I was by then...

The Hot Water Pipe Balls Up

The worst mistake I ever made as a kid.... Was flood the house.

Yeah, so... my parents had a new central heating system put in, all the floor boards up job, British Gas did the work... and for some unknown reason they left all the floor boards up when the finished the job.

To this day, I don't know why they left the job, with hot exposed pipes in the floor space.  But they did... Pinky Swear.

So, Saturday morning my Dad set about putting the floor boards back down, he embroiled me in this, despite my not really knowing one end of a hammer from the other, he put the first board in place and started to put the nails into the holes they had come out of and tamp them down.

He handed me the hammer and said to put in the two nails at my end.... I placed the nail in and hammered it once.... Handing the hammer back to my Dad and we crawled forward to the next joist.

And then I felt wet on my knee... Water was merrily flowing up out of the nail hole and across the wood... warm musky water... heating system water, fresh fernox.

OMG!!!

But my brain said "hey Dad, there's water coming out this wood"... which in retrospect is one of the most spectacular brain farts I can ever imagine, they were the words my brain delivered so my mouth spoke thus.

Panic!!!!

We pull the board up... to put a finger over the hole... but we can't... the hole is in the side of the pipe... the nail had gone down, turned about 60 degree's and gone into the side of the pipe... how it managed this I'll never know, unless I buy that house strip that floor board out and dissect that joist.

So this hole in the pipe was well out of reach below the level of the joist in this cut, you could not put a finger in it... and the heating was on, this water was getting burning hot.

We wrapped towels around it, all sorts, i got scolded pretty badly by it... British Gas wouldn't come back, their home care insurance cover for this didn't cover us for our sticking a nail in the pipe, despite the argument that they pulled the bloody boards up why didn't they put them back down!!?!?!!

To this day I'll never understand why they were left like this.

But this all became my fault.

A plumber arrived about an hour later, he drained the system, cut the pipe, two compression joints and bosh fixed.

I never lived this down of course, this was over 35 years ago, but I still hear about it, and I've even written about it right here, so it plays on my mind.  Not for my ineptitude with a hammer... but for the physics of the thing, how did a nail, driven in straight as far as I could tell... How could it turn like this and stick into a pipe's side, it's lower radius of that side even from a straight above shot?

Pulling it out, the nail had a bend added a perfect bend, as though it had gone slightly into the joist and just turned.  The other nail was still straight and true...

My Mothers Mania

My mother… is mental… There, I said it... She's bat shit, off the trolley mental... What has caused this conclusion today?.. Well in the pantheon of strangeness she's become over the last fourteen years, she's just getting odd, and the oddness is very much of her own flavour.... 

She’s arranging a lunch for my Dad’s 65^th Birthday**… She’s asked if we can go… It’s the day after his birthday…  We've said yes... but… and this is a big set of buts…

1.       We don’t know what time it is… nor do we know where it is...

She's said Dad knows he's going to be taken out for a lunch... But he doesn't know where to... Okay, fine... I don't really speak to my Dad day to day, I see him once in a blue moon as he's "so busy", you know looking after his bat shit crazy wife... And I'm 900 & 99 point 99 less of a gossip than my mother is, so even if I knew and I saw him I would be like "RIGHT SEE YOU AT MCDONALDS!"... Would I.... No, I'm 36, not 6.*

When however, I've asked my mother "When and where"... she says... “I’m not telling you, because it’s a secret”…. She does not get that you can't invite someone somewhere and not tell them where it is... We need to fucking know so we know where we’re going retard!

This is just the normal mania she has, next we get cryptic messages…

"it's only a part time restaurant, and for parties over 8 they need the food selection a head of time, get a menu"...

Erm... erm... Where the fuck from?

“Meet at the venue, by one of the two open fires”…. 

Erm... Erm... What time?... And where are the fires again?...

This is basically now a very sad mystery novel...  We have to find a location open part time for meals, with two open fires, which will seat a party of 8 or more, which require such parties to order a head of time...

It is all such a sad joke.... And I can only see it ending in tears (again*).

* Coincidently, I'm a little pissed off that I'm not being told anything, because the last time we attempted as a Family to go out for my Fathers Birthday, we went to the Broad Oak pub at Strelley... But they didn't have any food on that day, so we went to another pub in the same chain the Horse and Groom on the B600... Already peeved we've moved venue, I go in (I'm alone at the time), and as I'm watching my Dad is just asking a chap whether a chair is in use, so he can move it to the table and make 4 chairs...

Suddenly, and dramatically my little brother explodes... "I know people here" shouting "They know me, and you're embarrassing me"... My Dad looks at him quizzically... My Brother is upset that my Dad is moving this chair...

Apparently that's an embarrassment... 

So already pissed off my Dad storms out, because my brother has made him look a fool...

My brother leaves with this then fiancée and I'm still stood there... As my mother traipses over the length of the bar crying here eyes out....

My Dad's gone home, without her... He's dumped her and stormed off home...

So I put my mother in my car and take her home...

That was the last family outing I dared go on with them all...

With a mystery venue this time, my mother is already burning my patience stick at both ends...

** For those observant amongst my audience, you might think he's retiring, he's not.  He's been retired since 1994.... So if they mention "retirement"... my plan is to kick my legs out, cross them and fold my arms and lean my head to one side, you know like a dog being shown a card trick.

Dysfunction

So, I'm busy today, very very busy arranging a wedding... no mean feat and nothing to be taken lightly, yet I keep getting blasts of bull shit from my mother and I've snapped, I'm so unimpressed I'm going to explain my frustration here.

My Mother is a right moaner, she'll moan about a topic basically until it either gets done, or until you snap and tell her to fuck off, I can't tell you how many months I've ignored my mother for to avoid this kind of confrontation, we had a flare up of this shit not three months ago, and I thought she might finally have learned her lesson, but no, today she's kicking off...

Now, what could she be kicking off over that is more important than my sorting out this wedding?... Okay... ready?....

Its making sure my daft old Nan gets her shopping in the 12pm-1pm time slot next week. My nan is useless she'll spend spend spend, but she'd harmless with it, she's too thick to be too vindictive and too self obsessed to truly get under your skin, so if she were to moan "I've not got my shopping", I'd just tell her to calm down... not my mother... oh no, my Nan moans to my mother... my mother starts to call me... as if I'm not up to my eyes in other tasks...

In the lasty 36 hours I have, worked a shift with work, taken delivery of a new washer, arranged and managed the fitting of both the bride and bridesmaids dresses.  Arranged with the best man to get his suit sorted, done a full shop for ourselves, cleaned down stairs, cleaned the bathroom, hoovered the house and spend about three hours laying out the seating plan for the dinner following this wedding... so I'm pretty tired, pretty fucked off and have had no time to myself at all this weekend, to top it off my Mrs is at work so I've hardly seen her either.

Now, step into this my Mother niggling over this shop, now when we were kids my mother would moan at my Dad, she'd moan and cajoal and push him until he snapped and he'd come roaring in at us kids hit us, usually with a slipper, but sometimes with a fist, he'd smash something scream in cohearently and then later on we would have to go appologise to him... My mother easily leads my Dad into this....

So it was no surprise about twenty minutes ago when my phone rings and its my Dad's mobile... my Dad never makes calls... ever.... from the sound of his voice he's laying in bed, beery eyed, either he's not slept well, or he's been up all night (as usual).  But I can tell my Mother has been moaning and moaning and moaning.... "Are you going to do Nan's shop?"  he demands... no asks... not inquires like you should to someone doing you a favour... no demands in a strop.

And it all comes clear, Mother is moaning, she's bored today, she's laying in bed, her current favourite toy a trolly dolly for Quantas is stuck in Singapore cus of this industrial dispute, so my mother is sat at home brooding about what boat she can rock, and she's picked mine, whilst I'm under extreme stress.

So my Dad has been told to "Go away" and been hung up on.

I then decided to sort out five minutes to call my Nan, and I have and I asked her... "Nan, why when you can't get hold of me do you go and moan to my Mum?"... wrongly I've been thinking she's been moaning to start this off... "I've not called anyone since Friday" she says... honestly, I believe her, she's too thick to lie...

Sooooo my mother has gotten this bee in her bonnet about nothing... Has wound my Dad up, like the good old days, for nothing... and has pissed me off for nothing... and interrupted my getting on with these wedding arrangements for nothing....

So to all the mothers out there don't stress your kids....

To all the unthinking fathers who snap when their Mrs has been moaning at them all day... don't snap, think why is she moaning and then think... Hang on, she's talking about other people, who might be busy, I don't know why they're busy, but there must be a reason why they've not got on with something...

And what makes all this work, I've done this shop every weekend for about two years for my Nan, I know what she wants, I know when to call her, I know we'll get the delivery slot... and even if we don't my Nan does not have a hectic social calendar we'd work out a new slot... but my Mother can't accept that, and I'm right fucking fucked right fucking off with it... so here it is laid bare, if I pop around and strange my parents later, you'll all know why.