Wednesday 27 June 2012

Gravel Road Blues

I don't much care for the great outdoors. I've been that way ever since I can remember.

Nevertheless, when I was a kid, my parents somehow managed to ship me off to summer camp every year, despite my ever-persistent objection.

I would tell my parents I didn't like the food; I didn't like the bugs; I got diarrhea last time. I told them about the mean kids from the year before who teased me about being short. I told them about the time I peed my pants because the outhouses were locked at night. But did they hear me out? Not a chance!

Every year I got the same patronizing speech about how it was "every child's dream" to go to summer camp, and that I should be "grateful" for the opportunity to sleep in a dirty log cabin with ten other prepubescent girls.

Needless to say, the drive down to camp became somewhat of a dark harbinger in my otherwise happy childhood. Though, one year in particular proved to be quite eventful.

My mother and I were driving down the gravel road that led up to my summer camp. We were in the final leg of our journey when, all of the sudden, we spun out in our little Acura and drove right into the ditch. We were fine but my mom was quite rattled.

Unfortunately, we made it to the hell-hole which I call summer camp, and my mother told me to try and enjoy myself.  

After what seemed like an eternity, summer camp was over and my mom was back to pick me up. I eagerly hopped into the front seat of our car and the following conversation ensued:

Mom: Erin, go sit in the back.

Me: Ok

Mom: Here is a pillow for you

Me: Thanks.

At this point, I just thought my mother was being uncharacteristically considerate, and was encouraging me to take a nap on our drive home...

Mom: If we get into another car accident, take the pillow and put it around your head!


Aaah... now there's the mother I remember!


Monday 25 June 2012

Friday 22 June 2012

Which Church?

My mom really likes to stock up on cold weather wear like mittens, jackets, tuques and scarves. I guess this would've worked with three young children in the house, but now that we're all grown we tend just to buy our own stuff. Still, my mom has yet to curb her habit of jumping on winter sales whenever she sees 'em.

Every now and again, my siblings and I secretly comb through the stash of unworn winter wear and donate selected items behind our mother's back. Up until recently, my mom was completely in the dark about our back door charity op.

One day I was bugging my mom about a box of shoes in the garage which she refused to get rid of.

Me: Mom, you clearly don't wear any of these shoes, so you either need to donate them, or stop buying new shoes.

Mom: I will wear them one day!

Me: No you won't! They've been in the garage for 5 years! I bet you don't even know what's in there, and you wouldn't even notice if I got rid of them and never told you!

Mom: Yes I would notice! I know what is in my house and I know what belongs to me!

Me: Well you certainly didn't notice the big donation of gloves and tuques we made!

Mom: WHAT?!?!? WHAT DID YOU GIVE AWAY?!?!?!?

Me: See, you don't even know what went missing! Proof that it's better off being used by someone else!

Mom: WHERE DID YOU GIVE ALL OUR STUFF?!?!?

I didn't want to tell my mom we had made the donation to Goodwill because one time she literally made us go back to Goodwill to retrieve a previously donated item.... I know right?!

I thought that lying to her would be the best way to keep her from wanting to get her stuff back.



Me: I donated them to a church.

Mom: *fuming* ....... WHICH. CHURCH.


Wednesday 20 June 2012

Fobby Food

This post is a compilation of a few stories about my mom's special relationship with food.

Two Pots of Rice:

If you were to walk into my parents' house right this very instant, you would see two pots of rice on the stove; an old pot and a fresh pot. The old pot is typically whatever didn't get eaten the day before, or the day before that. The fresh pot is usually no more than a day old.

Since the "two pot" phenomenon arose as a result of my mom's inability to throw away food, she is solely responsible for eating the old rice, and is strictly forbidden from eating the fresh rice.

However, every now and again we catch her trying to sneak the old rice into my dad's lunch. Nice try, buster!


Mommy's Ham:

Old rice isn't the only thing my mom sneaks into my dad's diet. One time, she was making macaroni and cheese for herself and my father. She cut up some of "her ham" and deliberately mixed it in with the macaroni and served some to my dad.

After a couple hours, my dad started to feel a little sick. It didn't take long before the hints of indigestion turned into a full blown gwai lo diarrhea attack!

We busted our mom for sneaking her rotten ham into my dad's macaroni, but ultimately it was my dad who paid the price.


Digging into the Archives:

A couple of years ago my family and I were "de-frogging" our freezer and as we were emptying its contents we found some meats in there from the late 90s.

As we began tossing the ancient meat, my mom began her full-scale fob protest.

Despite the fact that my mom could probably pound back a few 15 year old bison burgers without even triggering her gag reflex, we had a sneaking suspicion that the old meat would probably just get forgotten in the freezer for another 15 years. So we decided to put our foot down and stand up to our little mother.

Still, she wasn't going down without a fight. My little brother had to literally restrain our 95 lb mother as my sister and I chucked the frozen meat. Sorry mom :)


My mom's prefered use of free return address labels

Click on the picture to read what she wrote!


Tuesday 19 June 2012

Do You Have a Fob in the House?

Do you think you have a fob living in your house? Are you unsure? How would you know if you did?

In today's post I will be helping you identify some key signs that you may have a fob living in your midst. I have taken pictures from inside a REAL fob habitat to help you know what to look for.


1.
 














Let's start with an obvious one: the T&T plastic grocery bags. If you see lots of these mofos around the house, chances are you've got a fob on your hands.



2.
Thousand Year Old Duck Eggs. No fob household goes without.




3.
Unnecessary note indicating whether the dishwasher has been run, which is always left on the fridge.




4.
Plentiful Tsu Tsing Yat Ding or Gong Jai Mein.



5.
Bamboo shoots and what appears to be canned shrimp. 




6.
An entire closet full of school supplies. A lifetime of school supplies can come in handy... NEVER.



7.
Shit-packed freezer. It is important for fobs to keep freezer burnt ham at the bottom of the freezer so he/she can reach the items at the top.




8.
Box of receipts. To be kept, but never to be touched.




9.
Miss-matched bedding. Who needs matching bedding? Everything in a fob household stays in-style FOREVER! 




10.
Nowhere to sit. Junk is too important.




11.
Various assortment of junk on the bedside table. Notice the SanDisk and miscellany in the ziploc bag, the no-name ointment, and the hello kitty drawstring bag. 




12.
A shit-packed armoir / A sweater for any occasion. 




13.
An easter basket holding a lampshade.... or is it a lampshade holding an easter basket? 




14.
The ever important Susan Boyle CD.




15.
Rubber bands where you'd least expect... 




16.
"Mom, where did I leave the nail clippers, multi-colour ballpoint pen,
broken pencil and miniature screw-driver?"

"Did you check in the crystal swan????"

"Oh right! DUH!"




17.
Corner clutter. A fob household with clutter pushed into the corner or stacked in piles
against the wall is a tidy fob household indeed. 




18.
Slippers.




19.
Slippers.... 




20.
Slippers.... 




21.
And more slippers.... 




22.
Other people's slippers...




23.
Oh and if none of those were a dead giveaway, the crazy lady stirring the Crystal Light in a Campbells soup mug with a chopstick calling you an "IDIOT" will do the trick.






Saturday 16 June 2012

The Library Fiasco

My sister needed a ride home from the library one day, but instead of taking public transit my mom insisted on picking her up on the way home from work. I guess my mom ran into a little bit of trouble in the parking lot once she got there.

Mom: I think something is wrong with the tire. Check the back wheels.

Sister: It looks like you have a flat tire.

Mom: WHY DIDN'T YOU GET YOUR STUPID BROTHER TO PICK YOU UP FROM THE LIBRARY!?!?!

Sister: What happened???

Mom: I RAN OVER A CURB, YOU IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!

Sister: I didn't know you were going to get a flat tire!

Mom: WHERE IS YOUR STUPID BROTHER?!!?!?!?






Friday 15 June 2012

FOB Mom Discovers Wikipedia

The day my mom discovered Wikipedia was a delightful day indeed.

I was sitting next to her on the couch as she was surfing on my sister's laptop. I briefly glanced over at the screen and noticed that she was on Wikipedia.

At the time, I was trying to watch TV but all I could hear was "Oooooh.... Oh yum! Oooooh yummy! Oh that's my favourite.... Oooooh yes those are nice..... Mmmmmm.... Ooooh yummy yummy! They have everything on here!"

And what, pray tell, was she reading about? Well I looked a little closer, and saw that she was scrolling around Wikipedia reading about all different types of noodles!

Mom, you never cease to amaze me.



Thursday 14 June 2012

Accurately Racist Wallet

This wallet pretty much exemplifies how fobs feel about gifts from their children:




After a lifetime of conditioning, I've come to the understanding that my gift offerings are futile. Despite this, year after year my siblings and I invariably end up buying our mother a present expecting a different reaction each time.

The only thing we've figured out in the past 20 some odd years is that my mom will always appreciate slippers no matter how many pairs she's already hoarded.

Tuesday 12 June 2012

Plumbing Supplies

We needed to fix a leaky shower head at my parents' house so my mom ran down to the basement to retrieve her collection of plumbing supplies. While sifting through the lovingly packaged bits and pieces, it was evident that they weren't going to be of any use to us.

I've underlined some key words in red:






Hey, you never know when you'll need crusty old plumbing supplies to pull off a MacGruber-like rescue!


Monday 11 June 2012

I'm Sexy and I Know It

While driving in the car the LMFAO song "I'm Sexy and I Know it" came onto the radio. Right after the lyric "I got a passion in my pants and I ain't afraid to show it", my mom turned to my sister and asked:

Mom: Did he just say he's got a rash in his pants?!?





Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle YEAH!

Sunday 10 June 2012

I Feel Dizzaaay!

This video has nothing to do with fobs but it's hilarious!




Thanks Steve!




Thursday 7 June 2012

E-mail from Alcatraz

There are so many things wrong with this e-mail my siblings and I received from my mother while she was in California on vacation.

Let's just dive right in, shall we?


I'm pretty sure the subject was supposed to be Manulife... don't ask me why.

I could be mistaken, but I think "Alcartz" must be the UBER UBER secure and top secret version of "Alcatraz" because I sure haven't heard of it.

Oh, and I'm also fairly confident than my mom HAD a big day...

The lack of punctuation really isn't helping here.

Classic fob!


Wednesday 6 June 2012

Organize Your Junk!

In today's post I'm going to use my fob skillz to help you ORGANIZE YOUR JUNK!

Despite my very best efforts, I can't help but exhibit certain fob-traits which I have no doubt inherited from my mother. One of my bad fobby habits is how I compulsively collect those darn paper shopping bags! Now, I definitely would not consider myself to be a hoarder, but for some reason I just can't bring myself to throw those suckers into the trash!

Luckily for me, I've recently discovered that I can put my hoarded shopping bags to good use! With a few snips, my shopping bags go from collecting dust in the closet to corralling junk under my sink in seconds!

First what you do is fold your paper bag and line up your scissors with the bottom edge for a straight cut:





 Then you cut off the top like so:






Then you marvel at the endless possibilities for storing your cr@p!






And finally, you insert your junk and weep over the realization that you've turned out just like your crazy parents:




And that's how it's done, folks.


Tuesday 5 June 2012

Book Him, Lou

I'll be shaking things up this week with a post about my friend’s fobby mom! Unfortunately it won’t be about how fobby she is... but fortunately this post will be about SWEET SWEET JUSTICE!

Allow me to elaborate. About a week or so ago, my friend who we shall call "Jonathan" (names have not been changed in order to reveal identity) told me quite the interesting little story of an adventure from which he had just returned.

Earlier on that day, he received a frantic phone call from his mother. Her car had been stolen and she needed him to pick her up from work and bring her to the police station. Distraught and probably a little hungry, he rushed over to his mother's place of work.

While filling out the police report, the officer helping them out asked Jonathan's mom if she thought any valuables had been left in the car. She explained how she had left her iPad in the car that day because she was planning on going to her friend's house after work to show her some pictures.

Being a quick thinking techno-geek, Jonathan remembered an app he had installed on his mother's iPad that would allow him to remotely access its location. He whipped out his phone, and activated the app which instantly brought up the location of the stolen iPad.

That was all the officer needed to see so they rushed off to the quiet south west neighborhood to try and catch the thief red-handed.

After arriving at the approximate location, they immediately spotted the stolen van parked on the driveway in front of a duplex. The officer got out of the vehicle and marched up the driveway while his partner stayed back. Jonathan and his mother were waiting in their car a few houses back to watch all the action unfold.

After a few short moments, they saw the partnering officer leap into action and tackle a pajama clad man trying to flee the scene. He escaped out the back door, but something compelled him to run to the front of the house into the waiting arms of the police officer.

Jonathan and the police officers were able to retrieve the iPad which had been hooked up to the thief’s computer. He was trying to wipe it, but luckily it had been password protected so he was not able to do so. The van was also returned, and there were no signs of damage.

So let this be a lesson to you: always lock your laptops and iPads, and don't mess with Jonathan's mom!




Monday 4 June 2012

Jelly Belly Momma

Here is a picture of my mother dearest upon her return from California. She took a tour at the Jelly Belly factory and I'm about 79% sure she wore this the whole time:



Now she can look like a tourist here in Edmonton!