(My 9-year-old son is reading a book he’s just taken off the shelf. He pages through it for a few minutes.)
9-year-old Son: “They’re all nursery rhymes that I should remember from my childhood, but I don’t.”
Me: “Your childhood?”
9-year-old Son: “Well, my younger childhood.”
(It’s the first time that my dad and his side of the family are going to meet my new boyfriend.)
Me: “Dad, this is [boyfriend], [boyfriend], my dad.”
Dad: “G’Day there, Nosferatu.”
(My jaw drops and my boyfriend raises his eyebrows. A Nosferatu is a vampire, but not the pretty kind; the horribly disfigured, exuding repulsion kind.)
Boyfriend: “Um… what?”
Dad: “Nosferatu! Like the vampire.”
Me: “Yeah… we know..”
(I drag my boyfriend away to meet the safer members of my family and later tell my mum what my dad had said.)
Mum: “Did he seriously say that?!”
Me: “Yeah. Was he just thinking Dracula or something??”
Mum: “He’s never seen, nor read Dracula. What he does know is the old 1920s Nosferatu movie. He genuinely meant the hideous and repulsive one. I can’t believe he said that.”
Boyfriend: “Yeah, I’m trying to find a nice way he could have intended that, but I really can’t.”
Me: *looking my boyfriend over critically* “You don’t even look like a Nosferatu.”
Boyfriend: “…Thanks?”
(My little sister, who is in her early 20s, is visiting for the holidays. She’s playing on a Nintendo DS and has another charging.)
Me: “Are those two different DS models?”
Sister: “Nope, they’re the same models.”
Me: *puzzled* “Why do you have two of the same model?”
Sister: *looks a bit embarrassed* “Well… it’s so I can trade Pokémon.”
Me: *trying not to laugh* “Are you saying you bought two Nintendo DS so you could trade Pokémon with yourself? Isn’t that what friends are for?”
Sister: “Yeah well you know…” *looks dramatically sad* ” …I’m ‘forever alone’.” *grins*
This story is part of our Pokémon roundup!
Read the next Pokémon Roundup story!
Read the Pokémon Roundup!
(My three-year-old niece is at her mother’s baby shower.)
Mother’s Friend: “Okay. Time to open your gifts!”
Mother: “All right.”
Niece: “No! I have to open the presents!”
Mother: “Why?”
Niece: “I have to practice for my birthday!”
(I am a petite young woman who works in the meat department of my local grocery store. I get a lot of flak from friends (and strangers) about my job, and have become very prepared to deal with it. I am out to dinner with my boyfriend’s family. I have just finished telling a funny story about my job.)
Me: *explaining* “I work in the meat department at [store].”
Boyfriend’s Youngest Brother: “Oh, so you spend a lot of time working with meat, huh?”
(He gives me a creepy smile, looking pleased with himself.)
Me: “Oh yeah. I work the grinder. I also twist and cut the sausage.”
(He grimaced, crossed his legs, and didn’t speak to me for the rest of the evening. I got high fives from the rest of the family, because apparently, no one has ever shut him up like that.)
