Unfortunately, it was my mom that produced this gem.

Mom: *Angry* “You made me look like an idiot! I went to the record store to get that album you said you wanted for Christmas, and they all laughed at me!”

Me: “Oh! What did you say to them? You asked for the Metallica box set Live S***: Binge And Purge, yeah?”

Mom: “Something like that! And they said that it didn’t exist! You played a prank on me!”

Me: “Mom, I assure you it’s a real thing. When you say, ‘something like that’, did you ask for the exact same thing, or did you do that thing that you do where you’re only half listening, and when you try to remember it comes out as something else?”

Mom: “I asked for that Puke And Eat Me music you asked for!”

Me: “I think I know why they couldn’t find it…”

When I was eleven and my brother was seven, our parents took us to the “magical” theme parks in Florida for summer vacation. One day of the trip, we were at one of the water parks. My dad had gone off to do some of the slides, and my mom had taken us to the lazy river. We knew we were going to get out at a certain exit to catch up with my dad later.

As it was June and extremely hot, the lazy river was packed with people. My brother had been annoying me and knew I was getting upset with him, so he slyly said:

Brother: “Catch me, sissy!”

And he swam off. I couldn’t grab him quickly enough and soon lost sight of him amongst all the people in the water.

The next two hours were sheer panic and misery for my mom and me. As we were at a water park, my parents weren’t carrying their phones, so Mom had no way of calling Dad to see if my brother had found him. She had me sit on the side of the lazy river for over an hour in the hot sun watching for my brother while she ran and talked to employees, trying to get help. She found out they didn’t carry walkie-talkies — the park thought employees would spend too much time talking to each other instead of working — and management seemed really unconcerned.

Manager: “Your son is probably having the time of his life. He’s probably on the slides. It’s not like someone could just take him out of the park.”

Mom: “My son has no concept of stranger danger. This is a kid who will hug strangers at the grocery store. He absolutely would leave the park with someone he didn’t know.”

Management dismissed her concerns.

Eventually, we found my dad… and my brother. It turned out he had gotten out of the lazy river at the correct spot and told Dad that Mom and I were still floating, so Dad thought we had told my brother he could get out and go on slides with Dad while we stayed in the water.

That was the most afraid I had ever seen my mom, and when she found my brother and realized he had been safe the whole time, she turned furious and really let him have it (verbally).

A passing mother heard my mom screaming and yelled at her for scaring my brother, and another mother came and yelled at her for yelling at my mother when she was just trying to parent.

To this day, eighteen years later, my brother still refuses to admit he did anything wrong. My mom still says that’s the most afraid she has ever been. She was truly afraid she’d never see my brother again. We don’t ever talk about that water park or its uncaring employees.

I am at the park with my kids when I overhear two moms talking. 

Mom #1: “So, we ended up canceling [Streaming Subscription].”

Mom #2: “Any reason why?”

Mom #1: “[Movie] has a same-sex couple in it.” 

Mom #2: “Wasn’t that like a three-second clip? It wasn’t even confirmed whether they were or weren’t.”

Mom #1: “Yeah, but I don’t want my kids subjected to that.”

There’s a long pause before [Mom #2] speaks again.

Mom #2: “Didn’t you guys let them watch [R-Rated Movie] at like two and four years old?”

My great-nephew has a lot of toys, but there is one that he loves above all. It’s a stuffed animal I got for his baby shower. I knew exactly what I wanted to get because I had had one as a kid. And I had to search several stores because most of the stores around me stopped selling stuffed animals. But finally, I found it! I brought it up to my mom, triumphantly.

Me: “I found it! And feel! It’s soooo soft!”

Mom: “Yes, but… honey… it’s pink. Your niece is having a boy, remember?”

Me: *Pauses* “Mom… it’s a pig.”

He takes it everywhere, and it has become so ragged. Oh, and its name? “Pig”.

CONTENT WARNING: Drug Use, Child Abuse

I’m a public defender; I provide criminal defense to indigent clients facing deprivation of their rights and freedom.

I was representing a scumbag client. She was a meth addict who got high and beat the h*** out of her eight-year-old daughter with a belt after she accidentally broke mommy’s meth pipe. [Client] was charged with child cruelty and possession of meth, and, given her criminal record, the district attorney’s plea offer was three years of prison.I told [Client] that was the best offer I was going to get from the district attorney, and her options were to accept that offer or go to trial. Needless to say, [Client] didn’t want to go to prison for “giving that c*** what she deserved” and started freaking out at me. I further pointed out the mountain of evidence against her — primarily, the photographs of her daughter’s injuries, the bloody belt that was recovered from her bedroom, the broken meth pipe with meth residue in it, and the fact that her daughter was going to testify against her at trial.

After she was done cursing me out and calling me a “public pretender” and every other derogatory name she could think of, she fired me and somehow managed to hire a private attorney for the low price of $8,000. (I still don’t know how she managed to come up with that, but I have plenty of reliable guesses.)

The private attorney “guaranteed” her that he could win her case at trial, and that’s exactly what she chose to do.

Long story short, the private attorney clearly never even read this woman’s file before the trial. The trial lasted roughly three hours, the jury was literally out for only five minutes, and the judge sentenced her to ten years of prison.

It was a good day.