This happened several years ago, when I was in middle school (around the age of twelve). A school event had just ended, and the mom of a good friend came up to me, a serious expression on her face.

Friend’s Mom: “I need to give you a ride home. Your mom was in a car accident.”

She stopped just like that. I stared at her. Seconds passed. The shadows lengthened as the sun moved through the sky. Seasons changed. Civilizations rose and fell. She remained silent, her face a stone.

Me: “Is my mom going to be okay?”

Friend’s Mom: “Oh, of course! She’s fine, and so is your brother, who was in the car too. Just a fender bender. She just needs me to give you a ride home since she’s dealing with all that hassle.”

That was around three decades ago. I still don’t know why she didn’t lead with the fact that no one in my family was hurt or worse. And yes, the friend’s mom did give me the family password, after she told me my mom was okay.

UPDATE: This story has been updated with extra details supplied by the OP.

A while ago, my mom, my sisters, and I (then eight, eleven, and thirteen – and thirty-nine, for those curious about my mom’s age) had taken a ferry ride across Puget Sound to do some things in downtown Seattle. After a nice day, we made our way back to the ferry dock to go home.

There are two ferry options: the state-run boats which are part of the highway system and can take vehicles as well as walk-on passengers, and the smaller boats of the “fast ferry” system run by Kitsap County (on the west side of Puget Sound, where we live) that take only people, and a limited number of bicycles. 

We planned to take a fast ferry since it crosses Puget Sound in half the time and was leaving sooner than the state boat, so we’d be home much faster. The fast ferry is a little pricier, but we kids would be free on either boat, and one fare increase was worth it to Mom to get home.

The line was pretty long when we joined it, as a lot of people were commuting home from work at that time. Still, we were hopeful there’d be enough room for us.

A woman behind us in line, a bit younger than my mom, was also concerned. And very chatty. She kept peppering my mom with questions, always in a pleasant tone, and with lots of giggles, but WOW. She just. Kept. Talking.

The fast ferry started loading (with the woman still going on and on), and soon it was clear that if we made it on this sailing, we would be among the last passengers. When my family got to the head of the line, the worker informed us that there was only room for two more people.

Mom: “Well, state boat it is. I’m hardly going to send just two of you ahead to wait on the side for forty-five minutes until we get there.”

Woman: *Fumbling in her purse.* “Oh man, I can’t find my ORCA (transit) card! I need a few minutes.”

Worker: “Ma’am, the boat is due to leave the dock right about now. We can’t really wait.”

Woman: “I need to dump out my whole purse to find it! Darn it; I guess I’ll be on the state boat too.”

Mom: *Quickly tapping her own ORCA card on the pay platform.* “No worries; I got you!”

Woman: “Oh my gosh, really?! Are you sure?”

Mom: “Yeah, go ahead. Enjoy the ride!”

Mom led us away to the state boat as the woman and one other single rider boarded the fast boat.

Me: “Mom, that was nice of you to pay for her.”

Mom: “Well, it did help her, but I didn’t do it to be nice.”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Mom: “Did you notice how chatty and giggly she was? She was drunk. I didn’t want to be stuck entertaining her while we waited for the state boat. And then for the hour-long ferry ride.

Me: “…Yeah, that would have been really annoying. Well, I guess this way we’re happy and she’s happy, so it works out!”

Mom: *Nodding.* “Yep, and all it cost me was [fast boat fare]. Worth it.”

This story reminds me of a (more anatomically correct) conversation I had with my brother.

My brother is seven years younger than I am, so when we were kids, I naturally knew more than he did. He’s incredibly smart and has since surpassed me in many subjects, but back when we were about twelve and five or so, he came into my room with a very serious look on his face.

Brother: “You’re a girl. I need to ask a girl question.”

Me: “…okay.”

Brother: “Do babies come out the same place pee does?”

Me: “No, they—”

Brother: *Horrified.* “They come out the same hole that poop does?!”

Me: “No, there’s a different hole for babies.”

Brother: *Relieved and slightly awed.* “Girls have THREE holes?”

Me: “That’s right.”

Brother: “Wow. Hey, how do babies get inside the mom?”

Me: *Suddenly feeling my awkward pre-teen self.* “Go ask Mom or Dad.”

We’re at a family party when I see my great-uncle arrive. For story’s sake, let’s call him Joe.

Me: “Mom, there’s your Uncle Joe; looks like he just got here.”

Mom: “No, Uncle Joe’s been here for a while.”

She points to her dad’s brother, Joe.

Me: “I mean Nana’s brother Joe. Your other Uncle Joe—wait, you ONLY have uncles named Joe!”

Yep, both her parents have one sibling, a brother, and both have the same name.

My mom and I were at a fundraising event for Alzheimer’s research. There was a lot of chatting and pleasant conversation, but one woman started dominating it all, going on about her lifestyle and how great it was, and telling us how we all should be doing these same things that SHE had discovered and surely NONE of the rest of us had ever heard of.

Now, if you find a particular way of living works for you, I’m happy for you. I’ll usually be curious to hear about it too, and my mom’s the same way. But this woman was so condescending and sanctimonious that it was hard to stand her. It was all about how she’d made better choices than we all had, and it was up to her to let us know how we could have done things differently.

It was hard to get a word in edgewise as she rambled about how enlightened she was. Even when I told her directly that I had no interest in, for example, listening to the podcast that changed her life and her kids’ lives (podcasts just aren’t my thing; I prefer reading to listening), she spent a solid twenty minutes following me around describing the whole series.

There were only two times we successfully got her to stop for a few minutes:

Woman: “…and there’s no reason anyone should ever give birth at a hospital. Oh, you should have tried a home birth! It’s so sad that you didn’t trust yourself. You would have been so changed by that experience. I had my babies…” *Here she paused and literally puffed up proudly.* “…WITHOUT ANY DRUGS!”

My mom supports women having whatever births they safely can, but also nearly died in labor with two of us; she was not a candidate for home birth.

Mom: *Blankly.* “Why would you do that?”

Woman: “…”

Mom: *Blankly.* “Did you not know you could have had pain relief?”

A bit later, she got going again.

Woman: “…Oh, have any of you heard of the book The Anxious Generation? It only came out recently, so you probably haven’t. You have to know where to find these sorts of things. You have to look into it; just fascinating. It’s so—”

Me: “I read it last year.”

Woman: “Oh… Um, well, what did you think of it?”

Me: “I thought it made some really good points, especially about letting kids have some independence.”

Woman: “But… Well, uh, WHY do you think that? Do you spend much time with kids, like—”

I take three or so minutes to summarize the points and whether I agree with them based on my working with children from birth to eighteen years old in various capacities for the past twenty-five years.

She was strangely quiet in response…