But I Smile Anyway…

They are the most important people in your life for so many years, you almost idolise them, they can do no wrong.

Then you get older and realise that, much as you love them to bits, they are human too, their behaviour can be annoying, or comical even, things they say make you howl with laughter, even though they don’t understand why you are giggling.

A comment I made on a fellow blogger, the Cornfed Contessa‘s post this morning, brought some funny stories flooding back.

I’ll start with the one I recounted earlier.

1) Why wont it work?

We visited family, and after a ‘little’ tipple (she’s not a drinker at all usually!) my mum and aunt were washing dishes. They were finding it really hard to get the washing up liquid to froth up. Anyhow, the next morning, mum woke with a thumping headache (hangover anyone?!). My aunt called to see how she was. She explained the reason for the headache ( my cousin thought it would be a giggle to double up the measure of spirits in their drinks!) and they had been washing up with hand lotion instead of washing up liquid!

2) Tummy Drumming

As I said above, she is not really a drinker, neither is my Pops, but for whatever reason, every couple of years, they would have this company come visit, and would taste wine, and select a few bottles to buy (I’m still not sure why, but they did!)  My brother, younger than me, loved the opportunity to ‘taste’ the wine too, but I was never that keen. Any way, sometimes at Christmas, they would open a bottle to share at dinner, and one time, I think it was stronger than they had anticipated, as by late afternoon, my mum was laying across the sofa, head on Pops’ belly, and gently drumming on his belly, giggling at the sound it made… oh it made us laugh, watching them!

3) Easy Access

Now my darling brother is a bit naughty, and he hasn’t stopped as he has got older.  He used to go to a boarding school, and at his holidays and exeats (weekends home) he would bring his trunk full of washing home for mum to sort out.  As he got older his style of underpants changed and he started to wear the Calvin Klein type boxers, fitted and snug etc.  Pops was a devout y-fronter!  As she ironed them (yes even our underpants were ironed, and to this day, I can’t stop doing ours either!) she admired them and said “Hmm, these look nice, I might get some for your dad…”   “Easy access, innit mum!” my brother piped up and mum, in a world of her own answered “Yes.” before realising what he had said and the implication of her answer!  Cue red face and a scolded brother, who was still laughing!

4) The Silent Finger

He is the paragon of peace, Mr Cool Calm and Collected, my Pops. I had never heard him use a bad word, in English or Punjabi, well not in front of us kids anyway.  But I guess even peaceful people have their limits!  Pops used to drive us everywhere, in fact he still does when he gets the chance. When he was younger, he would speed around and then as he realised that speed meant higher fuel costs, so he slowed right down, being Mr Sensible Driver (unless he really needed to press the accelerator to get somewhere fast!)  One night, we were coming home from some function or another, and he was going sedately in the middle lane, minding his own business. after a while it became apparent that a person behind him was tail-gating, and then whenever he moved to give way, the driver went right behind him again. After 20 minutes of to-ing and frow-ing, Pops got fed up and quickly looked at the back seat. seeing we were asleep, (but I wasn’t!) he quickly gave the tail-gater, the middle finger, stepped down on that accelerator and lost the twit behind!  I had to giggle, and he realised he had been caught. He shrugged, and just said, make sure you never do that!

5) We are human you know…

This has to be one of my favourite stories!  Now as I said, my brother was a boarding school boy, and as he hit 6th form and A-levels, he was an attractive young man, with his own fair share of admirers.  He used to play county level cricket and hockey, so Pops would ferry him around on weekends, around the country, to various matches.  One evening, as they headed back, my brother, who hated to hide anything from our parents, decided to tell Pops about a girl he had started seeing. She wasn’t Indian, but an English girl, a fellow pupil at his school.  Instead of getting angry, my Pops, who is peace personified, just said to my brother to remember that he should not disrespect her, to keep in his mind that she was someone’s daughter, someone’ s sister, and to treat her how he would want his own sister to be treated by a boy, and if he was to want to go that step further, to do the horizontal tango, to make sure he always used protection.  Once this hurdle was crossed, my brother felt a bit more, comfortable, shall we say, discussing bedtime antics.  “Pops,” he began, “so, do you and mum still, you know…” nudge, nudge, wink, wink!   (at this stage of my brother recounting this conversation, I was blushing myself, did I really want to hear the answer?!) Pops, driving, gave a quick sideways glance at my brother and said “We are human, you know.” and smiled, then continued on their journey!

Like I said, I love our oldies, they really make us laugh!  Wouldn’t change em for anything!