People are sharing their hilarious (and sometimes cringy) stories of accidentally slipping up in front of their kids. Whether parents forgot to check if the coast was clear before engaging in some mature activities, or they made hilariously questionable decisions after one too many drinks, these stories prove that blunders happen more often than you think!
1. Drinks On Me!
A few years ago, my wife and I both were enjoying our Saturday at home, and because we had nothing planned for the day we decided to have a cocktail or a few. My wife is a pretty good home bartender and she was making some pretty elaborate drinks. As she needed different bottles, she would request one of our three kids to go get them for us.
Well, the kids started getting competitive about it (they were all between the ages of 10 and 14) and ran to the cabinet where we kept the bottles. They started to get a little rough with each other. Trying to be a good father, and pretty well tipsy by then, I decided that we were probably teaching the kids a bad lesson here and that we needed to show them the dangers of booze. So, I gathered them around me in the kitchen next to the sink.
When I was a kid, being the little firebug that all teenage boys are, I would pour cologne out on a surface, light it on fire, and then put it out with my hand. I did it literally hundreds of times. So my thought was: I would show them that alcohol was so bad for you because it was flammable, right? Why would a kid want to drink something that you could light on fire? Well, they were about to find out—at my own expense.
My cousin had recently given me a bottle of Everclear that she had had for five years that she was never going to drink, and without thinking, I grabbed the Everclear and poured a little bit out on the counter (maybe a shot and a half). I preceded to tell my kids about the dangers of drinking, and meanwhile, they were about to see the real danger of booze by simply taking in their shirtless, tipsy, day-drinking dad.
I lit the Everclear on fire and said "See, this stuff actually will light on fire”! I then put my hand down on the fire and tried to smother the flame. I lifted my hand and to my surprise, not only did the fire not go out... now, my hand was on fire. A person's natural (or at least mine anyways) response to something on their hand that they do not want on their hand is to try wiping it off immediately. I did that, on my bare chest.
At that point, my kitchen counter, my hand, and half my chest was glowing with a blue flame from the Everclear. Yikes. I quickly turned on the faucet I was next to, put out my hand, splashed water on my chest, then put out the flame on the counter with a washcloth. I looked up to see all three of my kids and my wife, wide-eyed and jaws on the floor. I had succeeded in teaching them the dangers of booze, and I also succeeded in removing the hair from my right hand and half of my chest, while turning my skin a nice shade of pink.
This was around eight or nine years ago, and every once in a while, I still hear my kids say, "Remember that time dad set himself on fire?”
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2. Accidents Happen!
This happened to a couple who owned a fast-food joint near my home. Their kid was around four years old. So one morning, we were sitting in the joint having some omelets, and just as I looked up, the kid went to a corner of the place and started taking a leak. The father saw this and yelled at him: "Kid! Don't pee there!" The kid's reply was shocking: "So you can pee on the sidewalk but I can't pee here?"
I can't forget the look on the parent's faces.
3. One Big Happy Family
I was probably around 10 or 11 when I was having a friend spend the night at my house. This friend was from a pretty “average” family. For example, her dad was not an alcoholic, whereas mine was. Anyway, we heard a bunch of commotion in the late evening so we decided to venture out of my room and sneak down the long hall of the trailer house to see what was going on in the kitchen.
To my utter dismay, we see my intoxicated father, passed out, on the kitchen counter. He actually crawled up onto the counter and lay down on his back. He had his feet resting up on the fridge and the upper half of his body was on the stove. His hands were intertwined together and resting on his chest, much like when one is in a casket. Except there was something very wrong—he was snoring. Loudly.
And then there was my mother. She was leaning over the body and threatening to turn the stove on if he didn't get his butt up and go to bed. I have never seen someone's eyes get so big as my friends did as they took in the scene. I still chuckle and shake my head at the memory. I don't know how some of us '80s kids survived.
4. Meet The Folks
I was a college freshman and I had come home for winter break. My boyfriend had just flown in to meet my parents for the first time ever. I was out giving him a tour of my hometown when I got a call from my dad. On the other end, he yelled, “Pumpkin, get back to the house and check out this big fire I made!”
After he incessantly called me four more times with more promises about the raging fire, I finally drove us home. My dad had always been a hyper-responsible and straight-edge sort of guy. Like Hank Hill, except with a different Southern accent—and instead of being a propane salesman, he was a nerdy electrical engineer. So caught me totally off-guard to come home and see him completely out of character.
My dad and his brother were completely intoxicated, stumbling around a huge bonfire in the backyard, searching for more sticks to throw in the pit while holding their own half-empty bottles. And all of this was happening while they were sporting matching cowboy hats. I still have no idea where they got the cowboy hats.
My boyfriend introduced himself. And instead of asking him about how his flight was, how school was going, where we went that afternoon, or any of the normal pleasantries you’d ask your daughter’s boyfriend on the first encounter, my dad blurted out, “Have I ever told y’all about the one and only time I ever did recreational substances?”
He launched into a story about how he partied it up at a community theater cast party in the '80s. Then, he and my uncle spent hours telling us other crazy things they did before my cousins and I were born. This first encounter was made even more memorable when my dad and uncle called my future husband lame (and other teasing names) for not partaking in their intense drinking.
5. Lost-And-Found
One Saturday afternoon my husband and I had a vigorous session of adult fun. Afterward, we went about our day, as we normally would. A little while later I went into our room to make the bed and my 13-year-old daughter followed me in to talk to me about something.
As I made the bed, I pulled back the sheets to reveal three rather large objects. We both froze, deer in the headlights style, starting at each other. She finally burst out: "Mom! You have to keep those things put away!" and ran out of the room rather stiffly. I could not stop laughing for the rest of the day.
6. Wake Up And Smell The Coffee!
I’m so old that when the pill came out, women needed permission from their husbands before doctors would prescribe it. My mom was friends with a local family doctor and got him to prescribe it for her friends. Then they kept the pills at our house so their husbands wouldn’t find out. Every morning they’d stop by for “coffee.”
My siblings and I wondered why so many neighbors stopped by every single day. Mom must have been truly popular. We didn’t find out until years later when one woman thanked us for never telling their husband. A few questions later, we knew exactly what she meant. We immediately told our father thinking he was going to be stunned.
He was in on it the whole time. He co-signed mortgages and helped open bank accounts for divorced women they knew. It turns out our stay-at-home mom and workaholic dad were pretty cool and we had no idea. We kids were sitting on a huge secret but had no idea for the longest time. We could have blown up a lot of lives just talking about someone stopping by for coffee every day. Thank goodness we found out.
7. Ice Bucket Challenge Gone Wrong...
I didn't hear anyone come into the bathroom while I was showering. But all of a sudden, my kids threw open the shower curtain to prank me by throwing a bucket of freezing cold water on me. They didn’t manage to get that far or complete the prank, though. In fact, they ended up being traumatized for life...
...because they caught me in the middle of "helping myself". I could not look them in the eye for a week.
8. To Spice Things Up
My friend was the parent who got caught. Before breakfast at the start of what was going to be a non-stop busy day, he decided to shoot a text to his girlfriend about some kinky thing he was going to do to her that night. At the table, he decided to sneak it in while his daughters went into the kitchen to grab breakfast...
Except in his haste, he made a horrifying mistake—he accidentally sent it to one of them, and it notified on her phone as they were walking back to the table. Apparently, the girls sat down, and one of them asked him why he had just texted her. He said "Hmm?" as he quizzically watched her eyes process what she read and look at him with betrayal. That’s when his heart slammed to a stop.
He realized too late what happened, or he said he would have dived across the table and knocked the phone right out of her hand. After this came a profuse apology and long address to many tearful questions about how daddy wasn't lying: every man should respect women—it's just that some women want to have certain things done to them.
And of course, he clarified that it's only supposed to be a private matter between two consenting adults. His daughter is now over it, but from that moment onwards he went from being her hero to just any man.
9. Mother-Daughter Bonding
My daughter was 17 when this happened: an old friend called me to hang out, so I said sure and sauntered on over. I'm not a drinker, but occasionally I will. Until then, I'd only consumed wine—but my friend handed me this unknown concoction. It took no time at all to realize this was no ordinary drink.
I was the tipsiest I had ever been in my life, and when my friend saw this, she took me home. It just so happened that my daughter was home when I got through the door. And logically, I went directly to my room thinking I could just sleep this off. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who gets ravenous when I am tipsy and I was in no way able to cook anything. So, as I was thinking about what I had in the kitchen, my brain flashed cornbread. I could make cornbread.
As it turned out, I overestimated my capabilities. At that point, I had raw cornbread mix, and I was absolutely famished, so my messed-up brain just said, "Screw it. Eat the cornbread." And so, I did. I was halfway through the bowl when my daughter waltzed into the kitchen. Naturally, I was a deer in headlights as I realized there was no way I could hide my half-eaten bowl of uncooked cornbread. I looked at her and said "Hi! Guess what?" Her answer was priceless. "Mom, I know you're tipsy."
My daughter is crazy talented with makeup. I, however, am not. So after falling into a YouTube rabbit hole of makeup tutorials, I asked her to give me a makeover. She reluctantly agreed, but it turned out terrible. It turned out bad because I turned on my webcam to watch the transformation during the process
I could not stop laughing at how ridiculous I looked the longer she spent on my face—which made her laugh. She still brings this event up even five years later.
10. Saving Face
This happened to my husband. We had a whole gaggle of teenage kiddos over at our house one Friday night. My husband had a few beers and then snuck off behind the garage to have a smoke. He doesn't smoke in front of me since I quit. He had bummed a really strong smoke from someone, and it made him unexpectedly dizzy...
Just as he was keeling over, a group of teenagers came along the path in time to see him fall over onto the lawnmower. But that's not even the funniest part—to preserve his dignity, he pretended to be getting ready to mow, which made them howl with laughter. They still talk about "that time Dad fell and tried to cover it up by saying he was going to mow at 11 pm."
11. It’s A Jungle Out There...
I woke up one night to grab some food (a midnight snack, as it were), and as I walked to the stairs in my groggy stupor, I caught sight of something that would haunt my nightmares for years. There my dad was: crawling up the stairs in his birthday suit, making sounds like Tarzan, on his way to my mother.
Needless to say, I never watched the movie, Tarzan again.
12. A Lesson Turned Sour
I am a parent, but my kids are still really little so this story isn’t about them. Instead, it’s about my students. I teach eighth graders (who are around 14 years old). I am normally a history teacher, but this past year I also taught English. I was trying to think of a way of explaining writing a five-paragraph essay and normally we use the “hamburger” image to help them remember the parts of an essay.
After I explained each part of the essay using this image, I blurted out a statement I will forever regret: “Think of it like a sandwich, you can’t leave out your bun or you are just left holding your meat.” I was horrified and decided then and there that I’d rather stick to teaching history.
13. Zonked
My dad used to read me Bible stories at night (yeah, we were that family), and he worked swing shifts so it was kind of a special moment between the two of us. So, one evening he was super tired and in that half-awake, groggy state—or so we thought. He started saying he would read to me before bed, but then he ordered me to get the “iced tea messenger”. I asked for clarification, and he was like, "Seriously, just get me the iced tea messenger".
Every time I refused, he got more and more animated until he was shouting, "I said get me the iced tea messenger. Do I have to whoop you to get it?" Obviously, my mom and I were both confused, and he was left lying there, eyes closed and upset. He has no recollection of it, but it's my favorite story about him to tell.
14.
Lead The Way
My friend's dad was giving us a ride so that we could pick up a friend. He turned into a bus-only zone to quickly turn around, but of course got caught by the po-po, who was two cars behind us. His dad quickly made a U-turn and as we were approaching the authorities, they pulled the window down suggesting that we stop.
My friend’s dad should have told us about the plan because he just slammed down the gas pedal and when we were two blocks further, he parked in the first spot. I remember him turning to us and saying, "Boys, heads down" and we proceeded to hide for a couple of minutes.
We were around seventeen when this all happened, and ironically, we had been studying in driving school. This was probably not the best experience to learn from.
15. A Dad’s Due Diligence
My girlfriend's dad came home late after a night of drinking when she was a kid, completely unaware that my girlfriend was having her friends over for a sleepover. He stumbled into her room to give her a kiss goodnight and tripped over a cot in the middle of her room. He was confused as to why it was there, so he did the nice dad thing of putting her cot away for her. And that's when he realized it.
Turns out there was a teenage girl sleeping in the cot that was not expecting to get jostled about in the middle of the night...
16. Flying Off The Handle
My three girls and I were walking through the parking lot and it was a bright, sunny day out. I’ve got three girls so I watch cars pretty carefully as we walk in busy areas. I ushered my girls in front of me, and this car literally brushed the whole length of the car across my back and butt. I totally lost it at that point. I punched her car and screamed at the woman behind the wheel.
She could have seriously injured one of my kids and pretty obviously quickly pulled out of the lot without looking. I then realized she was on her phone and started swearing and yelling even more. She then sped out of the parking lot and I felt bad for setting a bad example for my kids... Not to mention my hand ached for days after hitting her car...
17. What Goes Around, Comes Around
When I was about 12, I watched my mom throw a wooden cutting board at my stepdad in a fit of anger. He dodged it, and the cutting board obliterated some super fancy antique set of spice storage jars my mom held dear to her heart. This was, of course, my stepdad’s fault.
18. In The Dead Of Night...
When I was about 14, I had trouble sleeping, so I'd often come downstairs and wander around at about three or five o’clock in the morning. This was rather convenient because it was also around this time that we'd got YouTube on TV.
So, I came wandering downstairs to find my dad asleep on the sofa. Cue my trauma—He's not exactly tech-savvy, and he wouldn't know what to do with a computer, so he apparently decided it would be a great idea to look for adult films on YouTube. I've tried many times but I can't forget that I now know what my dad is into...
19. Tongue Tied
At a family BBQ, after all the food is gone and things wind down, the adults will usually sit in the backyard until the wee hours drinking, joking, and roasting each other while the kids play inside. It was the wife's turn to be the designated driver, so I let loose.
My stepdaughter (who was 13) came outside to tattle on one of the other kids, and after being reassured that nothing was wrong, she decided to get sassy and start throwing shade. Her insults were weak, but annoying for intoxicated me. For example, she’d say things like "You're a gross jerk and you smell bad".
Somewhere, a bit of my brain that wasn't fully marinated in booze saw an inappropriate response forming and begged the rest of my brain to halt. My intoxicated brain was in top roast form disregarded the suggestion and warmed up the voice box: "Oh yeah? Well, I screw your mom”! You could hear the record scratch. Everything stopped for about 10 seconds.
The kid's face went from cocky little teenage sneer to slack-jawed and dumbfounded as my comment started to sink in. Then one adult around the circle laughed. Then three more followed. Then everyone, my sober wife included, was caught in big belly laughs.
I'd just totally eviscerated my stepdaughter in front of everyone at the party and was so intoxicated I wasn't totally sure why they were laughing because it wasn't that funny! The kid turned beet red and ran back inside the house, and didn’t make so much as a peep for the rest of the night.
So, that's probably a therapist bill I'm going to have I pay sometime down the road... On the bright side, it was the quietest week ever because she refused to talk to me after that party.
20. What Happens At The Party, Stays At The Party
At the time, we lived with my mom’s significant other, and one day a friend of his turned 40 so there was going to be a big party. For some ridiculous reason, parents were allowed to bring kids so I was dragged along. All the kids were put in a smaller room so the adults could drink and get rowdy. And my mom was a bit nervous to meet everyone.
In order to cope with her nerves, she ended up drinking a bit too much. At fourteen years old, it was the first time I saw her thoroughly intoxicated. The night ended with her in the spotlight of shame—she started throwing up pink vomit all over the cab and my lap. But I think she topped even that during her friend's 40th birthday.
I was around eighteen or nineteen then. My mom had a few too many drinks again but this time she wasn’t embarrassing me by puking. This time, I caught her making out with some woman at the party! You bet I was so confused! She's not gay, so my young mind had the struggle to process what I saw...
21. Plastered Parents
Imagine my dad: an ex-soccer player, who grew up as a tall, lanky kid and is now in his 50s at 5’8, rocking a solid dad bod. Now imagine my stepmom, an ex-cheerleader and sorority girl who still has her classically beautiful body in her 40s. Already, I’m sure you can imagine they are a weird match to witness out and about.
I grew up never watching my family drink. All my family enjoys drinking, but they are very conservative when they do it. I had never really seen any of my family intoxicated before. So, I was probably around 16 years old when I ended up going on my first family vacation with the step-family's side, who love to drink. A lot. It was just a setup for disaster.
The mix of families was an even stranger sight to see. By the end of the first night, I saw my stepmom twerking on my dad while he had this: “I really want to enjoy this but five of our kids are watching this right now” look on his face. I still cringe at the mention of family vacations.
22. Slip Of The Tongue
My mother was dropping me off at high school and in the middle of the full parking lot, right before school was about to begin, she forgot where we were and yelled at the top of her little lungs, “Sweetie!”
Needless to say, I was “Sweeeeeeeetie” (the “eeeeeeee” was said loudly in the highest pitch possible) to every older kid in high school until I was finally at the top of the food chain in my senior year...I figured the joke would be old by the time I graduated, but I was wrong. While receiving my diploma, a teacher remembered to mention it to make sure I didn’t forget my roots...
Thanks for the slip-up, mom.
23. Grandpa’s Gimmicks
My grandfather drove a beat-up old Ford Falcon that was painted a very loud blue and red. It was a car that was impossible to miss or forget, so once anyone saw the tall, skinny, black-haired, teenage boy that my dad was alight from the said car, they would forever know from which tree he had fallen. And that tree was a man who would stop across the street from dad's school to pick up curbed furniture and proceed to conspicuously try to fit these pieces into the trunk of his Falcon.
On the occasion that he couldn't—which was often—he'd curse the street, the furniture, and probably the school children across the street gaping in awe at a man in his 60s losing his mind over a legless dining table that hadn't existed to him until that morning.
When my father would, rather reasonably, request that grandpa didn't do that thing, or at the very least refrain from freaking out somewhere that wasn't in plain view of everyone who knew him, grandpa would continue to freak out, but now with the added bonus of berating my father, and lecturing him on the merits of "sidewalk treasure." Things were even worse when he'd get picked up from school.
If my dad were late coming out from class, grandpa would lay on the horn, in his red and blue Ford Falcon, nonstop, until he got to the car. And then grandpa would drive off before my dad could fully get in.
Grandpa would have buddies over for card games, but near as I can figure a card game was never actually played because they spent the majority of their time in each other's company arguing over seating arrangements. My grandfather couldn't figure out how to work the lawnmower. Rather than admit his defeat at the hands of mechanical wonder, he sat out on a lawn chair in his front yard with a sign that read: "Your lawn owns you."
Legend has it that the first time my dad brought my mom home, grandpa accidentally put his car through the garage. He walked calmly into the house, looked at my mom for a solid few seconds, then said, "I wouldn't have done that if I'd known you were here." I always imagine what it’d be like to grow up under his parenting...
24. Wine O’Clock
I can answer on behalf of my mother, who doesn't remember any of this I bet. She went wine tasting with my dad one day a few years back, and you were able to really drink the glasses back, rather than just swishing it around and spitting it out at this place. So they went through a few different types, and all was fine and dandy, right?
Wrong. Turns out my dad liked what he was drinking so much, he gave my mom some of his samples. My mom ended up drinking about 1 1/2 bottles in total. She was plastered when they got back home, and I thought she was just super tired. Shortly after they returned, I went to the bathroom to get changed and go to bed.
What did I find on my way? My mom, in her underwear, passed out on the carpet in the fetal position. I just looked at her like I was the disappointed mother. My dad then found me and gave me the explanation that, when he helped her up, later on, she vomited all over herself, so my dad went to help clean her up. She then threw up on my dad, and he cleaned her up again.
I learned two things: first, that this incident seemed to be enough to keep my mom from drinking ever again, and second, that my dad is the absolute best.
25. Snail Mail
I’m the kid in this story. One ordinary day, my mother asked me, “Hey, can you take some pictures of me for my boyfriend?” I agreed because it made sense that she wanted to send some photos to her out-of-own boyfriend.
However, other details were not mentioned. Somehow, my mother decided it was acceptable to have me take photos of her without clothes on, posed like pinups, but with none of the downstairs bits visible. Luckily, she had it all planned out and used a towel if she needed to get up or change positions. But here's the crazy part...
I was seventeen, maybe eighteen at the time. I still can’t believe that she was entirely sober at the time...
26. Man Your Battle Stations!
As a dad, I used to play "Battle Arena" with my three kids, where we would all pile onto the bed. I'd pretend (badly) that they were beating me while they were imitating wrestling moves. One day after a good session, I was doing my usual ending move which involved me surrendering and giving one of the kids a hug, which I would turn into a bear hug and give them a good squeeze.
That day's victim was my daughter. She knew what was coming and started squirming. I got a pretty good grip on her and as I worked my hands into a better position, my worst fear happened—one of my hands landed squarely on her new budding breast. She jumped up and said "No daddy" (at least we trained her well) and we awkwardly ended the session.
We played "Battle Arena" a few more times, but I had to come up with a different ending move.
27. Foot-In-Mouth
A few years ago, I ran a 24-hour race. It started at 7 pm. The goal was to run the most 2-mile loops in 24 hours. Around hour 12, I paired up with a guy. He was funny and interesting to talk to. My husband and kids showed up around hour 18, and I sat down with the guy for a break with my husband and kids. That's when things got...interesting.
My kids were joking around about porta-potties with this guy and he, I guess, forgets that he was talking to tween girls. He started telling them this awkward story about how at this one week-long race, his balls chafed so badly that he had to use duct tape. My kids won’t let me live that one down: the day mom introduced them to someone who puts duct tape on his balls.
28. Shenanigan Slip Up
This story isn’t about my own kids, but my fourteen-year-old teenage niece. I have always been close with my ex-sister-in-law's daughters and we made a game of scaring each other. One night, I was visiting and I asked where B was. I was told she was in the bathroom so I went into her room, hid by her dresser, and hit record on my phone so I could catch her.
And I waited. A few minutes go by and I hear the bathroom door open. I crouched down and I saw her walk in, but then I turned white as a ghost—a detail that was left out was that she was in the bathroom...to take a shower. Almost immediately as she walked in, she closed the door and started to drop her towel.
I freaked out and got her attention, then quietly walked out of her room as she stood there giggling from my embarrassment, thankfully still covered in her towel. My ex was in the kitchen when I walked in and she asked me if I was okay because I was freaking out. I pulled her aside and very carefully explained my intent and the very awkward exit.
She laughed, my niece laughed, and everyone laughed, but I felt like the biggest creep on the planet and couldn't look at her for about a week after. Needless to say, I stayed away from her bedroom during visits after that. She's 19 now but she still teases me about it. I still cringe every time I think about it.
29. A Mother’s Duties
I’d gone out the night before for a friend’s birthday and had a little too much fun. When I woke up the next morning, I was so hungover, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. But I still had to get the kiddo off to school. Hilariously, I fell twice trying to get her to the door and scared the bejesus out of the poor thing. When I saw her shock, I just yelled from the floor, “Go get on the bus, Mommy’s just a little dizzy!”
She was in first grade back then, and she’ll be a freshman this year. From that moment on, I learned my lesson not to drink on a school night.
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30. A Glass (Or Two!) Too Many
I haven't had many adult beverages over the last 10 years, but about three years ago I had a few too many. The kids were 13 and 16 years old. We had gone to a relative's BBQ, which was within walking distance from home. We hadn't planned on drinking but that's the way the night went.
The eldest went home early so the younger boy and I wandered back home after midnight. I remember play-fighting with them in the living room, and the next thing I remember, I was in bed feeling sick. I ended up vomiting on myself while I was lying in bed and when I tried to get up, my body couldn’t move! So, I thought: well I've messed the bed up already I may as well just carry on. Little did I know that I would just end up making things worse for myself.
I finally got up to have a shower (which is located at the opposite end of the house). The kids woke up and I didn't have a towel, so I ran back through the house to my room in the buff. The activity must have been too much for me because I collapsed right then and there on the floor.
I woke up hours later. The kids had covered me up, stripped and cleaned my bed, washed all my sheets, and remade my bed. They still bring it up: "Remember when mom was so sloshed she threw up over herself?" I like to think of this as a deterrent—see why drinking sucks, kids?
31. Sunken Treasure
I remember this one time, when my family went snorkeling together and I saw my dad swim behind something, to presumably check out the coral and fish. What he actually did was totally not what I expected. As he swam back, I saw a turd being carried away by the current in the distance. Thank goodness I had already gotten back to shore...
32. Boo!
I went to my 12-year-old son’s end-of-season dinner for his sports team; just an informal get-together at a local family pizza place on a Friday night. One of the parents brought multiple cases of wine with him and we all went a bit nuts. I don’t drink much these days so needless to say, it hit me extra hard. What I did next was super embarrassing.
Apparently, when my son and I were walking home, I was hiding in the bushes and leaping out at random people pretending to be a Nosferatu-type vampire and hissing at them. Hissing! My poor kid was mortified. And I’m a hobbit-sized woman, so the people passing weren’t scared by me, just bemused (and perhaps a little annoyed).
33. Face The Music
One evening, my dad picked me up from a friend's house because I was tripping out bad. During the drive, he tried talking to me like he knew what was going on, which was incredibly frustrating. Later, I found he wasn't lying (and in the coolest way possible too)—turned out my white-collared suit-and-tie father used to follow The Grateful Dead on tour! Perhaps he did know what he was talking about...
34. The Gym Rat
This is a story about when I was a kid in the '80s when I exercised in a friend's basement a few times per week. He had a really nice setup. He and his parents usually got home around 3:30 in the afternoon, but on this particular day for whatever reason, we were going to work out around 1 pm and catch a movie in the evening with his brothers.
I get to the house right at 1 pm and enter the basement, but there doesn't appear to be anyone home. I come to the conclusion that they are running a bit late and assure myself that they will be along soon. Around 1:30, I hear a car arrive and voices upstairs. Great! Things are moving as planned!
An hour later, he still hasn't made his way to the basement, so I head upstairs expecting to find him eating or something, having forgotten I was waiting in the basement. I tap on the door to the main part of the house. Silence. I try the knob, the door is unlocked, so I slowly swing it open. The basement opened into the family room and the sight that greeted me was most unexpected!
These extremely devout Catholics were swingers! There were four people in that room, all in their birthday suits! So, what did I do? I did what any sixteen-year-old kid who has just seen something like that does: I eased the door closed, quietly slipped back down the stairs, left the basement, rode my bike home, and retired to my room.
My friend worshiped his parents. To this day, I have never mentioned what I saw to him, his brothers, my parents, or anyone who knows them! Now that I look back on it, good for them!
35. Sleeping (Like A) Baby
This happened to me when I was 16: My parents were sleeping in my bed for some reason one night (I think their room was getting repainted) and I was sleeping with my sister. I got up in the middle of the night to go sleep with my parents. I did this a lot as a kid and even teen years: I just liked sleeping by my mom because she made me feel safe.
Anyway, for some reason, my mom leaves the bed and it’s just my dad and me. That's when things got awkward. So, my dad is still asleep and he puts his arms around me and kisses the back of my head. I start getting a little creeped out, so I made sure to clear the air: “Was that a father-daughter kiss, dad?” My dad woke up completely, freaks out, and jumps out of the bed.
Needless to say, if I ever crawl back in the bed with them, he either puts a pillow between us or just leaves.
36. Full-Fledged Family Fiasco
In February 1985, my grandparents threw a 10th birthday party for my uncle. My grandmother was heavily pregnant with her third child at the time. The party started off as planned, however, my grandmother realized that they had forgotten the movie that the kids were supposed to watch in the evening.
As it was the '80s in the UK, vendors used to come around the houses and rent VHS and sell all sorts of stuff, and so my grandmother rented a movie about the Romans (as requested by my then 10-year-old uncle) and put it on to play.
By this point, a man came knocking at the door with his son. He started arguing with my grandparents saying that my uncle had not invited his son to the party. The argument gets pretty heated between the father and my grandad, to the point where they end up in a physical fight in the street.
My grandmother turned around to distract the 10-year-olds sitting in her living room, only to find that the movie she had rented was actually a Roman-themed adult flick. And things just kept escalating from there—Maybe because of the stress or because of other reasons, my grandmother's water broke in front of a room full of children. Imagine the chaos: a roman themed adult movie blaring from the TV, my grandad beating a man up outside, all while my grandmother’s water broke.
It was probably the biggest train wreck of a party in existence, but also embarrassing for my grandparents. It was especially problematic when they found out that the man my grandfather had been fighting had stolen their steering wheel as comeuppance...
37. Enough To Make My Head Swim!
My parents had recently divorced and my mom started renting a room from a wealthy divorced lady who loved to throw parties. It was my mom’s turn to have 12-year-old me for the weekend. That night, she had the entire local ice hockey team over to her house for a pool party.
It started during the day, and I thoroughly enjoyed jumping in the pool because the hockey guys were being silly, tossing me about, and playing games. Naturally, I was having a blast. It started to get dark so I went inside to eat some of the nibble, then about an hour later, I headed to the jacuzzi, where everyone is chilling.
I got in with my newfound friends and some ladies. My mom wandered by and got a panicked look on her face, saying I needed to go inside. As I was getting out, I realized each and every one of them was missing a bathing suit! My dad wanted me to check in before bed I called him and told him about the pool party and confusing jacuzzi affair.
Needless to say, he was furious and came to pick me up. I was never allowed to stay the night at my mom's again after that.
38. Dirty Little Secrets
When I was eight, I was trying to find some lost video games so I looked under my dresser which was very low to the ground but not quite touching it, with just enough space to force a DVD case underneath there. I bent over and see a case down there, and use a hanger to sweep it out.
Lo and behold, some hilariously spray-tanned barely covered woman was featured on the cover. I was thoroughly confused and checked to see if a DVD was in there so I could play it on my PlayStation. No luck, so I took it up to my dad and told him where I found it only to see his blood drain from his face and his eyes bulge out of his head.
It doesn’t stop there! There were eleven more disks under my dresser. He blamed my friend that had slept over once just two weeks prior and said he wasn’t allowed over again, but to this day I know my dad was probably sloshed one night and stashed them to hide them from his wife.
One night, I walked upstairs to see him watching similar content in the family room with his face looking the exact same, so I think that’s enough evidence to prove my point. Even at such a young age, I remember thinking: “Good for him, maybe he won’t be so uptight tomorrow”.
39. Double Double Toil And Trouble, Fire Burn And Cauldron Bubble!
This is a story my dad told me about his childhood: My grandad brought home a pet rabbit from the father of the family next door. Of course, my dad and his siblings were excited to have a new pet! They instantly loved the little fluffy bugger!
Their joy didn’t last long. Granddad decided to venture with his cooking. He made rabbit stew, which was what they ate for dinner. What made it even worse was that the next-door neighbor came back around because his wife and children changed their minds and wanted the rabbit back, so my grandad told him it had run off.
I feel sorry for the kiddos, honestly!
40. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
I decided to have some alone time and had a scandalous magazine wedged into a book so I could hide it. For some reason unbeknownst to me, my mother busted into the bathroom. You can imagine my embarrassment...as well as what was probably going through my mother's mind when she caught me with "The Wonderful World of Dogs" on my lap.
My mom screamed, spun, and promptly left me in the bathroom. I ended up having to explain in a very awkward conversation that I had wedged the magazine and was not aroused by cute little puppies...
41. Back To Square One
I’m not a parent, but I’m a teacher. One time in my geometry class, my tongue slipped and I accidentally said “circumcised” instead of “circumscribed”. You can imagine how this might have derailed my class. Luckily, I was able to bring everyone back quickly and compose myself (even though I was probably beet-red in the face for the rest of the day).
I was so embarrassed and they sure as heck didn’t let me forget about it.
42. One-Track Mind
My grandfather, my dad, and I had gone fishing in Wisconsin, and on the way back, we were in bumper-to-bumper traffic on a bridge that crosses the Mississippi River. I was sitting in the back seat, minding my own ten-year-old business when I heard my grandpa start road raging. He said that the guy cut him off and gave him the finger. I'll never forget what happened next:
My grandfather has a notorious temper. He got out of our car, walked over to the guy's open window, took the guy's keys out of the ignition, and threw them off the bridge into the river. My dad got out of the car to stop him, but then he sees my grandpa run back to the car and so he followed him back.
Thank goodness traffic had started moving again, and my dad drove right passed the guy while my grandpa flipped him off. At ten years old, I felt like it was all part of an action movie!
43. Knowledge Is Power
The worst thing my parents did was give me offhand, ridiculously creative answers to me when I was small and as curious as a cat. They must not have thought I’d remember as I grew up and learned the truth of the world. I spent years trying to figure out how a baby could fit through thirty feet of the small intestine.
44. Information Overload
I was the youngest in my family, so when I left for college my parents went a little crazy with their newfound freedom. Basically, they had free reign to do whatever they wanted for the first time in 31 years—and they weren’t sly about it, not one bit.
When I came home for Christmas break, my mother mentioned that she and my dad had “christened” every room in the house. Absolutely too much information, mom. Soon after, I ran into my dad leaving the bathroom, accidentally discovering that he had switched from plain old boxers to Leopard print bikini underwear...
Now that I have kids, I think it is cute and hilarious, but at 19 I was absolutely mortified.
45. The Kindness Of Strangers
A few months ago, I unexpectedly discovered a secret of my father's— apparently, he anonymously donated significant amounts of money to charity. I found out that his money usually went as direct help to children who needed expensive meds. I am pretty sure nobody knows about this. None of our family, none of his friends, none of the families he helped.
I wouldn’t have found out if the girl who volunteered for the charity and helped him to find families in need wasn’t so chatty. It’s a good thing we hit it off and I hooked up with her because now I know something super cool about my dad.
46. Swallow Your Pride
My mom had the habit of kicking me out of the house for not listening to her when I was younger. One day, she did this and my neighbor saw the fiasco, so she let me in her house and offered me snacks. After maybe an hour, my mom came out of the house, worried, and was looking for me when my neighbor saw her. The neighbor approached her and let my mom know I was with her.
The embarrassment on my mom’s face ensured that she would never kick me out of the house for a “time out” again.
47. Hold The Phone
One time, my mom was having phone problems like slowdowns and such. Since I'm naturally tech-savvier than her or my dad, she asked me to help her fix her phone. It turns out she had around three dozen apps running in the background. Of course, my first plan of action was to force a stop on each.
When I got to the Samsung browser, I found a tab I recognized—and I just froze. I frequented the site myself. What a horrible day to have eyes...
48. A Slippery Situation
With our daughter away at college, the wife and I would take advantage of the time alone. One day, I came home from work and I heard the shower running. I went into the bathroom and reached inside the shower curtain and pinched her butt. All of a sudden, I heard a voice that sent a chill down my spine: "What the heck dad?"
Apparently, our daughter decided to come home for the weekend—unannounced. I think I was more messed up about it than she was.
49. Horsing Around
My dad always tells the story of when he was six or seven and his father (my grandpa) came home from a rowdy night of drinking. My dad says my grandpa sidled slowly into the kitchen with a rope in his hand and my grandma, who was sitting at the kitchen table, asked what he had done. His next move made her jaw drop—he then led a miniature pony into the kitchen.
The pony was named Speedy. He bit like it was his job, and he would never let anyone ride him. One day, he lived up to his name and ran off. My grandparents lived around a lot of farms, so we like to think someone took him in and got the demon out of him. I’m still waiting for my dad to follow in his father’s footsteps and get intoxicated enough to walk into our house with a horse at the end of a rope.
50. Delizioso!
My husband's grandma is known for her lasagna. This stuff is hailed as god-tier, life-changing lasagna. I wouldn't know though, because I've never had it. Anyway, one Mother's Day my husband’s grandmother had everyone over for supper and she served her masterpiece...except there was one major problem. We found out her "secret recipe" and it blew our minds.
It was a frozen Costco lasagna that she passed off as her own. My father-in-law got up from the table, flopped his dinner in the garbage, and dramatically scraped his tongue with a napkin. No one else called her out because first, it was Mother's Day, and second, she was 85 years old and making us dinner. Who cares?
Pops cared. My father-in-law refused to be bamboozled by pre-made lasagna.
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