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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Chip off the old female block

There are so many people in the world, all of whom have business to do, managing their own affairs and helping their own families.

Then there are some who do so well at managing their own family affairs that they have to start managing their own.

Take my mum’s next door neighbour, whose loud-mouth brother often decides to irritate my mother. Once, when my kitten was in her front yard, the Fat Baldie came out and hissed at the cat, then proceeded to launch a tirade to the trees and parked cars about how much he “hated that cat.” The fact it was the first time that Monty had ever visited mum did not seem to register in his dinosaur-like brain (pea-sized and extinct).

The next time mum chanced upon the SOB was when she caught him lobbing fag butts over her fence into her dahlia bed.

Mum is usually shy around strangers and who, in the typical English way, won't do anything because “I don’t want to make a fuss.” Instead she usually mutters and moans sarcastic epithets aloud hoping he will get the message.

But the worm turned the other day. Having discovered a wasp’s nest under her bedroom window eaves, she was talking to the neighbour on the other side about how to get rid of it. Now she has had a small hole in her roof for about six months and has patched it up on the inside, rather than getting someone to fix a new tile on. “It’s on the to-do list.”

While discussing with nice neighbour about the nest, she said: “I don’t know how they got there, we removed a nest from the shed last year and I thought they had gone.”

Suddenly the SOB popped his head over the fence: “They will come in if you got a bloody big hole in your roof, that’s how they bloody well get in, through a bloody great big hole.”

“In that case they’ll be nesting in your mouth next year,” replied my mum.

Score!

28 comments:

Jon said...

Get her a .357 Magnum for Christmas.

Trubes said...

Love your Mama Mermaid She`s a girl after my own heart!
P.S. Thanks for your kind words on my Blog Site, Ivè tried to e-mail you but without success. Electro has my e-details should you wish to contact me! lots of love, Mama Trubes. xxx

Gorilla Bananas said...

Mummy hits a home run! Would you buy her a box of chocolates for me, Mermaid. We'll settle up later.

Cycles Goff said...

It's the little victories that make all the difference.

Now get up on the bloody roof Mermaid, and fix the bloody tile.

Anonymous said...

Wasps should left alone as they are baby birds you know...

Mermaid of Moorgate said...

Verge! I am a small and delicate mermaid who can't even fix her own toilet seat, despite making several valiant attempts. Trying to hoist myself up onto a roof and fix a tile? What do you take me for? A builder?


Mutley - are they really? I am not very sure but you may be wrong. I hope you are wrong, or my blackbird pie may have a nasty sting in
the tail.

Electro-Kevin said...

Cracking response !

So often I walk away from things like that and it dawns on me too late - the perfect response comes to mind AFTER the event. I end up prepared for the last war rather than the next one. Not on one particular occaision though.

I was giving evidence against a suspected flasher I'd arrested (Guildhall Court near you). I was given an utter mauling by the defence solicitor over the method of identification I'd used against the suspect. The victims were two Australian ladies working temp in London. They came up to me distressed whilst I was on patrol and I'd put them both in an area car to scout round the vicinity - the man was identified and arrested in the street. Fair enough you might think ? Too much detail to go into here but the beaks didn't think so.

Basically I'd got a drubbing and had been utterly humiliated in the witness box. The defendant was found not guilty. As he left the court he said to me with the most sarcastic smirk "Better luck next time, Mate" to which I replied in front of the lawyers and witnesses present "Why thank you. From that I gather you're planning on doing it again then."

lilith said...

An ex of mine rang me up some years after we had parted. He wasn't a very nice man but I listened to his news anyway. He told me his son had a bony growth on his leg, but it was not malignant. He said "I don't understand it. There are no bony overgrowths on my side of the family" To which I replied "Well,.. there IS your head.."

He doesn't ring anymore :-)

Verge said...

Mermaid - look again, it wasn't me suggesting you scale the roof and fix the tile. I wouldn't dream of making such a presumptious suggestion (not least because I know better - I almost put myself in hospital a few weeks ago killing spiders for my mother.)

Other fine put-downs - Truman Capote declining to autograph a drunk's exposed member in a restaurant: "maybe I could just initial it for you." And (was it Joan Rivers?) doubting Joan Collins' claim that her knees were knocking from stage-fright on one occasion: "I didn't think she could get them that close together."

Mermaid of Moorgate said...

Electro-kev! Great story, and good punchline. Bet that knocked the grin off his ASBO face?

Trubes! You are a sweetie! Well I will put an email address up on my profile for thee...

Verge - I see, I had misread, apols. But hospitalised killing spiders? What sort of spiders? Giant beasts armed with steel? Pray tell...

Gorilla, if me mam liked chocolates, I would get them. I baked her a banana cake though, that ought to do it.

Lilith - Love it!! I guess you won't get a christmas card from bone head this year?!

-eve- said...

Oh, that's a good reply.....! LOL!

The Hitch said...

My mother had similar problems.
Sometimes having a son comes in handy.
Im sorry to read about this . Inconsiderate, and in your mothers case ,cretinous and sadistic neighbours can make a persons life hell.
Report him for harrassment.
Or next time you buy a cat make it a tiger.

Mermaid of Moorgate said...

Hello eve! Thanks - I guess I get my humour from both parents.

Hitch - isn't it true? There is always one miserable neighbour on every street. He's been very polite since though, I think his sister (who is actually the neighbour) told him off. Good for you in defending your mum! What did you do?

Verge said...

Mermaid - as you have guessed the spiders in these parts are the size of sheep with the personality of dobermans on speed. In my London incarnation I took a crypto-Buddhist right-to-life approach and threw them out the window; here in the bordercountryside they see that as a sign of weakness and march straight back in (always twice the size, by the looks of things) as though they own the place. After a few months of my new (kill them all) approach, their SAS unit (specialist arachnid swine) deployed some new webs in a cranny in the roof of the conservatory. What they'd sussed out but I had failed to realise was that the (10-foot, godknows how many lb's) beam where they deployed their bait-webs had been jerry-rigged with pegs (I'm not kidding - I simply couldn't believe such a heavy piece of wood had been put up in such a laughably inadequate manner) - it was ripe for collapse and sure enough the merest prod of the hoover's extension brought the bastard down on my head. Luckily it was a glancing blow off the hard part at the top/side, onto my shoulder, and the other end of the beam remained attached for a second, mitigating impact & giving me a chance to get out of the way. If I hadn't been swearing so loudly I have no doubt I'd have heard, in that moment, a malevolent sussuration of glee from the rafters. The landlord (who'd only had the house built a couple of years ago) was suitably appalled at the workmanship and is lucky I am not gratuitously litigious (no real harm done - in fact I am glad it happened when/how it did as my mother is a good foot shorter than me and I shudder to think what might have happened if she'd decided to get stuck into the webs herself.) Anyway the moral is that maintenance is a risky business and spiders are a cunning foe. I now accept that my mother & brother (who shares her animosity for spids) were right all along and the most reliable kill method is the crush, twist, wipe & squeeze approach.

You did ask :-)

The Hitch said...

I got myself a harrasment order(+:

This oaf kept chaining his bike to my mothers railings, despite being politely asked not to.
Did it every night, so I sat with her and waited until he came from his waitering job(he was lodging with a neighbour) I'm less polite than my mother grabbed him threw his bike in the road and told him that if he ever spoke to my mother like he had or annoyed her again he would be sorry, in addition as she owns the freehold to the property that he was renting a room in that I would bar him entry as an agent of the freeholder.
It did the job
A weeek later I had the met police after me, and they served me with a harrassment notice , told me to stay away from him, didnt want to hear my side of the story.
Anyway that was the end of the problem.

The Hitch said...

The hitch has been contemplating a move to sunnier climes
Australia
It the spiders that worry me
and snakes
and saltwater crocodiles
oh and those posonous lizards
And If live in Sydney its full of gay blokes who will try and touch my bottom.
NZ sounds nice but is boring, the natives cant wait to leave.

Verge said...

Hitch in the early days of Australian settlement an Irish gentleman (sentenced to deportation for a bungled heiress abduction - lot of that around in those days) was so appalled at the amount of snakes in his garden that he had "500 barrels of best Irish bog" shipped out, to fill a moat with what he hoped would be his homeland's snake-proof soil. The moat was filled in on St Patrick's day and there is no record of his having died of snake-bite. (Recommended reading "The Snakebite Survivor's Club" by Jeremy Seal.)

The Hitch said...

Verge
Maybe I should live in Ireland,
have family connections, it has low taxation and no saltwater crocodiles and no Dunny spiders.
Iceland also appeals.

Verge said...

You might have to stay on the wagon if you move to Iceland - nights out there v expensive as I understand it. (Quite fancy Bjork though - strange but true.)

Unless of course you meant your own personal branch of everyone's favourite frozen food emporium, filthy former Atomic Kitten included? (The fish finger gags write themselves.)

Verge said...

ps "fish finger gags" - no offence meant to our gracious hostess MM.

Anonymous said...

Heh, i'd say you mam was thrilled with herself having put him back in his place. Great post!

Mermaid of Moorgate said...

Verge- re "fish fingers" - no offence taken. We merpeople have to eat too, and Captain bird's eye does a nice line in fresh takeaways for us.

Nonny - thanks for the comments! She is chuffed. Ever since he's been saying a begrudging good morning. I suspect if he wore cap, he would be doffing it.

BEAST said...

HA HA HA, I would have loved to have seen his face.
Mr Hitch did you know 75% of the worlds fake tan is sold in Sydney.I can just picture you with a nice essex peach glow , it will set off your black pants a treat :-)

BEAST said...

MOM , ~I am a bit worried about Capn Birdseye , looks a right paedo to me , luring all those children with his tasty fishy treats

MommyHeadache said...

Ace response! That shut him up good and proper I expect. I never come back with a good come back until about half an hour later, alas.

Newmania said...

I see Ek has really stuck to his no blogging rule ...not . I never think of things like that to say in time . In fact most people have the esprit d`ecalier when it comes to bon mots .

A fiend of mine was once shagging an ugly girl ina an Alley after a club thing (..long long time ago) and the Police popped in to stop it . he said ..honestly..straight out

"Whats the matter Dibble , having an offensive person on my weapon ?"

Not very sweet I know but what a line eh...or not ...

( Coat ?)

Anonymous said...

I'd like to have seen his face if she had said, "In that case they'll be nesting in your f*****g mouth next year."

Anonymous said...

Really you should post more often - its already more than a week? I think you should make it up to me somehow.... any suggestions?