My family members all live in different states. I live in Pennsylvania, my sister is in Kentucky, and my parents spend most of the year in Florida and come up to Pennsylvania in the summer. Most of our communication with my sister’s kids is over the phone.

My mom is having a very hard time bonding with my four-year-old niece. Since I’m currently my niece’s best friend and we spend hours each night talking on the phone or FaceTime, I decide to tell my mom what initially got [Niece] to warm up to me. (This is partly to get her to bond with my mom and also so I can get some of my evenings back.) 

Me: “Have you ever heard of Funko Pop?”

Mom: “Not really.”

Me: “They’re these stupid little collectible figurines for celebrities or characters from media. I had a few Disney ones just for particular favorite characters like Merida. One day, [Niece] wanted me to show her my apartment, and she saw it. She was really excited, so I got a few more, and now every time she calls, she wants to see my princesses.”

Mom: “And that’s why she started to want to call you?”

Me: “Yeah. I mean, no offense, but a boring adult with nothing that she’s interested in. Get a few, and she’ll like to see them.”

I decide to send my mom two “Encanto” figures, figuring it can be her starter pack, as [Niece] is obsessed with “Encanto”. My mom is beyond excited to try and bond with [Niece].

Tonight, I get my regular call from [Niece], and she asks to see my figures. 

Niece: “Pap showed me that he has princesses, too!”

Me: “Did Nana show you, too?”

Niece: “No!”

Interesting.

As soon as we hang up, I call my parents. 

Mom: “Hey, what’s up?”

Me: “Were you aware that [Niece] was already shown the Encanto figures?”

Mom: “That rat b*****d. He knew that was supposed to be my ticket in!”

She confronted my dad on the phone with me, and we thoroughly ganged up on him. I’m planning to send more Pops down with instructions to hide them so he can’t steal her thunder again as [Niece] already likes my dad.

CONTENT WARNING: Eating Disorder, Child Neglect
 

A friend of mine growing up had obscenely rich parents, a multi-million-dollar mansion, etc. He was an only child. When he was about twelve or thirteen, they used to leave him home alone for a night or a weekend while they went out to lavish galas. He was technically just old enough to be responsible for that amount of time, but he was immature in the way that teenage boys are. So, when they left him money to order a pizza (these parents never, ever cooked for themselves), he would keep the money to buy video games and just not eat.

Fast forward a few years. The loneliness and the lack of parental concern about his skipping meals led him to have a pretty serious eating disorder. Fortunately, they finally got him some good counseling and a nutrition coach, so he was getting healthy again by the time we graduated high school, but all of that would have been unnecessary if they had just been responsible parents in the first place.

Once his parents finally noticed something was wrong, part of his recovery plan involved getting a dog to keep him company. It was a tiny, fashionable dog that would look stylish in front of their mansion, but still, I think that was one of the best choices made by those questionable parents. The kid loved that dog to pieces.

CONTENT WARNING: Spider (Large!)
 

When I was in high school, I headed to bed one night, not bothering to turn on lights along the way. Fortunately, I did turn on my room light. A huge spider was sitting in the middle of my bed — at least six inches long. This is not normal here.

I quickly ran upstairs.

Me: “Dad! There’s a huge spider on my bed!”

Dad: *Laughs* “Huge, huh?”

Laughing some more, he grabbed a fly swatter. I tried to warn him, but he was too busy laughing at me to listen.

He walked into the room, and startled exclamations replaced the laughing as he hurriedly backed out.

Later that night we saw more, even bigger spiders outside. Dad took the BB gun instead of the fly swatter.

We still don’t know what they were; Dad said he had never seen anything like them, and I have never seen any again. It was a long time before I walked around the basement in the dark after that.

This happened about thirty years ago. I was definitely the a**hole in this situation, but in my defense, I was five.

My family’s home phone number was one digit off from a sporting goods store in my town called Joe Jones. Naturally, we’d get a fair number of calls from people with the wrong number. We had caller ID, so my parents would see an unfamiliar number on the ringing phone and say, “Looks like it might be someone trying to call Joe Jones again.” They’d pick up and say, “Hello? I’m sorry, you have the wrong number,” and then just hang up and say, “Yep. Joe Jones again.”

Now, since I was five, I failed to realize two key things about this situation:

• “Joe Jones” was the name of a store, not a person an easy mistake to make.

• It was different people calling each time.

Since my parents could always tell when it was a call for Joe Jones, I thought it was always the same number that they kept recognizing. I had only ever used the speed dial to make an outgoing call, so I assumed some friend of Joe’s had just misprogrammed their phone to call us instead of him and was really lazy about fixing it. I was annoyed that this person kept bothering us.

Then came the day of the story. My dad was at work, and my mom was home with me. She was busy with something when the phone rang and asked me to answer it. I went over to the kitchen phone and reached up to pull it off the hook.

Me: “Hello?”

Caller: “Hi. Is this Joe Jones?”

I was finally talking to the person who had been bothering us! I summoned up all the righteous fury young me could muster.

Me: *VERY sternly* “No! He doesn’t live here! Stop calling us!”

My mom jumped up and snatched the phone from me to apologize to the caller and smooth things over.

After she hung up, she took the time to talk to me to make sure I understood what was actually going on and how to be polite over the phone. She wasn’t angry.

These days, I always try to be polite on the phone, regardless of the situation. I think back to this incident as being the day I learned that lesson.

Thanks, Mom. I miss you.

My brother-in-law and my sister are born-again Christians of ten years, in a sect that does not condone alcohol or gambling. I have no problem with this ethos, but [Brother-In-Law] loves to shove his religious views down our throats at every family event… and it’s draining.

My parents were brought up in the same religion but are very laid back about the rules. They believe that what they do is their choice alone; everybody else can do their own thing. I’m agnostic.

I play the national lottery (£2 a week), and I like to have a glass of wine with meals out. [Brother-In-Law] comments on this every time we meet. He comments, “It’s a sin.” I say, “Only for you, not for me.”

This year, I won a few thousand in the lottery. I decided to give away some money to my parents and in-laws so they could go on a lovely holiday next year with the grandkids.

[Brother-In-Law] found out about the money and got my sister to call me to ask for their share.

Me: “[Brother-In-Law] has made it very clear that gambling is a sin and any money received is tainted by that sin. I wouldn’t want him to compromise his faith by accepting sinful money.”

My sister laughed and said she would relay the message to [Brother-In-Law].

[Brother-In-Law] is now not speaking to me. Oh, dear, what a shame.