One of the last shows we watched together, before she went back to the hospital

[conuly]

was Cash Cab.

And on this episode one question involved listing 10 of the top 15 coffee-drinking countries in Europe.

To nobody's surprise, one of them was Belgium, which anybody would know who ever heard my mother saying that of course she drinks a lot of coffee, she's Belgian.

True to form, her mother and brother also drank a lot of coffee, and so did her father, although his family is something something probably Russian and not Belgian at all.

Many years ago, before my mother left home or even, I think, high school, her family had several coffee mugs all the same. And they just refilled the cups throughout the day, as you do, and periodically her father would go through and count the mugs. (When my mother told this story she paused to point four times and count them all out. I'll wait while you do that.)

And one day they lost one of the mugs, nobody knew what happened to it, and they never found a replacement, so her mother just used a different one.

Some time later, my mother happened to be in Woolworths or somewhere and there she found a whole shelf of that same mug! So she bought... two.

And she didn't tell anybody.

First she put out one of the mugs, and waited until her father counted them out (pause again) and was pleasantly surprised that they'd "found" that missing mug.

A week or two later, she put out the other one!

Gaslighting is all in good fun when there's no harm done, right?

Comments

[baranduin]

That's a great story. Your mom was very mischievous.

[poliphilo]

That's a lovely story.

[sabotabby]

Your mom sounds awesome.

[alexseanchai]

😹

🧸

[hudebnik]

I am reminded of a tale I heard at Cariadoc's bardic circle many years ago (I believe told by al-Khwarizmi). A certain man borrowed a large cooking-pot from his neighbor, and a few days later when it was time to return it he said "A blessing on your head! Your cooking pot has given birth to a healthy baby!" and handed over the original cooking-pot as well as a much smaller one looking just the same.

The next month the man wished to borrow a cooking-pot again, and his neighbor was most delighted to lend it out, as it had paid such a rich return the previous time. But a few days later when it was time to return it the man said "I'm terribly sorry to tell you, your cooking pot has died."
The neighbor was outraged, and demanded "Died? You lying thief, cooking pots don't die!"
"If a cooking pot can give birth, a cooking pot can die."

[rebeccmeister]

Ha! I did something like that once with Scrabble tiles. Snuck them into my parents' tile set when I was in town for a visit, then left, and waited.

They were amused. :^)

I think this is more in the realm of a practical joke than gaslighting.

[rebeccmeister]

(we're talking extra X's, Q's, and Z's here - pretty obvious)

[bibliofile]

Pranks. They're called pranks.

(And both are pretty funny.)

[rebeccmeister]

True, more accurate!

And yes, hilarious!

[pauamma]

Gaslighting is all in good fun when there's no harm done, right?

Is that a rhetorical question?

[readerjane]

Oh that is perfect!

[frandroid]

Bwahaha. Fun prank. :)

[spiffikins]

I giggled - that's awesome :D

[isis]

Haha, that's a delightful story. And I agree, I'd call it a prank, not gaslighting.

[wpadmirer]

Pat and I used to watch Cash Cab all the time. It's a fun show.

I love that story about your mother. It must have been mystifying to her father how the mug returned and then managed to re-produce!

[adafrog]

Fun. :)

[cellio]

What fun!