Mom called me up today to feign interest in her grandson before asking me if I knew if we were related to Prince William's fiance Kate Middleton. Mom and her sister had been wondering as we are descended from some Middletons.

I said "No, of course not. We're also not related to Arthur Middleton, the signer of the Declaration of Independence. However we are related to Charles Middleton, the actor who played Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon serials." (I don't know if the last is true, but I said it anyway for the hell of it.)

Mom said "I have to go."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2010 06:25PM by Makurosu.

Moms can be so much fun.

Just wanted to let you know.

LOL Mak- I wish I could have seen the look on her face! :)

Thanks for the laugh!!!

I'd love to be related to Ming the Merciless. Hmm or even better I'd love to be Ming the Merciless. Too bad I don't need a name for RFM.

I could call myself the Cousin of Ming! Ah well I have way too many cousins as it is.

You can still claim blue blood, right?!?

It's the one claiming that Mr. Rogers wore sweaters to cover up his tattoos from his time in the Navy Seals when he had multiple kills in Vietnam. *sigh* I sent her a link to the relevant Snopes article. Why oh why oh why...

My mother LOVES to send me the latest chain e-mail about mythical activities by largely imaginary people. Sometimes I actually send her the Snopes link debunking them. Usually, I just delete them. I chalk it up to alcohol poisoning (she quit most of her drinking years ago but I know the case of beer a night for two decades took their toll) and move on with my life.

Oh, and she sends me a million or so "God loves you and you are just a special person and if you don't pass this on to 95 people in the next ten minutes rabid gerbils will chew your toes off." glurges too.

Moms -- ya' gotta love 'em because it's illegal to shoot 'em. :)

I think my mother is running on vapors most of the time, but there isn't anything like real brain damage that I can use to account for it. Maybe she was dropped on her head as a baby.

I've never heard one talk about a truly evil, or evenly a bit off, ancestor. Why don't any of them, even the converts ever have genealogy stories like my family's?

My grandfather, a medical, small town doctor used to grow marijuana and mix it with his pipe tobacco that he would give to some of his patients. I met a couple of his patients, they swore he had the best pipe tobacco in town! Of course this was back before Marijuana was made illegal. When we cleaned out his house after both he and his wife had died, I found his opium pipe. Gee, I wish I had gotten to know my grandfather better, well at least before I sobered up!

About the best I could say for the pack of whores in the other side of the family is before the Civil War my ancestors were southern slave holders that fought on the side of the south and became part of the KKK when it formed after the war. The slaves my ancestors owned took their owners last name, so if I meet an African American with the same last name as I, I have to wonder if their ancestors were owned my my ancestors.

So, why don't I ever hear stories like that from TBMs?

My Mormon ancestors, according to my TBM family who kept genealogical records, were unbelievable and defined by their various and sundry church callings. I did my own research and found that they were actually very interesting people, but nobody in my family wants to hear about that. Your grandfather sounds like a character. :) My great uncle has been greatly maligned by my family because of his alcoholism, but when I got researching him, I found that he had gotten articles published in newspapers and magazines and even wrote a play. He was an atheist and free thinker. I wish I had known him.

I used to work with a very sweet TBM who swore she was descended from Cleopatra and Julius Cesar! I resisted the urge to laugh and asked how did she know that. Her mom did genealogy. Hoping she might realize how stupid this sounded, I continued "so er your mom speaks ancient languages?"
"oh no, she found it on the internet!"
sigh