ONCE you’ve left home your parents just view you as someone they can dump all their old shit on. Here are some things they insist you have:
Their massive, unwanted furniture
Your folks have had the same three-piece suite and huge sideboard since 1988, but now they’ve finally discovered IKEA and fancy a sleek, Scandi living room. Rather than taking these ugly items to the tip, they decide they will be ‘useful’ to you, despite the fact that you’re 44 and have had your own furniture for 20 years.
Their strange clothes
Your mum has a fur coat which used to belong to her mum, and she has decided now is the time to hand it down to you. You can’t tell her the only time you’d wear a fur coat is to a fancy dress party, and even then you wouldn’t wear real fur because your friends would disown you, so you pretend to be grateful and sling it straight in the loft.
Their old microwave
Despite being completely tightfisted in every other respect, your parents change their microwave on a bewilderingly regular basis, and give you the old one. You tell them you’re still using the one they gave you in 2017 and have two spare in the garage, but your dad still loads it into your boot just before you leave, giving you no chance to refuse it.
An entire mismatched dinner service
Having each inherited a dinner service from their respective parents, and got one of their own when they married, your parents now have approximately 3,000 plates. They decide to force a set on you, but can’t be arsed to match them up so you end up with a mish-mash of horrible Hornsey and Denby pottery that you don’t tell the kids off for smashing.
Their allotment veg
Your dad’s had an allotment for 30 years but in all that time he has never decided to grow fruit or vegetables that people actually like. This means that every time you visit you’re given a bag of gooseberries, rhubarb or marrows, which travel around in the boot of your car for three weeks before ending up in the compost bin.
Your old stuff
You think it’s your birthright to use your parents’ attic as free storage, but they have decided to downsize and want rid of your childhood crap. This means that you now receive a steady stream of WhatsApp messages asking if you want this teddy bear/single shoe/Year 7 homework diary/DVD of Billy Elliot/stack of bank statements. You do not. But they’ll never stop asking.
