Being a “magical” parent. The stuff that you are supposed to be able to fix over the phone.

Wrap it in rolls of gaffa tape so it doesn't get any worse.

Then do the same with the freezer 

🤣

I get it but from my Mum, "The TV/Internet/iMac/her phone/etc isn't working, can you fix it?"  She is in Wales, I am in Leicestershire.

My younger brother lives about 1/2 mile from her...

"There's a funny noise coming from my car".

Right you're in Portsmouth, I'm in Herefordshire so it's unlikely I can hear it from here 😉

My bus hasn't arrived yet and I'm desperate for the toilet

K. Can I just suggest going back in to school to go for a wee?

It's ok, the bus is here.

I'm not sure how this solves your issue, but I'll put the door on the latch and leave a clear path to the loo.

Call from student house 100 miles away.

Dad, there's no water!

OK. Nothing at all or just a dribble?

Nothing, it ran a bit and then stopped.

And you haven't got a flood somewhere?

No.

OK, sounds like a burst pipe somewhere, and the mains has gone off. Have the neighbours got water?

How would I know?

Ask them?

I don't know them.

You're only asking if their water's on, not inviting them for dinner.

OK.

[sounds of footsteps, front door]

Yeah, there's a burst mains.

How do you know?

Because there's water running down the road and water van and workmen.

FFS - first instinct was to phone me instead of look outside. And this is someone a few weeks away from a pretty nailed on First.

Used to have it all the time with MIL, bless her. Simple stuff that would wait, but hope, nine pm and you need to sort it now !  Down side of her being immobile and staring at something that's not quite right all day. Fortunately, only five minutes away. Her daughter lived round the corner though !

I'm not sure how this solves your issue, but I'll put the door on the latch and leave a clear path to the loo.

I was once caught a little bit out with a bout of rough tummy.

On a bus, i texted forward to my flatmates saying "please be out of the shower etc or i bill break down the door and shit in your presence, i am coming in hot"

"Ok"

The wags all trooped into the close to watch me get to the flat door and realise the bastards had unlatched and deadlocked the door. not a time to have to search for keys. I could even rant or swear about it as any form of tension release was going to trigger unpleasantness.

I'm home.

"Freezer door has fallen off" actually meant that the magnetic seal along the bottom edge had fallen off.

However, it reminds of the time when I used to travel a lot with work and got a phone call saying that the boiler wasn't working. As I was in France there wasn't a great deal that I could do.

Posted by: harry_the_spider

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“Dad, the freezer door has fallen off”.

"Put it back on again then.  Do I have to think of everything?"

The air pressure would probably hold it in place until it was fixed properly anyway.

And this is someone a few weeks away from a pretty nailed on First.

I feel your pain. Binnerette number one is exactly the same.

As my best mate says about his elaborately qualified brother ‘ he could calculate how many beans are in a tin, but he couldn’t tell you how to open the ****er  

I have this with my beloved wife (who once phoned her dad in Bolton from Birmingham to tell him her car brake disk had fallen apart).

Though no. 1 spawn did recently phone me to ask if she could have some crisps, despite having been told to help herself if she got hungry while I was out.

Posted by: binners

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As my best mate says about his elaborately qualified brother ‘ he could calculate how many beans are in a tin, but he couldn’t tell you how to open the ****er  

"Ah, you must work for Microsoft."

How can you tell?!

"You've given me an answer which is technically correct but of no practical use whatsoever."

Posted by: ratherbeintobago

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Though no. 1 spawn did recently phone me to ask if she could have some crisps, despite having been told to help herself if she got hungry while I was out.

Plot twist: she's 37.

I (age 39) did phone my dad when black smoke started pouring out the air vents of my car.

So it's not going to stop any time soon 😀

Train home the other night delayed and packed in like sardines

Woman nearby is on the phone to her son trying to be forceful but aware everyone can hear

"Oscar I will fix the Xbox when I get home, Oscar do not open up the Xbox, Put the screwdriver down, you do not have the capability to fix the Xbox, if you do and break it I will not buy you a new one...."

we went into a tunnel - Ive no idea if Oscars Xbox survived

Best one I got when 2nd best offspring was at university.

"My room light isn't working."

Which, following a tortuous telephone diagnostic session should have been reported thus...

"Somebody filled the top, (3rd) floor bog with puke and multiple flushes caused an overflow which worked it's way down to the ground floor and dripped out of my light pendant. Luckily we had an electrical engineer at the party who disconnected the ring main in a ceiling rose in an entirely different bedroom because he thought this would make it safe and now my room light isn't working."

*Sigh. OK, I'm on my way. (Luckily only 30 mins to Manchester).

@verses

Mine respond in a way that can only lead me to assume they think I have gone out secretly and disconnected the cables in the box just to annoy them.

My wife's great for this behaviour as well, telling me something's gone wrong / broken, whatever despite me being in a different town, country, even continent. "I just thought you'd want to know"

To her it's 'a problem shared is a problem halved'; to me it's 'a problem shared is now my ****ing problem as well'

On a serious note, it's a sad day when they realise that Dad can't fix everything.

"Daddy, the internet isn't working at Mummies house"...

Can't Mummy fix it?

No.

FFS

i used to have to fix everything when we were married and i've spent the last few years trying to get away from it...

Posted by: theotherjonv

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Mine respond in a way that can only lead me to assume they think I have gone out secretly and disconnected the cables in the box just to annoy them

I've turned into this

Posted by: kimbers

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we went into a tunnel - Ive no idea if Oscars Xbox survived

If Oscar can open an Xbox with a just screwdriver, either he knows what he's doing or it's now permanently screwed.

Posted by: theotherjonv

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To her it's 'a problem shared is a problem halved'; to me it's 'a problem shared is now my ****ing problem as well'

More a case of "A problem shared is somehow my fault"

Timely thread. I had a call from Mrs F earlier today complaining that she had dropped the TV remote and the batteries had fallen out. She told me she couldn't find one of the batteries. WTF am I supposed to do about it whilst at work.

I routinely get calls from my Mum for similar things. 

The TV, phone and computer often "do things by themselves". Apparently I can solve this from 200 miles away.

Ha yeah my wife does this all the time bless her. I'm not really the sort of bloke who can fix things at the best of times....it's certainly not happening when I'm multiple hours away from home!

Tbf I was having an issue with my motorhome battery the other week and the first thing that I did was to phone my Dad for advice. It'll be a sad day when that's not a thing anymore.

In England once and we got a call from our lodger in Brisbane.

"The light in my room isn't working"

"Have you checked the light bulb?"

"No."

"Check the light bulb."

"How?"

"Take it out, look at it, give it a shake..."

"OK"

We came home a couple of weeks later and he was using a lamp in his room having failed to even check the bulb.

I'm the "Magical son in law" this afternoon my mobile rings with F-i-L's mobile number... M-i-L says our landline isn't working! I tell them to unplug and re plug the phone etc. She then proceeds to say she can't understand the BT fault system and they don't understand about texting so could I phone them...
Text the BT system and after 15 minutes they say no fault apparent on the system and to re-boot the phones as I had said earlier.
Phoned M-i-L and asked he if she had done what I asked earlier "no we were waiting for what BT said to you"
So once again I asked her to just power cycle their phone, oh guess what its working again when they did that!!!

I've known them for 43 years and love them to bits but their ability to just follow a simple request does test my will to live sometimes.

I love the poetic brilliance of the title and the original post.  And that I couldn't manage reading it out to Mrs BigJohn without us both being in tears of laughter

I routinely get calls from my Mum for similar things. 

The TV, phone and computer often "do things by themselves".

Yeah, my mum has this. Unfortunately it's because she's starting to get a bit wobbly everywhere and quite often presses buttons she A) didn't need to or want to press and B) presses the same button 2, 3 or 4 times.

Especially frustrating when she trying to switch the camera on to skype with the kids.

Or in her case, on, off, on, off, why isn't it working?

I properly laughed in the office yesterday afternoon after reading the first post...I'm still chuckling at it just now.

My partner didn't see the humour of it, but I reminded her that I don't tend give her a call when something goes wrong...I tend to get it fixed so it isn't known - which led to a slightly uncomfortable conversation about what I'm had to fix so it wasn't known! Hahaha

I aged 30-something rang my mum when our baby who had gone to bed absolutely fine, started sounding remarkably like a sea lion! Held the phone for her to hear, and she successfully diagnosed croup! We’d never heard of it, thought it was a Victorian thing!

I have to admit, at the age of 30, whilst decorating our first home, I did phone my Dad in tears saying I couldn’t cut in the grey kitchen wall paint to the white ceiling! (Actually that wasn’t the exact wording - just I couldn’t paint in straight lines!). Bless him, he drove 60 miles to paint the edges! Thankfully, for him, 10 years later I’m quite good at it now!

My BiL is lovely but not practical. The number of phone calls my brother gets…in the middle of being live on air, reading the news! No, no I can’t deal with it atm! Haha!

Ooh, I need to know who ahsat's brother is now! 

Ooh, I need to know who ahsat's brother is now! 

Enjoy it. Isn't it great that they have such faith in us.

"I've lost my keys in the snow and the flat owner with the spare set is 80km away." "Well have a look in the snow wherever you bent over and ask in all the shops and bars" - they'd been handed in to a bar - lucky sod.

I have numerous Whatsapp exchanges on how to fix things: "I started the wipers with the blades frozen to the screen and the arm has snapped in two" (I'd lent him my car for 5 months because I don't use it much in the Winter) "there's a spare that fits both sides under the driver's seat, it'll be a bit short but use that" "how do I fit it?" - long exchange of photos.

"They've shut the line to Pau for some reason and I'm in Dax". "OK see you in an hour or so in front of station"

"The flat I'm renting isn't available next season" - I look at Madame Edukator who picks up her phone and starts flat hunting.

Great innit.

Posted by: Matthew Hornby

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Ooh, I need to know who ahsat's brother is now! 

I seem to recall a pic or clip of him on air was featured on here a few months back and ahsat casually went "oh yeah, that's my brother!"

This is the clip MoreCash is referring to https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MaceUmJk0vk

@theotherjonv just summarised Son1's five years at Uni in the UK for me. Now he's in Dublin doing a PhD and nothing has changed.

And of course I am the secreter of WiFi, even when on another continent.

the most used ones are:

"The radiator's not working", "The internet's broken", "EA's servers are down" (not sure what I'm supposed to do with that one!) and of course the classic "I can't find my ........."

To be fair, a large number of these come from Mrs M rather than the kids (apart from the EA one).

The other week I got a call from daughter number two. 'Dad I've locked myself out of the house' (meaning gone out with out key) I'd left her my set because I had to change the locks several days earlier due her mislaying her set (it's long story) somewhere. I work in another county and she rings me, I don't have my keys to let her in. In the end she takes an Uber to her mums place of work for her keys. 

My dad on the other hand keeps calling me because he cannot connect to the Internet. He keeps trying to connect to their neighbours router. Even thought I've put a sticker with the router address on his laptop after the first call and 2 hour round trip.