ONE moment you’re laughing at the idiotic things your parents say, the next the same phrases are coming out of your own stupid, ageing mouth. Here are some of them.
‘Where has this year gone?’
Time moves faster when you’re older. That’s why your parents are always marvelling at the speed of a year and saying things like, ‘I can’t believe it’s October already. It’ll be Christmas before you know it.’ One day you’ll inevitably start saying things like this as well, and thus begins your rapid journey to the grave.
‘You’re letting a draught in!’
No 19-year-old has ever moaned about a draught. It’s a fact of life that you hit 40 and currents of ice-cold air suddenly start attacking you from all angles. At that point the only thing to do is accept you’ve become your dad and go and buy a weird snake-shaped draught excluder that makes opening a door a massive pain.
‘We have pizza at home’
If you listen very carefully, the first time you actively choose a Dr Oetker pizza over a Domino’s you can actually hear your inner child’s heart breaking.
‘Kids these days don’t know they’re born’
Admittedly, when this phrase leaves your mouth you haven’t become your parents – you’ve become your grandparents. Only the addled minds of the very old would still use a phrase that makes such bafflingly little sense.
‘I’m off to see a man about a dog’
Dads love handy reusable phrases for life’s daily tasks – and pissing and shitting are no exception. The moment you develop a catchphrase of your own to use before taking a dump, there’s no going back.
‘Make sure you wrap up warm. You’ll catch your death out there’
Just like draughts, the older you get, the more deeply concerning the weather becomes. That’s why 70 per cent of everyone’s childhood is their mum telling them to put on a coat.
‘You’re looking well’
When you reach a certain age, people stop worrying about looking good. All you want is some vague reassurance you might live for another few years.
‘Were you born in a barn?’
It’s strange that the people who brought you into the world – and should therefore be well-informed regarding the location of your birth – are the same people who use this tiresome phrase. Alas, a time will come when your own child leaves a door open and the phrase will slip out unpreventably.
‘The TikTok’
Youth doesn’t end at 40. It ends the moment you find yourself adding a ‘the’ to every vaguely trendy thing in existence.
‘We really needed this rain’
Why were our mums and dads always so pleased to see some rain after a bit of a dry spell? Were they all secret f**king farmers?
‘I’m just resting my eyes’
Old people don’t really nap. They just sit on the sofa and ‘rest their eyes’ for 45 minutes while making a noise incredibly similar to snoring.
‘You’ve already wasted most of the day’ (to someone who got out of bed at 10am)
As far as your parents were concerned, if someone was still in bed after midday, they may as well stay there and just crack on through to the next morning. The feckless good-for-nothing probably ‘liked a drink’ and used ‘bad language’, too.