Get me my house keys dammit!
Indeed,

I too had excessively restrictive parents.

One particular incidence was when i was between 11-13 years old, and everybody and their dog (at the time that was my age) had house keys, so that they can get into the house at will.

My folks were continuously against this, calling these kids "Latch Key" kids, and "We remember them when I was young, and these kids were having to wear this key and survive on their own as their parents were pissing their money up down the pub!" blah blah blah.

So, as a consequence, if they went out I had to go with them or stay in the house until their return. Often kicking me out in the summer telling me to hang out with friends. And I had to float around until they returned. Great. NOT!

In my infinite wisdom one day, I decided to borrow a neighbors ladder. Our house was one ridiculously easy to get into, with a nasty side open 1970s bathroom window that had no lock. Fuck knows how the house didn't get robbed (but, mind you, this was the recession ravaged late 1980s/early 1990s so there was fuck all to pinch anyway).

Anyhow, I used to utilise, this ladder, and proudly leave it behind on the driveway (as they locked the doors and therefore I could not get out of the house, to put the ladder away).

This used to really piss them off, and I was like "Well, UNTIL you give me a house key I WILL continue doing this, and make you look like a complete tit in front of the neighbors".

Eventually they caved in, and gave me a house key. And I soon had keys cut for everything (including the car) behind their back. They also cited that they wouldn't get a key cut locally as "They would know where we live, and rob the house. I am not taking any chances!". Like, for fucks sake! there are A LOT of houses in my town and it's like finding a needle in a haystack to find the correct key for our house, with insurmountable odds.

Another one was their insistence on me going to school for the last few weeks of school end in Year 11. Despite the fact there there were NO Year 11 pupils attending any lessons anymore as EVERYTHING had finished and it was all exams and revising.

So, I was forced to hide at my sisters during late spring/summer, and return back home as normal and make out that I had been in school all the time (when in fact I was over their playing on their Commodore 64, and copying some games for them, or coming up with the latest ZZAP 64 mag, with cheats and maps for Cybernoid 2, Draconus, or whatever was flavour of the month).

Another example of strictness was that I was barely allowed anywhere, so as a consequence my sense of geography is now shite.

For example, there was a school swimming trip, and I missed the coach. I didn't have the initiative to get a bus back home, as this was a completely alien concept because of my idiotically sheltered upbringing. So, I had to go the cop shop as I didn't know how to get home. I was a right fucking laughing stock in school, and I was 13 at the time.

Yeah, like, fucking nice one parents. Twunts!
(Panteneman Isn't entirely sure why he bothered on, Mon 12 Mar 2007, 20:58, Reply)