Omg such anality from pil. Come and share your anal behaviour stories (lighthearted)

Yep DH does too. Then he tells the DCs off for the same - they should have been prepared

My FIL does the 'disappearing act' trick whenever MIL puts a meal on the able too.
it's so rude!

So does that mean she only has 2 pairs then?
You know what to get her for next Christmas then - either a 5 pack of knickers from M&S or a washing machine, depending on funds :o

ugh yes because if your DD wnet into labour 10 weeks early the main worry would be the mattress

I have been reading this all day! So funny. My MIL and parents have very odd habits, but this is the one that comes to mind... when MIL gets up in the morning and uses the bathroom she handwashes her knickers and hangs them over the shower door. Regardless of the fact that the next person to use the shower will have to move them...

My friend's mum who is very anal, put a rubber sheet on the bed her dd was sleeping in as she was pregnant and worried about her water's breaking! She was 30 weeks.

I spoke to my mum a few days before Christmas, and mentioned I was going shopping, eventually she realised for last minute gifts and said she thought I meant our food shopping. I'd done that the day before, just a normal weekly shop. "Oh, when are you going to get all your food shopping".
"Well we're at your on Christmas day, ILs on Boxing Day, so just a normal week for us, shopping wise"
"But don't you need all your food for Christmas?"

we went round like that for a while. I'm still not sure what she meant. Obviously we bought the odd festive treat - yule log, mince pies, clementines, but we had no food shopping that would have necessecitatied a mad panicked dash round M&S on the 23rd.

SPB. Only one trip a day is allowed.

"SparklingbrookSun 06-Jan-13 18:35:21

My DM doesn't like to go out in the morning if she is going out in the afternoon."

yes me too, or in fact, at all
That's dreadful

This is great ok....

M and D also watch weather 37 times a day ...then moan as it changes. Every time you use a cup bowl etc it has to be washed and dried and put away. She moans if I'm in the shower to long yet fills up a bowl of water for two mugs.

PIL to many to say my personal favourite is putting the house applance 'birthdays ' on the Calender every year.

Alway has hair cut every Friday at same time , eat same meals on same days . Whenever I go for dinner( not often now) thankfully she takes that long to serve up she then microwaves each dinner one by one :) by the time she has done that I have finished . Odd odd odd

Brilliant thread!

Packing is important to my GM. She phones me 5 actual weeks before I go away to make sure I am packed. When I confess to not having started, she says, "that's nice, you're being all relaxed and casual about it, it'll be ok if you forget a few things"

Haha, this thread has made me giggle.

My DF always:

Weighs anything he microwaves so he can calculate precisely how long it will take

12 hours before we are due to eat a roast dinner, he goes round each person in the household asking them (through the toilet door if necessary) how many roast potatoes they think they would like to eat. He then examines each potato before peeling it and assesses how many pieces he will cut it into so that he can be sure to have precisely the right number at said roast dinner.

When he gets in the car for a journey, however short, he puts his seatbelt on carefully. He then checks, and makes minute adjustments to, the rear-view mirror to ensure optimal visibility. After this he removes his glasses, breathes on them, carefully cleans them, replaces them, takes them off again to re-clean and then puts them on again. When I was 16 and had a Saturday job for which I was invariably running late, this routine used to drive me to tears on a regular basis

There are hundreds more examples, but I am too tiddly to list them all. I'd think it was an age thing but he's always been like this, or at least for as long as I can remember

I lived ith my PILS for about a year and I adore them, I really do.

However, if I put something in the dishwasher FIL would come along behind me and rearrange it because it has to go in a certain way.

Whenever we go over there, or if the come here we gain a carrier bag of stuff, this usually includes a bag of coffee and a bottle of wine. I dont drink coffee and Im BF so cant drink much alcohol. I am also quite capable of purchasing these things myself with my usual food shopping. I currently have 5 unopened bags of coffee in my cupboard.

They have stored DH's entire childhood in there loft and think that DS now wants it. He doesnt. He doesnt need DH's Liverpool kit from when he was 6, as he has his own Liverpool kit, that FIL bought him.

However, I am worse. I get cross (inwardly, I am polite) when someone buys me novelty mugs as a gift because I like my mugs to match. MIL has cottoned on and guess what I got for xmas?

My DM doesn't like to go out in the morning if she is going out in the afternoon.

My mother cannot do more than one thing a day. Now, this may be a really massive thing, such as going to work for twelve hours, or it might be simply having a bath. But if you suggest doing something, the response is the same either way "I can't! I've had a bath/been at work/climbed a mountain/changed my socks!"

Timidviper - start lying, you know she does this so shout "it's ready" and click plates let her go off to the loo then start serving up so she's back in time...

My parents do so many things on this thread, I do feel sorry for DH. I hadn't thought either that since retiring, my mum (who used to commute via the motorway and some of hte most tretcherous roads every day) never drives. She could easily be one of those woman who stops driving by accident...

My DH has the getting everybody out and sat in the car thing but, rather than vanishing, he then spends 10 minutes fiddling with the satnav, checking the location on the map, etc while we all freeze or fry according to the weather. Think smy suggestion of thinking ahead is ludicrously unreasonable.

MIL always needs the loo exactly as the food goes on the table, never when I pointedly warn them that "food is ready in a minute if you want to wash your hands or anything....", nope, all fine, but the second the plate hits the table she's off!

Lemon that so reminds me of going to my grans with all my cousins when I was a teenager. There are billions of us, ranging very widely in age, with me and my sister being among the oldest. One day when I was about 14 I was sitting on the living room floor eating my boiled sausage and spaghetti hoops and suddenly thought "hang on, I'm not a toddler!" I had to beg to be allowed into the kitchen/dining room with the adults, to eat real food like sandwiches and cake. Felt very grown up that day I did :)

Lemon that's classic!

Brilliant thread. I have a couple!

DM and DF took my sons to centreparcs for a long weekend. DF produced a colour coded spreadsheet of the different activities that each of them, DM and he would be doing with times locations and notes eg" remember loose clothing". We then had to have a meeting a week before they left to go through this point by point while they each checked their individual copy as well as the full version. They were 6,4 and 2.

On holiday with ILs , we couldnt go out or do anything on last day of the 7 day holiday as that was "packing day". We also had to eat in the villa that night as we had leftover food that needed to be used up. 2 hard boiled eggs. There we 8 of us.

My Uncle reads every crappy piece of junk mail that comes through his door with great interest. He then highlights relevant parts of each letter/brochure with different coloured highlighter pens ready to discuss with the family that evening. Fascinating stuff!

Trills your expandy table has reminded me of PIL's emergency table for the DGC. It's a folding picnic table that they keep behind the back door. If the whole family are there (13 of us) for tea on say Christmas Day the picnic table goes up in the front room for the GC to sit at. There are 5 GC so 3 sit on the sofa at the table and the remaining 2 (usually my DD's as they are the youngest) get a child sized plastic patio chair each.

Not too anal? Practical even? But what if I tell you that the eldest of the GC is 20 and the youngest 12?

DDs were adamant this year that they would NOT sit on the plastic chairs as when they try to stand the chair comes with them (they were bought when my 20yo DS was about 2 to give an idea of size!). MIL agreed that they were 'getting a bit big for them' so they were allowed to sit in the armchairs as long as they were 'careful' with their plates

Wow, nothing to add to this, but it has taken me all day to read! Had to slow down/stop while my mum and stepped came for their fortnightly visit!

Need to start tea now!