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

plues everything is TINY at their house

tiny fridge - tiny pints of milk, tiny cutlery tiny wine glasses.

The wine glasses are a certain brand of glassware that have a little logo on a sticker, this they leave ON.

NOTHING can happen on the kitchen table without a mat being used

My parents sound relatively normal compared to most of these stories BUT good grief the shower squeegee thing. Dad has an electric Kärcher thing that sucks the water off the wall. He's told me about it 90 million times. We should get one apparently. We were even treated to a demonstration when we went up at Xmas. Twice. When baby dd put sticky fingerprints on the patio doors it was an occasion of joy because dad had an excise to use the electric squeegee thing.
They've seen one on offer not as good as the offer they got theirs on and keep asking me If I want them to put in an order so we can have one too!

I love this thread. Especially the crazy food-weighers.

My parents drive DH nuts. Anything they buy other than food (anything from a new chair to a car) requires several years of discussion and imput from the whole extended family. They actually got me and DH to come and test a mattress for the spare room with them, because they were so worried it might not be 'right'. And they got my brother and his wife and newborn to do the same. They live over 100 miles from all of us.

If anything that is bought doesn't last perfectly for a decade or more, it is deemed a grave disappointment, to be mentioned every time someone suggests throwing caution to the winds and, you know, just splashing out on a new duvet without first canvassing opinions from several sources and averaging with the results of the Which? survey. You are not allowed to decide you just fancy something new/different on the spur of the moment. Consequently, they have decorated/repainted rooms in their house approximately once each in over 20 years but think the paint is bad quality because it now looks a little faded.

They are perfectly well-off but will never consider paying a little more to avoid a massive amount of hassle. DH once got a taxi from the train station to theirs, which resulted in massive amounts of hand-wringing because someone could have gone to pick him up if they'd just rung up the car insurers and put one of us on the insurance temporarily, and if we'd had dinner an hour early, and, and ... it didn't occur to them the taxi was convenient.

Mum makes everything from scratch, and plans meals precisely. Yet, every holiday my dad will say, at around 10am, 'how about you throw us together a picnic now?'. Every time, she doesn't just say 'no', she fumes silently while trying to find food for a meal she (shock!) hasn't planned, which usually means bread, cheddar, and apples.

She will then blow up about what a pain it is, and dad will be very surprised. Every. Single. Time.

We took them out walking in the Cotswolds and introduced them to the concept of 'going to the pub for lunch instead of a picnic', but it's not catching on.

God yes, the everyday items saved 'for best'. Examples include tea towels brought back from holiday 30 years ago. I can't wait for the event they'll get their first airing at, it's going to be amazing

notmyidea we have a 50 something friend who does the same with his car. A little book that contains details of everytime he fills up, the mileage where he went, etc. When DH first met him (in the Forces) he had a book that contined dtails of all the clothes he had bought.

It turms out his Fathere used to do the same and also kept every single bank statement and would take them all when he went to the bank

My parents have loads of stuff which is "too good to use", for example the mugs which they saved tokens for from McVities biscuits in the 1980s and which are kept on top of a kitchen cabinet, never having been used. Or the hot chocolate I brought back from France when I spent a year living there - in 1990 it's still sitting in their kitchen 23 years later!

my in laws WONT USE a cashpoint because foreigners scam them.

FIL is foreign,

This thread makes me feel all cosy and warm because my PILs used to be like this. They had an incredibly vast yet detailed range of tupperware to cater for every left-over, from a single sprout to 9/10ths of a block of cheese or half a roast, whatever. Going out or making a sandwich or putting on/turning off the heating was all incredibly complicated, involving a series of questions and debates... I was amazed as my parents are a decade younger and had never got into this fussiness/saving everything because you grew up during the war stuff.

Only a bit sad too because FIL is deceased and MIL is too frail and elderly and confused to worry about her insulated gravy jug any more, or to press dozens of jars of onions she'd pickled herself that were suspiciously dark brown (I swear some of them were older than dh!) on us as we leave. Was equally hilarious and frustrating at the time but I miss it terribly now MIL is so, I dunno, reduced.

newstarticus YES to weather forecast! PIL even watch the weather in my parent's area. Despite seeing them ooh about once every 2 years! Why?! Then they tell DH "ooh, it's a bit wet/cold/warm/windy in X, isn't it?" - why?

My Granny used to air every single item of clothing, bedding etc in the airing cupboard. This included shrouds for the corpses at her funeral home, I kid you not!!

have only got to page 2, but am crying

My Aunt strips the bed you have slept in while you are in the shower and has the sheets on the line by the time you are eating breakfast.

Yes to shower protocol - you have to open the window and hang towel outside even in winter. I am not completely convinced thatbtheynare washed after we leave but instead simply "dried" and put back in the airing cupboard. There is no heating in the bathroom and the water comes in a dribble. I would never dare to have a bath - that would be totally prolifrigate. Oh and the 'airing' cupboard is in the I heated bathroom... Which seems to be totally pointless from an airing perspective.

Yes to random items of reduced fprice food cooked together.

My PIL live an hour away.
They drive over with a rug & flask of coffee in the car. Then they bring clothes to change into.
Before departure they change into their 'driving clothes', apply lipstick (MIL) then do 10 checks on the car. We receive a call to say they have arrived safely.
Weird, how you get used to it.

My parents.
Phones never on. Will send ONE text only ( not to waste 10p) and then turn it off again.
Excess boiled water from kettle kept in flask to save money.
ALL leftovers always eaten even of they are out of date/ stale/ tank and tasting of Tupperware they've been kept in for weeks. Don't put butter or milk in mash- waste.
Shop at Aldi.

However, they own several properties, have better pensions that our generation ever will and have 3 foreign Hols per year.

Tis just mean ness not frugality. Makes me so mad I spend more than I can afford in everyone else to over compensate!

Weather - we live 150 miles away from FIL. Every time he rings he asks what the weather is like and if it's different he seems really shocked. We get a lot more snow but I'm not sure he believes us.

DF presses the mile counter every time he puts petrol in the car. Results are talked about at length.

DM does three rings as her home signal.

Ooh Egg the dry bathroom thing is very odd. They must despair when the com here with our wet bottles all on show and water on the shower screen. Disgusting really....

FellatioNelson Sparklingbrook ipswichwitch ILs post-shower tile protocol does indeed involve chamios leather, squeegee scraper and drying all thier own toiletry bottles and bar of SOAP with a special micro cloth and then they are place in the cupboard where the water heater is kept. It isn't just that the bathroom must have no evidence of moisture, there are special towels/potions or tools to get to the requisite dry state. FFS.

The only good thing is that it probably isn't my turn to have a shower anyway.

Crazy bunch of bananas.

DM always wants us to squeegee the shower after use too.
She bleaches the dishtowel several times a day.
She wipes kitchen surfaces and floor, bathroom surfaces and dining room table about a million times a day.
Slightly OCD, definitely.

DF saves e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Milk in Canada comes in bags that you put in a plastic jug. He cuts the tops off, rinses them out and keeps them. There are thousands in a drawer. He also saves the business section of the newspaper with the idea that he will one day go through them all and clip out and save interesting articles. The piles are a serious fire hazard in the garage and basement and date back to probably 1978. Every day.

I feel guilty posting as my DPs are so lovely, however has anyone mentioned the weather forecast yet?

Must be watched at least twice a day and duly noted and discussed. Whether they are going out is irrelevant as they never go far and take the car everywhere, however imagine if they missed and got caught in a hurricane..

DM won't let me use sharp knives or the potato peeler without close supervision and regular "Ooh be careful, I haven't got time for a trip to casualty today and I can't leave him here with the oven on". Him is my middle-aged husband

Ha ha ha ha ha aJumpedUpPantryBoy

littlemisssarcastic - those fraudsters arewatching my mum too, although apparantly my credit card is imune to possble fraud so I can buy stuff on her behalf, she then transfers the money via her on-line bank account!

My Dad gets very worried if he finds an odd screw/nail/washer random bit of plastic on the floor. He goes all round the house, wondering where it could have come from. It really bothers him if he can't reunite the lost 'bit' with it's rightful home. Lots of head scratching and 'I can't understand it, do you know what it's off?' to my poor DM.