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

Euphemia my DM does the plastic bag thing too. Except she double or triple bags things 'just in case'.

Loving these especially the carefully planned out use of bread and weetabix!
My Mil is anal in planning everybody else's lives while making a total shambles of her own. She emailed me to ask me what I was planning to cook for Boxing Day lunch as her, and my sil's family were all joining us. Fair enough you might think except she was asking me on December 2nd!!!
Wouldn't have minded soo much except this is the same mil who only makes one roast chicken for 8 adults and 4 children's dinners if we visit for the weekend and then can't understand why we have to food shop on the Sunday for lunch as she has nothing in the house to feed us! Barking! After years of this I have made it clear she is welcome to visit us but we seem to be unusually busy if we get invited up

Oh God my parents are just like this and it drives me potty. Examples:

• complete inability to do things quickly/multitask. For example, DM announces she will cook a frozen quiche but we all agree that we haven't got much time as we are due to go out. Then, rather than putting oven on first, she potters off to the freezer, spends 10 minutes checking the dates on everything in it, rearranges it a bit, then eventually comes back to put oven on (WHY NOT DO THIS BEFORE). Then decides to give (spotless!) oven a wipeover, tidy oven trays etc. Insists on setting an alarm to ensure oven warms up for EXACTLY 15 minutes ffs, then spends ages reading the precise cooking instructions on packet, followed by detailed chat with DF about what oven function to use. By this time I am screaming (in my head) JUST PUT THE FUCKING QUICHE IN THE OVEN!!.

• cleaning every single cooking implement within 2 seconds of meal finishing. Including floor, tablecloth, tablemats, whilst guests are trying to let their fricking dinner go down.

• insistence of following you into rooms after you've been in there to check eveything is 'in order'. So basically, if you go to the toilet, once you have come out, one of them will pop in to check if anything needs a wipe around, if there are any splashes round the sink, or if the hand towel needs replacing.

• as for the level of analness when it comes to the DGCs using toilet, eating food/drinks, etc - it's even worse.

They are lovely DPs and DGPs, but good gried!

waves to ledkr

Some very funny stories here

My DF drives me insane. I've been on holiday with him twice and will never go again. He insisted on cooking breakfast but at the time he was awake, so woke my dc up to tell them they could have one but had to have it NOW. No reason he couldn't have waited. So two tired grumpy dc

Then he'd moan that we needed milk etc and he'd been waiting for us to be ready rather than just going to the shop.

He refused to let me drive but moaned about doing all the driving

At Christmas he insisted that cheese could only be eaten in the dining room. It was like cheesegate. Everyone had to go and eat cheese on their own in another room if they wanted it

Recarge that's hilarious! But only because it's all too familiar.

Everything is such a big project, their idea of nipping somewhere is very different to mine!

My DS has asthma because he doesn't wear slippers, apparently.
Thanks mil.

My mum turns her router off at the wall when she's not using it. She's in her 50's for crying out loud!

I once offered to wash up for xpil's. I didn't make the mistake again.

I washed, xh stood and chatted to me whilst wiping the work tops and drying the big things. All lovely and normal; or so I thought.

They both stood in the doorway staring, their eyes drilling into the backs of our heads! Every time I changed the water they exchanged bizarre glances.

When we'd finished all the big stuff was put away and just the plates, cutlery and glasses left neatly to drain.

They actually sneered then barged passed us sniggering to each other about how we couldn't be seriously going to "leave them like that"

Gin for gin and tonic was always measured in a little metal measure thingy kept for the purpose. He was a bit appallled when I just glugged some in the glass. He wasn't mean, it was just "what you did".

He also had a box of bits of used string, all neatly tied. Having been brought up with it I thought this was normal until my dh pointed out how funny it was.

Oh yes to the curtain shutting. The minute it is gloaming shut goes the curtains. Unfortunately DS 1 has got this habit from her now. And a thing about slippers. She goes on and on about slippers. I am partial to them myself but if the kids don't want to wear them so what. She also has a habit of taking the entire biscuit tin with her. Its the size of a cake tin and i had to tell her 'no' last time we went on holiday. She's diabetic, my son's diabetic we do not need a bloody great tin of biscuits! These are all minor things and I know I do things that drive her potty.

My uncle once hoovered during Christmas dinner because my little brother 4 at the time had dropped a bit of bread! And it was freezing because he kept running the heating off. We were sat there with our coats on and he still didn't take the hint!

My pil are like this too, so regimented, they eat the same things at the same time on a particular day, Sunday eve at 6pm for example is salad sandwich time, Friday eve at 5.15pm is chips and salad. Sunday & Saturday lunch is 12.15pm - thats breakfast to me!

If we are visiting on sunday at 6 we do not get offered tea or sandwiches as we are not normally there at that time. They are that set in their ways my DH can predict where they are at any given time of the day everyday.

It does my head in and DH can't see what the problem is!

A conversation in my mother and father's house goes like this (the shop is round the corner it's only a one minute walk it's open 7am til 11pm)

Dave, should we go to the shop for milk?

I don't know Jean how much milk have we got?

I don't know Dave shall I go and look?

I think you maybe should Jean we wouldn't want to run out of milk

(Mother goes to fridge in kitchen)

I don't know Dave there's nearly half a jug will that be enough do you think?

I don't know Jean what do we need it for for the rest of the day?

Well Dave I was going to do macaroni cheese but if there's only half a jug of milk I could do bolognaise?

And then they eventually decide no they will go to the shop for milk.

Dave will I go or do you want to come with me?

I don't know Jean do you want me to come with you?

I don't mind.

No, I''ll come with you.

Shall we take the dog Jean?

It drives me demented.

And yes to everything off at the wall and yes to instructions and boxes for every appliance they have ever owned and yes to meals at the table and breakfast laid directly after supper. Always cereal. In round tupperware plastic bowls with lids. Horrible. They make the breakfast taste funny.

My parents are generally lovely but my father is IN CHARGE of the remote control, the DVD player, the sky tv, he nearly has a heart attack when the kids arrive and just put a DVD on without asking him.

My mother would not change channel without asking him even if he's not watching the television she goes and gets him to change the channel or put a dvd on or put her music back on again on her CD player.

And don't even start me on the dishwasher. Everything must be washed BEFORE it goes in the dishwasher. Then it must be placed in the dishwasher but only my father can put the dishes in the dishwasher in the right order so my mother calls him after she has washed them all and gets him to put them in the dishwasher.

Everything is just such a palaver.

This has made me howl with laughter, I thought my Dad was the only one who did these things.
Meals only at the table, fully laid. Breakfast laid the night before.
Wash the dishes before they go in the dishwasher, except the pans which were washed by hand.
Kep tthe instuctions, and boxes, for every appliance ever owned
Everything turned off at the wall when not in use
Curtains closed whenever the sun came out in case the carpet faded
Windows shut in the summer in case the flies came in.

Visiting in the summer to a dark, hot house was always fun.

He never owned a mobile or a computer, but would definitely have kept the router in a drawer when not in use - priceless.

My MIL food shops for the exact number of people she is feeding for the exact number of days...... So, if you drop in unannounced you don't even get offered a biscuit but if it's a planned visit you have to eat the offered cake/biscuit/doughnut because you know she's bought it for you!

When DH lived at home she would buy 10 slices of ham and 10 packets of crisps to do packed lunches...... If anyone ate a packet as a random snack they didn't get it in their lunch the next day!! Tight as she is.....

its the amount of serving dishes and spoons MIL used that gets me - it makes twice as much washing up for a roast dinner and there really is no need. Then washing up in one bowl of water which ends up like soup before your half done, and drying with a soggy tea towel. i take over the washing up there now - using lots of clean hot water, but have banned them from washing up in my house, where we dont dry up but leave to air dry

My Dad has one of those Dymo? tape machines. That you can print labels with.

YY to the boxes-v important. I do keep mine for a year though.

Oh and the boxes, if an appliance has come in a box the box must be saved. We recently had to go in the loft and it was almost entirely full of twenty years worth of cardboard boxes.

Also anything of any worth must be marked with their initials in tippex! This includes suitcases, remote controls etc.

Right. Are you sitting down? I have a self catering holiday one for you....

When going away for three nights self catering DM takes 6 slices of bread for breakfast each morning, and 6 Weetabix. Not the whole loaf or the whole box. They go by quite a large car so not a space issue.

Makes me smile.