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

My parents do a lot of this. Does anyone actually have parents who don't do some of this stuff?

My ex-parents-in-law keep amazing me because they don't do any of it, and nor are they studious bohemians with self-destructive eating/self-care habits.

At an age where many lead lives filled with pointless palaver, get obsessive and a bit doddery, exFIL is too busy kicking politicians' heads and sorting out the country's transport system; ex MIL is too busy diagnosing dangerous criminals and running group therapy sessions for young mothers with PND. They eat out a lot, get parties catered, and dinner at home to them is 9pm pop to the local for smoked salmon and champers, before the 10pm cinema showing round the corner.

But then again, they're ex-PIL because they decided I was a waste of space because my career wasn't going well enough.

I believe I may have already hit the slippery slope:

I save butter wrappers in a tupperware box in the fridge to grease cake/pie tins/
I heat plates by cooking the vegetables on them in the microwave (two plates on the bottom, one as a cover on the top)
I shop in Waitrose on a Sunday just before closing so I can load the freezer with tast reduced produce.
But I am hopelessly disorganised and annoy my older relatives by not knowing what I'm doing in six months time.
Nor will I be dragged into the endless "do you remember what a bargain this carpet was when we bought it 25 years ago?" conversation.
The internet really, really annoys them as it is possible to locate the best value item within half an hour unaided, rather than employing the whole family on a two week expedition to find the cheapest price for something. I think they all believe the internet was invented simply to spite them.

This thread is hilarious, I've been reading it for weeks. I am guilty as hell of loads of the anal stuff on here.

Why wouldn't you warm your plates in the microwave first - surely you don't put hot food on cold plates???? That's just weird.

DH has to drink his tea out of the same cup every day (china - because it tastes SO much better?!). Has cereal out of the same bowl (woe betide anyone who has taken his bowl). Uses the same spoon for cereal (woe betide.....). Leaving milk out of the fridge for a couple of minutes while making porridge will result in it having to go in the freezer to resume it's proper temperature. Counting lights on in the house so he can recite to us - 17 - (lights in the kitchen) as he pays the bills. Recycling has to be squashed as flat as can be with a sledge hammer, my attempts are rarely adequate.

Heartstrumpsdiamonds - your analagy of hubby is hilarious

SDT - I had to go and look up Burleigh mugs - gosh they ARE expensive but do look nice.

I've been racking my brains for for things my own family do and I think that the only thing that comes to me is that DF needs to save any and all left over foods and expiry dates mean nothing - I despair and question him very closely with regards expiry dates!

Lapsed - when I went through my exhs pantry (when he was still my fiance) i found a tin of golden syrup which didn't have an expiry date - that's how old it was. It was bulging ominously, and so he took it outside and prised the lid off (standing well back and wielding a screwdriver at arms length) - the lid shot off and went as high as the roof! The 'golden syrup' was black. God knows the mess it would have made if it'd exploded in the pantry.

1985! S0me not me Mumsnetters weren't even born then!

I win! I win the out of date food contest!

A bottle of Crosse & Blackwell's Gravy Browning was unearthed from the recesses of Aged Mama's pantry this afternoon, with an expiry date of.......

1985!!!!

Oh, I should have said, she prints the itinerary on her own printer, as 'back-up'. That's the annoying bit.

Ameybee, my DM is exactly the same regarding her boarding pass. My printer is also more capable than hers of printing the itinerary.

My FIL thinks his printer isn't good enough to print boarding passes (seems completely adequate to me) so they come to our house to print them Everytime they go away! X

I have to confess to mug-fussiness. I hide the ones I don't like - and what makes that truly mad is that sometimes I buy these mugs for the dses or dh, and then hide them because I don't like them. And I have a special mug that I have to have my first coffee of the day in.

Until recently, it was a lovely Burleigh dark blue calico pint mug - I loved the pattern, so enjoyed using it, and it was big enough to hold enough caffeine to get me started on the day. Sadly the handle has cracked, so I have had to stop using it - which caused no small amount of trauma, I can tell you. None of the other mugs in the house were right, and I couldn't afford to buy a new Burleigh mug, so I had to have my morning coffee out of substandard muggage.

I have now found an acceptable replacement (though I will be saving up for a Burleigh mug, as that is the one I really need want). It is a white pint mug from tesco, with My Big Mug, in fancy coloured lettering on it. And it was under £4. So I am coping, at the moment.

MrsK

Can't bear those curvy Denby mugs with the great big lip around the top. Just feels horrible to drink out of and seems te tea gets cold quicker. M mum has them.

Gah, don't start trying to justify china cup fussiness with science

My lovely FIL god rest his soul, had about fifty shirts, all pretty much identical, which he would lovingly fold up with interlined with leaves of tissue paper, and store in regimented, perfect rows in a drawer.

Yet he would wear the same shirt at least two days in a row, then I'm usre it would get hung up to 'air' and see a third day some time the following week when no-one would notice, and MIL would sponge mucky bits off it while he was still wearing it. Plus he'd always have a tea towel tucked in like a bib to keep the shirt clean when he ate. If you going to wash the tea towel why not just wash the shirt?

I absolutely CANNOT drink tea from one of those gravelly textured pottery/stoneware mugs, or any thick lipped cheap mug. It really does need to be decent china, and preferably a cup, not a mug.

I bought DM a mug to have at my house as ours are very random and she really didn't like any of them much.

I have occasionally called appliances by certain names - but none that I'd repeat in public.

anyone's parents give their appliances names?
my dm to df: have you unloaded tilly* yet?
dm to me: can you throw in some towels when you put daisy on?
dm to herself: darn, oscar is difficult to clean down there

*names changed to protect identities

Some researchers just investigated something akin to the the 'tea tastes better from X cup' thing, only they did it with hot chocolate and the colour of mug. Seems hot choc tastes better from, IIRC, a red mug (I think, but may have got the wrong colour). Similar experiments have been done with plates of food - sweet food such as strawberry cheesecake was rated as tasting sweeter from a white plate than a black one.

So those fussy relatives may actually have a point... sorry!

Tea does taste better from a china cup or mug - don't know why, but it does - sort of cleaner and fresher.... my husband says coffee does too. But I'll take any cup that's going so long as it's clean!

My husband calls me a princess, but I much prefer to drink tea from china (mugs are fine, though). Tea in a pottery cup tastes kind of muddy.

I have a few older relatives who will only drink tea from a china cup. I drink mine from mugs and just don't get it. I've bought the most hideous cups and saucers I can find from charity shops for when they come over