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

We were with ILs for longer than planned over Xmas, cue me needing to wash some clothes as we didn't have enough packed to last the extra days. BUT... I wasn't allowed to use the washing machine for 2 days running, because it wasn't "Wash Day". On the third day, I gave up, went to Tescos and bought us all some new pants, having given up waiting for the mythical washday, and wearing my last clean pair of knickers! I have not been allowed to use the tumble dryer in 10 years.

My 87 year old auntie keeps all her sweaters/jumpers in plastic bags in the chest of drawers. The blouses, skirts and jackets are all hung in teh wardrobe with plastic bags over them - not tesco bags, sort of clear ones like you'd get at a dry cleaners.

She also does the airing of clothes. I stayed there once never again. She washed a t shirt, put it on the line. it was a lovely sunny day so it dried. it then got brought in and hung overnight on an airer. the following day it was ironed and hung over an airer overnight. The day after that it was taken from airer, folded up and put....in the aairing cupboard to air off in there
I was given dire warning of death and destruction to me if I wore it without it being properly aired.

The parking thing.

Fil won't pay unless he can absolutely avoid it.
One year on holiday with us the pils drove to the nearest small town and came back without stopping as they couldn't find anywhere to park. We told them the best cheap carpark. Four times in all they drove a round trip of 15 miles and Didn't even stop because Fil couldn't find free street parking.

The more I read, the more quirks and foibles I remember!

DMIL always presents us with an "inbox" (she actually calls it that) of interesting newspaper and magazine clippings. She used to post them to us, so I guess saving them up for our visits is an improvement.

DF's hobby is Garbage. He has elevated it to an art form. He spends several happy hours a day emptying the bins (there is at least one in every room), sorting the rubbish, folding card and paper, rinsing tins/bottles, organising the compost, allocating all to the outside bins, etc. As soon as you dare put something in the kitchen bin, he is there, his Spidey Sense Garbage Radar having gone off and he comes running. There are three different bags (all recycled plastic bags of course) housed within the one small plastic kitchen bin. My lovely shiny Brabantia he looks at with suspicion. How can the garbage be properly organised in such a large, unwieldy, flashy bin??

He fishes out the offending piece of rubbish, examines it, then reverently places it in the correct bag, e.g. Wet/dry/other, or the recycling bag for paper, or the recycling bag for card, or the recycling tray for plastic (foil) or plastic (hard), or the box next to the bin used for tins, or the other box for small clear glass bottles..... you get the idea.

Don't even get me started on the routine for bin collection day, or garden waste. The mind boggles.

I a love this thread but am reading it with a growing sense of dread that I am becoming an old fogey, the evidence:

• squeegee in the shower, because it means I don't have to clean the screen so often, it does make sense honestly.
• closing all the curtains in winter before dusk because it keeps the heat in.
• I have a special cup for hot chocolate

I'm not there completely, maybe I should just go for complete eccentricity.

My ILs are also real faffers about going out, 10 minutes to find the one set of car keys searching in hadnbags, pockets etc, FIL is told to change his shirt as it is crumpled / doesn't match the jumper / jacket (true actually but please why now) and then the discussion about parking. Where are we going to park, trying to get everyone to go in the same car so that parking is easier. We live far away and if we arrange to meet up, part of the discussions to arrange it always cover parking, where are are we going to park, ooh that is a bit far away etc why not go to their house and we can all go together. Once they get there, endlessly driving around to find the optimum car space. The great thing about having 3 kids is that we have to go in our car and meet them there.

My parents also have weird travel arrangements, longer routes that are shorter because of x,y and z. Taking longer routes to avoid a right turn. Bizarre.

Yay!!!!!!!!! I've won something at long last.

Thanks, dad!

Downtown, you win the Internet.

Testicles in a jar is awesome, DowntonAbbess! Respeck!

Testicles! In a jar!!!

My dad has his gallstone in a little jar on his desk (surrounded by piles of paperwork that he's "going to sort out") - but I think the testicles wins DowntonAbbess!

MrsMushroom - I was thinking the same thing - my son has ASD and is VERY like some of the descriptions on here about people doing exactly the same things each day.

Pirate it sounds as though your Dad and his brother may have been caught as potential Aspies if they'd have been kids today! My brother's the same. He has a "train room" int he attic conversion...no kids allowed! He wears the same clothes on the same days....certain jeans and shirts with certain jumpers....only shops at M&S for ALL his outfits.

He'd look if you suggested that he try a different place for his socks.

Talking about not throwing things away...

After my dad died my mum found, among the piles of used tissues he'd accumulated over the years, in a medical jar, his tsticls! ()Removed during cancer treatment.)

Do I win?

I love my ILs dearly and they have their funny little ways. They are quite laid back mostly, although FIL will only eat ham sandwiches at lunch time.

However, they own a little place at the seaside where they have been going on holiday for years. When they are there they go to the same cafe every morning for tea and toast. One year we went along with SIL and her family, so there were ten of us. At their favourite morning cafe, despite there being a ginormous table available at which we would all have been able to sit, they insisted on us all cramming round a table for five 'because that's where we always sit'. This happened every morning.

My step dad jsut encourages her though - my mother in her incessant phone ringing and panicking.
If he would just say "no I am not texting or ringing thier mobile they are.OUT".

Then there's the hospital thing. Never under any circumstances tell my mum that one of us is ill - even with a cold. You can be assured that she knows best and it will in fact be life threatning ebola or similar, which ha sdecided to disguise itself as a cold to invade and kill off her family. Likewise, hopsital appointmenet, never eve r tell her otherwise we get similar situations as in my earlier post

"oh my goodness why didn't you answer the phone your appointment was at 10.30, its now 10.45 I thought you'd be out now, is it serious, are you sure, have the docotrs given you a second opinion, what do you mean no, you cannot really be going to accept the fidnings of one doctor what does she know she could be an escaped mental patient disguised a sa doctor she might not have a clue or she could be one of those fetish perverts praying on people, I really think you should go back in ask to see another doctor"

that is a conversation I ahd with her recently after accidentally letting slip I had an appointment to see about a small growth on my back

Love this thread! My FIL is pretty anal (MIL is really laid back), he gets all irritated if boxes of cereal aren't opened and closed the correct way, thinks everyone should do everything his way, never chucks anything away, loves spreadsheets and him and MIL buy all the reduced crap in Tesco just because its reduced and then keep it the fridge for a month. DH complains that there's always a fridge full of food but nothing to eat. They are both lovely people though.
My parents are both nutters, mother is very controlling and abusive, my dad is simply bonkers, he's eats the same meals every day. Breakfast is ALWAYS weetabix and marmalade on toast, dinner is always cheese on toast with a gherkin and tea is always some bit of meat that's been cooked all day with some mushy veg. He once made "spaghetti bolognese" which was mince, onion and swede with a jar of value pasta sauce cooked in a casserole dish for five hours and served with pasta shells.
He train spots and has a room devoted to trains with a model railway, train books and his own tv and dvd player for the purpose of watching his dvd's of his trainspotting holidays. He can't go anywhere without doing a bit of trainspotting, as a child he used to take us to buy our birthday present on our birthday, we'd leave at 7.30am to get to town before the shops opened and be forced to stand on a platform while he photographed trains for an hour, go to one shop and then spend another hour on the platform before going home.
He always wears sandals in the house and his boots are always the exact same, when one pair wears out he buys another the same, he has done this my entire life at least (25 yrs)
My uncle (his brother) is even worse, he's never left home though his parents are both dead now. He's made several trapdoors in his loft incase there's a fire and he gets stuck in there, he's turned his van into an observatory and prior to that he had a double mattress in the back of it so he could shag his girlfriend (who's in her 70's) as he didn't want to do it in his parents house.

Oh the newspaper clippings! DMIL insists on giving us half a dozen vrerytime we visit, always about our company or industry (we both work for a large multinational which is based in her home town). Never mind that we will have already had internal notification about the order/scandal/whatever several days/weeks prior to the visit. "I thought you'd be interested..."

And my DPs do the teabag collection on a saucer thing - the compost box is about equidistant from the kettle but they still collect half a dozen before putting them in the box.

I quite like routine and structure and can see myself being just like the Ps and PILs on this thread. Not my DM though, no sirree. Planning what you're going to eat is for the bourgeois, apparently, and a typical day's menu goes like:

Wake and graze until lunchtime: several packets of cheddars, banana, twix, whatever's there and available.
Lunchtime - I'm not hungry, I won't bother eating. No shit
Mid-afternoon - a fusion lunch, e.g. a plate of salmon, satsuma and branston's pickle
Dinner - Stew/chilli or other one pot meal featuring mince or chicken, sometimes both. To be made on the weekend, and left on the hob all the week to be reheated as necessary. Waste of time putting it in the fridge, and of course mince/chicken can be reheated countless times.
Evening - more grazing on anything. And complaints of indigestion .
NB. Veg and salad are the devil's own foodstuffs and won't feature.

My MIL has a coronary when I answer DH's mobile - 'who's that?!, oh you had me worried, I didn't know who it was'. Drives me demented so I refuse to answer. We've been together 5 years, so you'd think she'd assume it was me.

My MIL heats her plates in the microwave.

We are assumed to be dead in a ditch if we don't answer the phone. Both my parents and grandparents make the assumption. This is bolstered by my mother's firm belief that the countryside is full of murderers. We would be much safer in the city, like her.

My pil are lovely people and often come to stay - but always have to bring a supply (at least a 9 roll pack) of their own loo paper, which has to be peach coloured (although I notice from checking the packet that it has been renamed 'Pebble'- peach must have gone out of fashion in the 80s). I feel a little bit offended that my white Andrex is not up to standard....

When I took the xmas cards down I was thinking that I should keep them to put up again next year so that i can boast about how many we have.
And yes MIL, I know that little shrine like section in the corner is all the cards my late dad sent to you. He died three years ago, and starting this "tradition" a month after he died might just have been a bit tactless....

Saltire. MIL does that with us too (as well as being indignant about unscheduled outings). Every time she knows we're out, she'll call our landline from about 30 minutes before she thinks we should be due back, just in case we've forgotten to call to announce our return. When she calls my mobile for live updates she wants instant details on our road position and traffic conditions. We don't dare stop off for a takeaway.
At any given time, 7 out of 10 numbers in my Caller Display list are from PILs.