What’s a weird thing your In-Laws do?

[FirstFallopians]

I was thinking there about how my BIL maintains that all families are a little bit weird to someone else.

Thought he was being flippant but then I remembered that my in-laws keep their family toothbrushes and toothpaste in a drawer in their bathroom. If you need a bit of floss after Sunday lunch you need to stick your hand into a sticky, damp mass of plastic and bristles.

What slightly weird things do your in-laws do?

Not my IL's but a friend's . . . her MIL was old enough to have been a housewife before pasta was a common food. When she eventually decided to try it, it was always served with potatoes and at least two veg. My friend has never got over being served spag bog with mashed potatoes, carrots, peas & sweetcorn!

Other people’s families are fascinating, this is a brilliant thread!

An ex-boyfriend’s family always used to put out a Pyrex measuring jug of Bisto gravy per person—for ANY meal! Fish and chips, corned beef pie, sausage and beans. Always an individual gravy jug each. Bonkers. She had a multitude of two pint Pyrex jugs in the cupboard.

Another ex-boyfriend’s Mum used to make the Sunday roast at 7:30am (including the grey veg mass from the pressure cooker—why?!) and then just heat up plates at 2pm. For no obvious reason, she was just home all the rest of the morning.

My ex-PIL always used to get arsey when we’d refuse weeknight dinner invitations. At 5:30pm! I tried explaining that we’d both be at the office for another hour after that, plus it was a 15 mile drive, so 7 was the absolute earliest we could possibly make it. But that was far too late to eat because they went to bed at 8:30, no deviations!

I often wish I could live a more routine life, but I just can’t. I can see the comfort in it, but it sounds so restrictive. I have no eating/sleeping/getting up set times or routines.

My family are incredibly liberal with talking about sex, bodily functions and often get into spirited political debates. I bet plenty of partners have talked about us!

Did this woman make all of that gravy or was it store bought? That's is a SHIT TONNE of gravy. 😳

Come to our house for Christmas lunch, eat our food, drink our champagne and bitch about us to the other guests as if they aren't going to tell us.

In fairness that is just SIL and her DH. The rest are lovely.

Mine put branston into lasagne.... actually into the meat sauce. Yuk.

@Aquamarine1029 She had a husband and three sons so made at minimum five pints of gravy per meal because she always had one too, even though she barely used it. I told her more than once that I didn’t need one. She kept cases of red Bisto canisters in the under stairs cupboard! I often thought about how those boys fared into adulthood with all that sodium. I was 19-21 while dating one of her sons.

PIL wait for toast to go cold before buttering.

@Iwasafool 😂 I am aware how my husband brushes his teeth as we share a bathroom and always thought it was mental. Then one day a few years ago we stopped at Fils, I go to use the bathroom and there was fil (door wide open) brushing his teeth the exact same way. Believe me I prefer not to see these things.

The best way to eat toast

@Waitingfordoggo oh god that made me think about my MIL. She doesn't stare but she makes comments. DH went to pub with her and FIL and there was a bloke in a tracksuit and she made a comment about him being scruffy. He was about 2 foot away. My husband told her off and she was really indignant and said 'what he can't hear me'. She wasn't particularly quiet.

Haha, me and my husband had this conversation yesterday!!! We are decorating my DC's room at the mo, and my parents and siblings have been up to have a look at it every time they have come round, even though it's not finished 🤣 it's pretty normal to me but he can't get over it - he thinks it's hilarious, so they'll ask what we've done and we'll tell them and then they'll ask if they can pop up and have a look, and they do!

My MIL will cook a roast, serve everyone tiny portions of meat. Tell everybody there’s lots more in the kitchen but never actually offer it so we all go hungry. Every time. Also no one is allowed to cook anything in her kitchen.

Oh, and after they've come back down, me and DH are praised for what a good job we've done on it 🤣

I think I’ve been around my in-laws so long that their unusual behaviour is usual now.

One thing that irks me is their strange obsession with eating, they are very very strange. Dinner is served at 1pm on the button every day, if I’m late I get a lecture. Bread must be bought fresh every day. Every meal is critiqued on how tasty it is, even if it’s beans on bloody toast, they sound like an episode of master chef eating out and the waiter gets an earful if it’s not up to scratch, I’m always mortified!
and If they are having a lovely dessert after dinner they have a biscuit first before the dessert.

My MIL cannot bear it if everyone doesn't leave their knife and fork at exactly 6.30 on the plate when they're finished eating.

I used to do the same when mine were small but school uniform was also laid out in the sitting room. Toothbrushes/paste, hair brush and bobbles and flannels in the cloakroom.

To be fair it should be 11 something otherwise you can't have elevenses!

@Echobelly "My MIL cannot bear it if everyone doesn't leave their knife and fork at exactly 6.30 on the plate when they're finished eating"

Neither can I! I bet she likes the fork with the tines facing up and the blade of the knife with the "sharp" side facing into the fork.

@Diggersandunicorns that reminds me of my Mum when I was a child! You couldt have a drink with soup, and if I was eating pizza and chips (which was rare, she was very much usually a good home cooking Mum) I wasnt allowed tomato ketchup because 'You've got tomato sauce on your pizza!'

Even as a child I found that very weird.
@MILTOBE it IS sad. Dps Dad is very abusive. I cannot stand him.

Why don't you just go into the kitchen and get more? Isn't saying there's more basically a roundabout way of offering more?

It's almost as if there are lots of different right ways of doing the same thing! 🤣

Everything stops for coffee at 10.45am. Mil makes it with hot milk, heated in a pan. They and DH's grandma all have a coffee in the sitting room with a rich tea or digestive biscuit. Lunch is at 1pm.

FIL collects the rubber bands the postman drops and makes them into rubber band balls which line a shelf in his workroom in the garage. No idea why.

@mindutopia your Mum sounds so thoughtful! I'd love that

And they have knife and fork holding off to a fine art as well as how to place them at the end of a meal. She has trained our 3 DC which I am absolutely on board with- I was trained, DH was trained so if she wants our 3 to know what good manners are that's fine with me. They say 'Thank you very much Granny' at the end of a meal and 'Please may I get down from the table' once everyone has finished. I'm more than happy with it although things are slightly more casual at home.

I love this thread, reminds me a lot of my grandparents. My ILs also washed every single butter tub, polystyrene meat tray, kept the mesh bags from oranges, rewashed black bin bags. I was eating olives once and they had a stone and DH didn't want to throw them away, saying that I could wash and keep them and make a necklace out of them when I had collected enough 🤣. He learned a lot from ILs.