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?

@DilemmaDelilah I never knew this was a thing, at work (I work in a care home)stew is always served with cabbage.

I love this too! I'm trialling it 😂

Do you not recycle anything?

If they have any chocolate they will have one square of one chocolate or one chocolate out of the box and then put it away again for the next night.

biscuits are put out on a plate, enough for one per person present. You may take one only, you may not take a second and are never to take one from the packet.

there are six glasses of wine in a bottle and you may not have more than one glass, therefore a bottle may only be opened if there are six people present.

offence may be taken to random items of food at any time. MIL once sent back a plate of fish & chips because it came with two chives crossed on top and “chives taste so strong I can’t eat them” (but removing them and not eating them is an impossible thing to do herself)

coffee time is anywhere between 9:3:0 and 11:30 but they will insist on setting a time to meet as coffee time.

My MIL always ends her phone messages with 'lots of love mum'. Like ending a letter but it's a voice recording where we know full well who it is. The problems started when we got married, she would says 'lots of love mum' then recall that it was my phone too so add 'erm I mean NAME'. Now we have kids so we get, 'lots of love, mum erm, NAME, oh erm Grandma'.
It's quite sweet but 1. We have caller ID, 2. We also know the sound of her voice!

@DilemmaDelilah I love cabbage with stew.

Serious question about the 'toothbrush/toilet flush' thing - does anyone know of anyone who has become ill, incontravertibly, from poo particles from a toilet flush?

I have to admit to being lax with my toothbrush location, it has sat on the side of a sink quite close to a lavatory for as long as I've had teeth, so a good sixty plus years, and I have never had an illness that couldn't be attributed to something infectious going around. In fact, I'm a pretty sturdy individual all round. Have I boosted my immune system by my sloppy toothbrush hygiene, or is this another one of those 'ooooh, germs, we'll all get sick and die!' things.

My SIL has the Tv on so low no visitors can hear it, even those with good hearing!
When asked to turn the volume up as Noone can hear she puts it up by one notch so everyone just sits around like lemons while my SIL enjoys her programmes.

I think they are related to me - hate the big light and always sit in the same seats! I would have thought most families sit in the same seats at the dinner table?

Mine have no locks on toilet or bathroom doors. Since I've known them they've lived in 3 different houses and have never put locks on the doors. MIL walked in on me naked in the bath the first time I ever stayed at their home. I was 19 and utterly mortified.

SIL is the same. A trip to the toilet is filled with jeopardy!

I have never given this much thought either and have never knowingly been made ill by it. I do put the lid down before flushing though! A lot of people are obsessed by germs, not realising we need to encounter some to build immunity.

Just on the tea break in offices thing, I WAS a tea lady. It was in a very large, very old-fashioned charity/NGO based in a gloomy victorian building in central London with a warren of little offices over several floors. Every morning and afternoon I had to load up my trolley and set out at the right time, otherwise there would be hard stares at my lateness. I had a handbell which I rang to alert the ravening hordes that it was time leap up from their desks and mob me in the corridor with their unrealistically precise personal coffee/tea preferences. There was much tetchiness if I didn't alternate the start point of my route so that there was fair access to doughnuts, which always sold out early. This was in the 80s. The 1980s.

That's made me chuckle!!! My "aunties" dad used 5 watt bulbs all over the house! Nobody could see anything at night! He also sat on all his money, wouldn't use a bank, didn't trust them, his chair seat just kept getting higher!!! 🤣🤣🤣

We took the keys out of all internal locks when my daughter learned to lock doors. So we didn't want her to lock herself in the toilet and not be able to unlock it. She is now 15 and we never put the keys back in, I now realize people probably think we're weird.
In our defense, we have a very simple system: the toilet or bathroom are free if the door is open, and in use if the door is closed.

If they have any chocolate they will have one square of one chocolate or one chocolate out of the box and then put it away again for the next night.
This was my mam! She used to say that if anyone gave her sweets/chocolates for Christmas, "I have one a day (!) til they're gone."
I clearly didn't inherit that gene. Once it's open, it's gone.
But it also explains how l found several boxes/cartons/bars of chocolate/s in the sideboard when she died. All out of date.

I could never worked out why Diet Coke tasted different at my ILs. Thought they didn’t buy the ‘real’ stuff. Then I caught my MIL ‘polishing’ her drinking glasses with pledge furniture polish.

There was much tetchiness if I didn't alternate the start point of my route so that there was fair access to doughnuts, which always sold out early. This was in the 80s. The 1980s.

You see, what would frustrate me here is that no one thought to just order more doughnuts.

A company I worked in years ago had an in-house café. If you wanted a jacket potato for lunch, you had to get there before 12.30 because, in the words of one staff member, “they always sell out; they’re really popular”. They’re bloody potatoes! How hard would it be to buy and cook more potatoes?!

I love this thread. It has made me view my PILs ‘quirks’ in a different less rage-inducing light.

Does seem a lot of these things come in later life too. It reminds me of when I worked in a fish and chip shop as a teen. I was there for years, and I would get the same customers, eating the same meal, on the same day, at the same time, sit on the same table….. I could never imagine being like this but I actually find it really endearing. I thought of those people a lot during lockdown.

Me, too. Gives your day to day life a comforting pattern 😊

What's weird about that??? (shuffles black bag out to wheelie bin)

Ooh I could write a book of these. One that springs to mind first is the ‘ironing water bottle’
its a small plastic bottle, holds about 250ml of water. My DH reckons they had it in the 1970s. It has about an inch of red crystals inside. It gets filled up with water from the tap and shaken. The water is then used in the iron. MIL told me that the crystals soften the water.
well they might have for a couple of weeks in the 1970s, it has a label on it saying ‘discard when the crystals turn red’ 😁 they wouldn’t be told!

@stargirl1701 'Nothing is allowed on the kitchen worktop. The toaster sits on a tray in a cupboard and is brought out to toast bread then immediately put away.'

I do this with the toaster BUT in fairness I have a tiny kitchen and a huge toaster (used to have a huge kitchen so it was okay there) and I very seldom use it, I don't eat toast. So if someone's staying (DP, friends) and wants toast I get it out but it goes back straight away. I wonder who thinks I am weird...

Both ILs: Teasmade next to their bed for morning tea together, so cute.
MIL:
Always in a flap when cooking.
Vegetarians are "so difficult"
Likes gadgets but HATES the Internet
Daily crossword phone call to elderly sister
Loves priests.

She's weird as cheese but I just can't do her justice!

I would ask if I needed any of those things when with family, you are not alone.

@Allwelcone Do they have a fridge in the bedroom for the milk?! I’m intrigued and now want a teasmade. I haven’t seen one since the 80s!