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?

I need a compass. When people say things like, head north along such and such road, I am thinking, I have no idea which way north is! Pls say left or right, lol.

Appointments to see them like the doctor or the dentist. We could be driving past my in laws house on the way home from somewhere & we won’t drop in, say hi, chat about where we have been, how they are. You have to book in advance with about a weeks notice to see them. I just pop in my parents all the time, quick text “you in?” That’s it. My parents, sister etc just turn up at our house if they are passing by & OH finds it mental. Also for gifts they don’t just want ideas they want links to buy something to make sure you get it right or it’s just money in a card or a bank transfer! The best bit of gifting is finding something you know someone will love & seeing them open it.

My ILs wait for their neighbours to go out then go and rootle around their wheelie bins. ILs are wealthy and healthy; they are just incredibly nosey. But the worst thing is they will remove food and drink which has been thrown out and consume it themselves. Half a bottle of wine, a quiche with a sell-by date of yesterday, a few Christmas chocolates in a tub.....it's all fair game to them 😕

As a person from Eastern Europe, I only recognise aversion to sitting on cold surfaces and not drinking water.
Then again my British PILs also only ever drink tea and coffee, so I think it's more generational than Eastern European?!

My MIL (in her 60s) loves to tell me how hard her life was, just so I stop whining about things such as doing 6 loads of washing in one day.
My Polish parents only ever expressed sympathy when I whinged, luckily I realise being so rude is specific to my MIL and not the whole of British population...

Party at your place?

Surely I can't be the only one that finds washing your hair in the kitchen sink/brushing your teeth in the kitchen sink to be absolutely fucking filthy and minging? Food is prepared in kitchens and to imagine people are brushing their teeth in that same sink or washing their hair in that same sink (and leaving hairs in the sink) makes me sick to my stomach. Fucking disgusting! It's even worse than people brushing their hair at the table where everyone is eating.

I mean, brushing your teeth in the same room you shit in is disgusting too if you think about it. Every time you flush, poo particles spread around. That includes on to your toothbrush, which then goes into your mouth. And I don't know about you, but I imagine most people don't go leaving their hair lying in the sink or the shower.

Ex sil never had a bin in her kitchen..God knows where the rubbish went.
She would put her pans upside down on the cooker.like they were waiting for inspection

And she made my DD stand over a waste bin in the living room to eat a biscuit..ffs

The whole 'poo particles' thing is an old wives tale, a hoax. And many flush with the lid down, anyway.

It's not an old wives tale at all. And it doesn't matter if the lid is down, it is not airtight, therefore it does not keep everything contained.

You do know that some of the in laws talked about who do this won’t have had inside bathrooms growing up and no choice of sinks? I think this thread has proved that old habits die hard.

Thought of two more, which I'm so used that I'd forgotten aren't really normal. All of my ILs are very open about their bowel habits. A bowel movement is known as "entering the toilet". So we'll be sitting there eating dinner and one of them will say they need to go to the toilet. Fine. Will come back and say "I just entered the toilet" and everyone will look on in expectant. anticipation. Details will be given, such as whether it was hard/loose, to what extent there was straining, stool length (!) and then they will say they now need to rest/lie down. This will prompt someone else to say "last week when I entered the toilet....". The most bizarre time was when BIL recalled in front of extended family the time his soon ate sunflower seeds, which had caused a "backlog" and BIL had to use a cotton bud to 'pick' away at the poo until it was ready to move. The son was a teen at the time, and if I had a pound for every time I'd heard this story I would be rich!

Jesus, this is spectacularly weird and creepy, like something off the League of Gentlemen! I’m only on page 6 but I can’t imagine there’ll be much on this thread that beats obsessive forensic discussion of everyone’s shit, even at the dinner table (and needing to lie down after a big one 😂), @istoodonlegoagain …

You have a receptacle you put rubbish in but you claim you don't have a bin? What do you think a bin is?!

We're doomed.

This really made me laugh. I could picture my own father doing this, he already might with the magnifying glass

Ok, but one familys' weird is anothers normal. DH is an only child, and his parents were very middle class. Meals were eaten in silence with muted murmurings to pass a requested dish. This was very odd to me - from a farming background, Irish and with six siblings. I had to learn to eat in silence whilst DH said eating at our place was like being on the tarmac at Gatwick XD. However, glad to relate, he can now hold his own with his BiL's at the table !

My in laws call any family member who is not a blood relation ‘the cold side’.

PIL are baffled that anyone would want to go on holiday anywhere that isn’t France. We once bought them a weekend in Rome for an anniversary present, and when they returned and we asked if they’d enjoyed it, they frowned and said “Well, it’s no France”.

At one point they decided they’d take each grandchild away for a weekend, starting with dd who is the eldest. They asked her where she’d like to go - anywhere in Europe. She suggested a couple of places in Germany. They could not get their heads around this. “Germany!” You’d think she’d suggested the moon. And then they said “We were thinking Paris”. After some to-ing and fro-ing, it became clear she could choose anywhere in Europe as long as it was in France.

I do a version of this, I’ve a lazy eye and when we go bowling I close my bad eye as it seems to help me! Oh god I will be in this thread in ten years!

My dad sort of does this, it'll be with names he finds noteworthy in some way. Usually alliterative names will get a shout out : "Rafe Richardson!" "Amelia Archer!". He also loves when the staff have their nickname shown so they'll always be remarked on. "Charles "Hooter" Smith, fantastic!"

I love it but it would be odd to anyone who wasn't used to it!

I have no idea whether or not ooo particles flying around the bathroom are an issue but we keep our toothbrushes in a drawer otherwise the cat would lick them. She likes to sit on the bathroom windowsill.

Sure, as long as you don’t go through my cupboards and then post about it afterwards.

I'm more interested in what you do with your potato peelings.

DGM had a Teasmade in her room; which had no heating, faced north and was cold enough to be a fridge. How she slept in it I'll never know.

In my old, much larger, house I often wouldn't use a bin, just pile rubbish in whatever was lying around in the utility room. Right up until the bottom fell out of a cardboard washing powder box whilst transporting the rubbish outside to the bin, and I was left scraping elderly teabags and general soggy detritus off the kitchen floor.

In my new, tiny, house I have a lovely bin with a lid, because I no longer have a utility room and don't want to have to stare at my rubbish for days before I dispose of it.

Agreed! What's next? Peeling muddy potatoes in kitchen sinks? Washing up cutlery that has been in people's mouths in the kitchen sink? Disgusting behaviour!