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

[ledkr]

We are with pil at present and they are very sweet but so bloody uptight about everything.
Bil has been away for a week so he left car with pil so that it "wasn't left in the street" it has a steering lock on and fil takes it for a drive each day! The car is an old banger worth about two hundred quid.
Kids can't even eat a banana without a table cloth,mat and plate
Leaving the house to walk to shops is a major ordeal. Costs hats gloves change of shoes everything switched off at the wall last minute run upstairs for wallets. I could have been there and back.
So I'm asking you to entertain me with similar stories to help me through the day.

My Aunt strips the bed you have slept in while you are in the shower and has the sheets on the line by the time you are eating breakfast.

My Granny used to air every single item of clothing, bedding etc in the airing cupboard. This included shrouds for the corpses at her funeral home, I kid you not!!

have only got to page 2, but am crying

newstarticus YES to weather forecast! PIL even watch the weather in my parent's area. Despite seeing them ooh about once every 2 years! Why?! Then they tell DH "ooh, it's a bit wet/cold/warm/windy in X, isn't it?" - why?

This thread makes me feel all cosy and warm because my PILs used to be like this. They had an incredibly vast yet detailed range of tupperware to cater for every left-over, from a single sprout to 9/10ths of a block of cheese or half a roast, whatever. Going out or making a sandwich or putting on/turning off the heating was all incredibly complicated, involving a series of questions and debates... I was amazed as my parents are a decade younger and had never got into this fussiness/saving everything because you grew up during the war stuff.

Only a bit sad too because FIL is deceased and MIL is too frail and elderly and confused to worry about her insulated gravy jug any more, or to press dozens of jars of onions she'd pickled herself that were suspiciously dark brown (I swear some of them were older than dh!) on us as we leave. Was equally hilarious and frustrating at the time but I miss it terribly now MIL is so, I dunno, reduced.

my in laws WONT USE a cashpoint because foreigners scam them.

FIL is foreign,

My parents have loads of stuff which is "too good to use", for example the mugs which they saved tokens for from McVities biscuits in the 1980s and which are kept on top of a kitchen cabinet, never having been used. Or the hot chocolate I brought back from France when I spent a year living there - in 1990 it's still sitting in their kitchen 23 years later!

notmyidea we have a 50 something friend who does the same with his car. A little book that contains details of everytime he fills up, the mileage where he went, etc. When DH first met him (in the Forces) he had a book that contined dtails of all the clothes he had bought.

It turms out his Fathere used to do the same and also kept every single bank statement and would take them all when he went to the bank

God yes, the everyday items saved 'for best'. Examples include tea towels brought back from holiday 30 years ago. I can't wait for the event they'll get their first airing at, it's going to be amazing

I love this thread. Especially the crazy food-weighers.

My parents drive DH nuts. Anything they buy other than food (anything from a new chair to a car) requires several years of discussion and imput from the whole extended family. They actually got me and DH to come and test a mattress for the spare room with them, because they were so worried it might not be 'right'. And they got my brother and his wife and newborn to do the same. They live over 100 miles from all of us.

If anything that is bought doesn't last perfectly for a decade or more, it is deemed a grave disappointment, to be mentioned every time someone suggests throwing caution to the winds and, you know, just splashing out on a new duvet without first canvassing opinions from several sources and averaging with the results of the Which? survey. You are not allowed to decide you just fancy something new/different on the spur of the moment. Consequently, they have decorated/repainted rooms in their house approximately once each in over 20 years but think the paint is bad quality because it now looks a little faded.

They are perfectly well-off but will never consider paying a little more to avoid a massive amount of hassle. DH once got a taxi from the train station to theirs, which resulted in massive amounts of hand-wringing because someone could have gone to pick him up if they'd just rung up the car insurers and put one of us on the insurance temporarily, and if we'd had dinner an hour early, and, and ... it didn't occur to them the taxi was convenient.

Mum makes everything from scratch, and plans meals precisely. Yet, every holiday my dad will say, at around 10am, 'how about you throw us together a picnic now?'. Every time, she doesn't just say 'no', she fumes silently while trying to find food for a meal she (shock!) hasn't planned, which usually means bread, cheddar, and apples.

She will then blow up about what a pain it is, and dad will be very surprised. Every. Single. Time.

We took them out walking in the Cotswolds and introduced them to the concept of 'going to the pub for lunch instead of a picnic', but it's not catching on.

My parents sound relatively normal compared to most of these stories BUT good grief the shower squeegee thing. Dad has an electric Kärcher thing that sucks the water off the wall. He's told me about it 90 million times. We should get one apparently. We were even treated to a demonstration when we went up at Xmas. Twice. When baby dd put sticky fingerprints on the patio doors it was an occasion of joy because dad had an excise to use the electric squeegee thing.
They've seen one on offer not as good as the offer they got theirs on and keep asking me If I want them to put in an order so we can have one too!

plues everything is TINY at their house

tiny fridge - tiny pints of milk, tiny cutlery tiny wine glasses.

The wine glasses are a certain brand of glassware that have a little logo on a sticker, this they leave ON.

NOTHING can happen on the kitchen table without a mat being used

do your parents all turn mattresses? sheesh

These are very funny.

MIL keeps everything in a little plastic bag. When visiting my house she will transport her belongings ie slippers, puzzle book, presents for DS in individual tesco carrier bags. Also in a Tesco bag will be a bottle of tap water - from her own home.

I love this thread. I love my Mum and Dad and everyone elses and their annoying ways.

I think DH is starting. I went to the car on the drive in my dressing gown and he said you shouldn't go out the front in nightwear.

My pils will not throw anything away.
Anything.
There is stuff in their loft that dates from the boer war.
My mil has even kept the stitches taken out of my dh's chin (when he was 7) and her dads false teeth.
Do I win? :)

Talking of beds is having a top sheet under the duvet (in cover) an age thing?

my in laws refuse to buy anything unless they can get it from an auction. They are deeply upset because monday is auction day and normally the two auction houses ran on alternate Mondays but Christmas has messed things up so they run now on the same day and then they have a two week wait for the next auction. And obv they can't spend the same amount of time at before at either auction.

"We took them out walking in the Cotswolds and introduced them to the concept of 'going to the pub for lunch instead of a picnic', but it's not catching on."

Funny and kind of sweet. I have no parents or inlaws and I remember this fussiness with fondness.

FIL can't throw anything away. Tbf this is because he he had a v traumatic childhood - adoption in the 40's, plus v bad treatment by the natural children of his DPs when his beloved DPs died.

But there are 3 huge chest of drawers, 3 full height bookcases and an enormous brown wardrobe in DH's old bedroom - they are all full of ,stuff', I've no idea what. It's not DH's things - the other 'spare' room, you can't even get in the door. They have a second bathroom that they use to store apples in the bath. Can't be actually used as a bathroom.

Not a relation, but a friend.

We were visiting and telling him about a new uni course DH was starting. This was a field of interest for our friend too and he said DH could borrow some books.

He then produced an A4 sized fileblock, it had a page ruled and set out:

Name & author of book borrowed.
Date published.
Name of person who borrowed it.
Date borrowed.
Contact detail of person borrowing.