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.

A worrying thought has just occurred to me. I discovered the other day that DS (14) keeps a list of dates he starts using new biros and how long they last (he only has one in use at a time). Do you think he is already turning into One Of Them?

ponders How could you point that out? While zapotek was busy worrying about poo germs on the towel, she had forgotten about the toothbrushes

LaQueen Hope the towel you were biting on was out of aerosolised poo range!!

DMIL also has a thing about leftovers and Tupperware and food storage. Nothing is ever allowed to stay in the original packaging from the supermarket, it all gets decanted into various bowls/tins/different size and colour Tupperware. She rearranges her fridge and does the Decanting Dance several times a day.

Not allowed to sit on the edge of the bed at their house either - her own DMum had a rule about it - I hesitate to hint that mattress technology might have moved on since the 1950's

"A packet of stewed apple (from our own trees, natch) dated 1998"

Oh, shame, had been expecting the dear departed family moggy or something equally unpleasant in the freezer.

As for old foodstuffs... in my late Mum's kitchen I eventually threw out (2010) a can of Curry Powder from Bombay, from the 40s, which was only half used (a small teaspoon to two cans of beans was quite sufficient and still took your head off if you forgot lots of water). Definitely an 'acquired taste' and while I like various Indian and Chinese food, that stuff was simply too dangerous to test out!

My DF brought it back after active service, and then married Mum.

It's slippers or be damned at my in-laws' house. I had my own dedicated pair bought for me on only my second visit to their house with DP. Bless 'em.

Unsolicited teapot-buying - check. We just put em in the back of the cupboard.
Kitchen systems and dishwasher-loading protocol - oh yes. Not to be interfered with.

Cup of tea? Let's hope you're not actually thirsty as it could take up to an hour to materialise (why, oh why, oh why!?!?!?!?)

I love em tho, their hearts are in the right places.

My own father has his very own idiosyncracies - why oh why would one ever park in a paying car park when there is massively inconvenient but crucially, FREE, car-parking space about 3 miles away from where you actually want to park? Why would you want to go to a restaurant where the meals cost over £5 per head -not enjoyable even if the food's manna from heaven. Honestly, you can't really beat an all-you-can-eat carvery for £3 - that's value .....

My mum is far less OCD and I attribute this to the

oops, posted too soon.

.... vast quanitities of wine she drinks and a good ol' daily dose of prozac. Oh, and a markedly less victorian upbringing.

My XBF's mum was absolutely lovely, but quite concerned about cleanliness in a way I don't understand.

Plates were washed, then put in a 'rack in a box' thingy on the drainer to dry. And the toaster was covered (when not in use) with a teatowel. Both of these were protection against floating dust or something.

Thermos flasks of coffee, meal-planning, tupperware, turning the lights off. It would be good to cross-reference this thread with the New Year Money Saving Tips one.

I have anxiety and mild OCD so I recognise a lot of the behaviour here (especially turning things off and unplugging) however this is what drive me mad about my DM/MIL/ILs:

1. Boiling vegetables and over-cooking. Once when I was cooking Xmas dinner I told my mum that I would be putting the carrots on 20 minutes before the Turkey was ready. She thought I was trying to poison / choke everyone. Everyone KNOWS you need to put vegetables on a rolling boil for at least 2 hours before they are safe to eat.

1. AOL: news to old people. There are now other internet providers.

1. Satnav. Lone among other technologies, Satnavs are Sacred and Magical to baby boomers. A gathering of in-laws must begin with an hour long devotions to The Satnav and how it transported them to this place. They talk about 'Tom-Tom' as if it's a family dog.

My MIL uses it to come to our house. She lives on one part of the A1, we live an hour south on the A1. As we have for 15 years.

1. Gadgets. If you need to coddle a watermelon or crinkle-cut a potato cake or cinderise a Findus Crispy Pancake, my MIL will get out her special watermelon-coddler (tm) / potato cake crinkle cutter (tm) / Findus Crispy Pancake Cinder Torch (tm). She has a gadget for everything. But she cannot text.

my parents have been gone a while but I've just woken up giggling because I've remembered the milk jugs.
They always kept one out on the kitchen counter, next to the kettle, whatever the weather. Dad would fill it up when he got up at stupid o'clock every morning and it would be used throughout the day.
Nobody was allowed to get milk out of the fridge because that involved opening the fridge door and would waste electricity.
No wonder I stopped eating cereal and started taking my coffee black in my early teens.

DMIL has the post war child thing about ensuring the cupboards and freezer are full....every day she lists out loud what's available....a looooong list which she stores in her head.

"There's shrimp and steak, white fish and some frozen mince....there's bacon and eggs and a tupperware bowl of leftover hamburgers....cheese and cereal....I might buy more cereal, there's only 2 boxes in the larder..."

It does DH's head in but I listen with glee for some reason...she also has at least three of everything such as soap powder and boxes of loo roll.

Ooooh, have just remembered that PILs will dismantle their hob and clean the inside of the oven till it gleams after every single meal, but they think I have OCD because I like to wash soft fruit before I eat it.

To be fair, their cooker is bloody lovely.

My ILs are crazy. Lovely but crazy.

They check the prices of everything at every supermarket and visit about 7 different different shops to make their savings. Whenever we point out that they spend more on fuel and parking than they save they just look perplexed.

The day a visit is over the bed is stripped and washing is on less than five minutes after getting up. Nothing to make you feel unwelcome. But tidying up is the most important thing in MiL's life. She almost had a panic attack on New Year's Day after taking down all the Christmas decorations when realising that she still had the Christmas tablecloth on.

Faffing is a big thing in PILs lifes. I can't understand why everything takes so long. Lunch at 1pm will go on at 7am. Why does it take so long to cook a bit of meat and a few veggies?

HyvaPaiva loving the holiday itinary list, can so identify with this as this is what we get from MIL and step FIL, really its just him. Full of boring exact details to of exactly what they plan to do on each and every day of their holiday...e.g 0830 breakfast 0900 return to hotel room 0930 read 1000 go out a walk...and so it goes on, for 7 days! And the piece de resistance - he laminates the damn thing!

OMG I think my DP is turning into one of these.... some I have managed to train him out of - like unplugging the TV aerial every time we stay overnight somewhere (but he trusts it when we are at work eh?)

But he:

Has a little book in the glove compartment for noting down journeys, petrol, mileage etc
Has a set way of doing the washing up that takes 3 times as long and tells me off for running the hot tap filling up the bowl for rinsing as I go.
Insists on thoroughly washing and de-labelling all recycling - will even dig out stuff that I have just rinsed to peel labels off and wash properly.
Saves every damn screw/nail/inch long piece of wood etc etc in separate jam jars in the garage
Saves the cardboard boxes for electrical appliances in the loft for when we move. I have at least managed to persuade him to collapse these now though.
Keeps all his most ancient and holey T-shirts for sleeping in. FFS just buy a new T shirt.
Has a special "cheese" tupperware box in the fridge
Takes a bottle of tap water everywhere he goes.

Bless him. I do luffs him - we are both mad in our separate ways (I am a slightly OCD -offically diagnosed BTW - anxiety disorder germophobe who drives him potty with my cleaning and handwashing and use-by-date-checking)
We are truly a match made in heaven, but I pity our poor offspring-in-laws to be!

Oh and we're both in our 30s! So not necessarily an age thing.

I have a cheese tupperware fridge box! It is normal, healthy behaviour!!!

I hate to break it to you Lily, but did you know that cheese actually comes in its own wrapping - especially the resealable cheddar blocks - so you don't need to? It just takes space!

Mind you - I have to re-write the shopping list in the order it is on the shelves, and get all discombobulated when they move stuff...

... did I mention that I'm only in my 30s? There's no hope for me is there? :(

About the coffin-sized freezers ... my parents have these. They have three freezers and two fridges, all full size. Two are referred to as 'the spare fridge' and 'the spare freezer' but are used at Christmas (when, as everyone knows, the shops shut for a full month and it requires the tactical skill of Wellington at Waterloo to feed a family).

There are only the two of them in the house. I'm thinking stewed apple from 1998 is going to be the least of it! My mum still has food colouring from when she made birthday cakes when we were little.

Fil isn't bad at all compared to these stories but his washing up technique drives me mad! He places all importance on the rinsing of the soap suds off the dishes, so items get a quick dunk in the bubbles, including a whole handful of cutlery, then meticulously rinsed.

My parents are also very laid back but are unable to get out of the house before 3pm, even if they need to get somewhere, they have to have their after lunch cup of tea first and then partly do the washing up. Trying to get a meal to fit in with dcs early routines is a challenge.

This thread has brightened my insomnia no end!

My Dad does the holiday itinerary thing and is famous amongst my friends for the clipboard that contained all the lists to do with my wedding. But I think I'll suggest a laminator after shesariver's post. He would love one of those.

I meal plan (though deviation is permitted), make lists and holiday itineraries and my CD collection is alphabetised. Things go back In Their Proper Place. I am 37. My future children-in-law are in for a right treat.

I tease my PIL when they come to stay (which is often, bless them, I love them dearly) that I have have to get in extra tea, white wine and washing up liquid as they use all three in roughly equal amounts. DFIL can get through a bottle of washing up liquid in a 4 day stay. He doesn't drink it, obviously, that's what the tea and white wine is for.

What a fabulously entertaining thread this is! Has had me laughing out loud.

However, I confess to embracing many of these quirky idiosyncrasies myself! It must be an age thing, as I used to laugh heartily at the daft behaviors of my parents and in-laws but now find myself turning into them! Now I'm wondering if my DD and DDil might be among the posters on here!