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

911 replies

ledkr · 05/01/2013 11:04

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 Hmm
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.

OP posts:
MrsMushroom · 08/01/2013 05:13

Pirate it sounds as though your Dad and his brother may have been caught as potential Aspies if they'd have been kids today! My brother's the same. He has a "train room" int he attic conversion...no kids allowed! He wears the same clothes on the same days....certain jeans and shirts with certain jumpers....only shops at M&S for ALL his outfits.

He'd look Shock if you suggested that he try a different place for his socks. Grin

OneWaySystemBlues · 08/01/2013 07:48

My dad has his gallstone in a little jar on his desk (surrounded by piles of paperwork that he's "going to sort out") - but I think the testicles wins DowntonAbbess!

MrsMushroom - I was thinking the same thing - my son has ASD and is VERY like some of the descriptions on here about people doing exactly the same things each day.

JuliaScurr · 08/01/2013 10:45

Testicles! In a jar!!!

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 08/01/2013 12:34

Testicles in a jar is awesome, DowntonAbbess! Respeck!

colditz · 08/01/2013 12:36

Downtown, you win the Internet.

DowntonAbbess · 08/01/2013 13:22

Yay!!!!!!!!! I've won something at long last.

Thanks, dad!

BlueberryHill · 08/01/2013 14:29

I a love this thread but am reading it with a growing sense of dread that I am becoming an old fogey, the evidence:

  • squeegee in the shower, because it means I don't have to clean the screen so often, it does make sense honestly.
  • closing all the curtains in winter before dusk because it keeps the heat in.
  • I have a special cup for hot chocolate

I'm not there completely, maybe I should just go for complete eccentricity.

My ILs are also real faffers about going out, 10 minutes to find the one set of car keys searching in hadnbags, pockets etc, FIL is told to change his shirt as it is crumpled / doesn't match the jumper / jacket (true actually but please why now) and then the discussion about parking. Where are we going to park, trying to get everyone to go in the same car so that parking is easier. We live far away and if we arrange to meet up, part of the discussions to arrange it always cover parking, where are are we going to park, ooh that is a bit far away etc why not go to their house and we can all go together. Once they get there, endlessly driving around to find the optimum car space. The great thing about having 3 kids is that we have to go in our car and meet them there.

My parents also have weird travel arrangements, longer routes that are shorter because of x,y and z. Taking longer routes to avoid a right turn. Bizarre.

HeartsTrumpDiamonds · 08/01/2013 18:50

The more I read, the more quirks and foibles I remember!

DMIL always presents us with an "inbox" (she actually calls it that) of interesting newspaper and magazine clippings. She used to post them to us, so I guess saving them up for our visits is an improvement.

DF's hobby is Garbage. He has elevated it to an art form. He spends several happy hours a day emptying the bins (there is at least one in every room), sorting the rubbish, folding card and paper, rinsing tins/bottles, organising the compost, allocating all to the outside bins, etc. As soon as you dare put something in the kitchen bin, he is there, his Spidey Sense Garbage Radar having gone off and he comes running. There are three different bags (all recycled plastic bags of course) housed within the one small plastic kitchen bin. My lovely shiny Brabantia he looks at with suspicion. How can the garbage be properly organised in such a large, unwieldy, flashy bin??

He fishes out the offending piece of rubbish, examines it, then reverently places it in the correct bag, e.g. Wet/dry/other, or the recycling bag for paper, or the recycling bag for card, or the recycling tray for plastic (foil) or plastic (hard), or the box next to the bin used for tins, or the other box for small clear glass bottles..... you get the idea.

Don't even get me started on the routine for bin collection day, or garden waste. The mind boggles.

starfishmummy · 09/01/2013 11:15

The parking thing.

Fil won't pay unless he can absolutely avoid it.
One year on holiday with us the pils drove to the nearest small town and came back without stopping as they couldn't find anywhere to park. We told them the best cheap carpark. Four times in all they drove a round trip of 15 miles and Didn't even stop because Fil couldn't find free street parking.

Saltire · 09/01/2013 11:23

My 87 year old auntie keeps all her sweaters/jumpers in plastic bags in the chest of drawers. The blouses, skirts and jackets are all hung in teh wardrobe with plastic bags over them - not tesco bags, sort of clear ones like you'd get at a dry cleaners.

She also does the airing of clothes. I stayed there once never again. She washed a t shirt, put it on the line. it was a lovely sunny day so it dried. it then got brought in and hung overnight on an airer. the following day it was ironed and hung over an airer overnight. The day after that it was taken from airer, folded up and put....in the aairing cupboard to air off in there
I was given dire warning of death and destruction to me if I wore it without it being properly aired.

user12785 · 10/01/2013 13:49

We were with ILs for longer than planned over Xmas, cue me needing to wash some clothes as we didn't have enough packed to last the extra days. BUT... I wasn't allowed to use the washing machine for 2 days running, because it wasn't "Wash Day". On the third day, I gave up, went to Tescos and bought us all some new pants, having given up waiting for the mythical washday, and wearing my last clean pair of knickers! I have not been allowed to use the tumble dryer in 10 years.

MrsKwazii · 10/01/2013 17:10

I have a few older relatives who will only drink tea from a china cup. I drink mine from mugs and just don't get it. I've bought the most hideous cups and saucers I can find from charity shops for when they come over Wink

Abra1d · 10/01/2013 20:02

My husband calls me a princess, but I much prefer to drink tea from china (mugs are fine, though). Tea in a pottery cup tastes kind of muddy.

OneWaySystemBlues · 10/01/2013 22:12

Tea does taste better from a china cup or mug - don't know why, but it does - sort of cleaner and fresher.... my husband says coffee does too. But I'll take any cup that's going so long as it's clean!

edam · 10/01/2013 22:38

Some researchers just investigated something akin to the the 'tea tastes better from X cup' thing, only they did it with hot chocolate and the colour of mug. Seems hot choc tastes better from, IIRC, a red mug (I think, but may have got the wrong colour). Similar experiments have been done with plates of food - sweet food such as strawberry cheesecake was rated as tasting sweeter from a white plate than a black one.

So those fussy relatives may actually have a point... sorry!

MousyMouse · 10/01/2013 22:58

anyone's parents give their appliances names?
my dm to df: have you unloaded tilly* yet?
dm to me: can you throw in some towels when you put daisy on?
dm to herself: darn, oscar is difficult to clean down there

*names changed to protect identities

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 11/01/2013 10:52

I have occasionally called appliances by certain names - but none that I'd repeat in public. Blush

smornintime · 11/01/2013 23:24

I bought DM a mug to have at my house as ours are very random and she really didn't like any of them much.

FellatioNels0n · 12/01/2013 05:25

I absolutely CANNOT drink tea from one of those gravelly textured pottery/stoneware mugs, or any thick lipped cheap mug. It really does need to be decent china, and preferably a cup, not a mug.

FellatioNels0n · 12/01/2013 05:30

My lovely FIL god rest his soul, had about fifty shirts, all pretty much identical, which he would lovingly fold up with interlined with leaves of tissue paper, and store in regimented, perfect rows in a drawer.

Yet he would wear the same shirt at least two days in a row, then I'm usre it would get hung up to 'air' and see a third day some time the following week when no-one would notice, and MIL would sponge mucky bits off it while he was still wearing it. Plus he'd always have a tea towel tucked in like a bib to keep the shirt clean when he ate. If you going to wash the tea towel why not just wash the shirt? Confused

MrsKwazii · 12/01/2013 08:51

Gah, don't start trying to justify china cup fussiness with science

SilkStalkings · 12/01/2013 15:01

Can't bear those curvy Denby mugs with the great big lip around the top. Just feels horrible to drink out of and seems te tea gets cold quicker. M mum has them.

MrsKwazii · 12/01/2013 19:47
Wink
edam · 12/01/2013 22:26

Grin MrsK

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 13/01/2013 11:08

I have to confess to mug-fussiness. I hide the ones I don't like - and what makes that truly mad is that sometimes I buy these mugs for the dses or dh, and then hide them because I don't like them. And I have a special mug that I have to have my first coffee of the day in.

Until recently, it was a lovely Burleigh dark blue calico pint mug - I loved the pattern, so enjoyed using it, and it was big enough to hold enough caffeine to get me started on the day. Sadly the handle has cracked, so I have had to stop using it - which caused no small amount of trauma, I can tell you. None of the other mugs in the house were right, and I couldn't afford to buy a new Burleigh mug, so I had to have my morning coffee out of substandard muggage.

I have now found an acceptable replacement (though I will be saving up for a Burleigh mug, as that is the one I really need want). It is a white pint mug from tesco, with My Big Mug, in fancy coloured lettering on it. And it was under £4. So I am coping, at the moment. GrinBlush