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.

I know this thread is old but I've enjoyed it so so much and wanted to put my two penneth in (and hopefully kick start it to get some more funny idiosyncrasies).

DM leaves price tags on every single present she buys. Even if it has an enormous red 'SALE' tag on it. And she says the same thing every time - "whoops did I leave the tag on? Silly me!". Think she does it to secretly benchmark how much we need to spend on presents lol.

And the faffing - oh, the faffing! Going anywhere needs a 1 hour lead time from saying "shall we set off?" To when we actually leave the house. Much turning off of appliances, checking opening times online (even if were going to the 24 hour supermarket she must check this hasn't changed back to a normal one), discussing the best route to avoid traffic, putting on coats and jackets, taking off coats and jackets because it "looks quite sunny actually" - and then she says "come on, we'll be late!"

She also has to stop constantly on the motorway. She must have the bladder of a gnat (and she's only 55!). We went from Manchester to Gretna once (about 2 hour 15 mins journey) and stopped 4 times. Kids aren't that bad!

DMil will wait until you've finished eating, literally the second you put your knife and fork down she whips your plate away and washes it. Even if she's still eating herself. Cooking a simple dinner (beans, eggs, sausages for example) can take an hour. God knows what she does! She doesn't really cook much so never had a roast at hers or anything, I imagine she'd need around 12 hours to make it though!

DStepMum does the food counting thing too! Guaranteed Sunday dinner means the following (NB all the following come in miniature form, I've never seen such tiny meat & veg in my life, I genuinely don't know where she buys such small food) - either leg or breast (one each only), two Yorkshires, 2 roast potatoes, 2 florets of broccoli and a teaspoon full of gravy. It's really tasty though I wish there was more. And it's always always followed by peaches and ice cream. I'm not sure she's aware that other desserts exist.

I love them all dearly though (and the food all round is yum so I won't complain ever out loud) and wouldn't change them for the world, I agree all these are very endearing qualities rather than annoying!

Marking place.....I v annually retentive must read this later

Absolutely love this thread!!! I know it's old but haven't been able to put my phone down for reading it.
My dear nana RIP was fabulous but her ways! As kids then teenagers we all (grandkids) used to go to hers for a roast of a Sunday (woe betide you if u were hungover and didn't go) which would be served at 2pm (never 5 past or 5 to). She would start cooking at about 6am and the meat would be brick-like and the veg almost dissolved. She would cook about 10 different veg for this feast which she would have written down on a list, with a timer going off constantly to indicate when one was ''done" which she would then tick off on the list. This done veg would then be transferred into her second oven to 'keep warm' (nuke a bit more). She would use virtually every plate pan bowl and cooking utensil she owned to cook this meal which then all had to be washed immediately after. This rigmarole was the same week in week out for most of my childhood and in my teenage years it drove me utterly potty the faff and fussing but I remember it fondly now and miss her terribly x

my pil always have a ploughman style dinner. bread, lots of different cold meats, cheese, butter, sandwich fillers etc.
they take out all the food stuffs from the original packaging after buying, decanting into tupperware. for their dinners they put every thing onto serving plates and carry it all to the dining room (complete with linen napkins) eat 2 slices of bread max each. then carry it all back to the kitchen, put it back into the tupperware.

teaonesugar if it were not for the fact I am an only child, I would be convinced you were my SIL!! You have deceived my mum's weird plate-heating and gravy microwaving fixation to a tee!

My pil are generally fine but mil is obsessed with having only one substantial meal a day. The other meal MUST be a sandwich. Women always get a smaller packed lunch than men. Now when we sit down in a cafe we all chorus "you'll be having a big meal later" and eat whatever we want, especially since the time she forced everyone to have a snack then announced she fancied steak pie and stuffed herself while we choked on our shared baguettes. "I didn't realise it would be so big" she said. Yes, because steak pie and all the trimmings is a notoriously tiny meal.

My mum turns the wi-fi off if no-ones using it, it takes about 30mins to turn on again because it's an incredibly old set-up.
She also turns off everything at the wall including things that have to be re-set like her VCR (yes she still has one).
It drives me mad but she won't be told. Thing is she laughs and her dad for doing the same stuff.

I once backed into a tree on my PILs drive knocking off a piece of tree leaving it all green and shiny. Next time I was there I noticed it looked totally fine and enquired to MIL. 'Oh I glued it back on' she said....

She also had a major freakout once when we took one of those bubble machines to her house and set it on the grass. Some of the bubble mixture leaked on to the lawn and she came out with a bowl and towels to clean it up!

With my DP, it's time. It's alllll about the time.

Not only do they need a clock in each room, but on each WALL so that no matter which direction your head is facing, you can see what time it is. It has inversely affected me so that I don't wear a watch and am vague about time on purpose when quizzed just to see them meltdown.

One must never be late for ANYthing. So if someone says 'ok, see you at about 3", they will plan the entire day around the precise time they must leave at to arrive at precisely 3pm. This involves lots of pacing up and down the room and frantically looking at their watches if it's getting near to Exact Time of Departure and someone isn't quite ready yet. Even when you point out that it was a vague meeting time and it doesn't need to be a military precision exercise you are met with "We don't DO late!" exclamations.

Absolutely drives me crazy. And the questions: What time do you need to be there, so how long will that take to drive, what time are you going to leave..aaaaaaaaaagh!

They also have different crockery depending on the meal times. They heat plates and DM always has perfectly manicured nails. Every time I see her she'll ask when I'll next be doing my nails...

Teaonesugar Two weeks before they go on holiday the suitcases will be out on the "front room" floor, she washes, dries and irons everything and puts it away as it's done, when they get back from holiday their "holiday Clothes" go away unwashed, and the cycle begins again, I find this very odd, but then again I don't have a complete "holiday only" set of clothes.

Are you saying they actually put their unwashed clothes back in the suitcase until their next holiday!! gross!!! What about if they have dribbled dinner down something - it must get all moudly - and what about sweaty clothes...ewwwww!! lol.

Forgot to say DPs also have clocks in the garden!!

Just in case, you know, your watch suddenly breaks down! I can't tell you how many times they both look at their watches when you are with them.

And the spreadsheets! When they are coming to visit for a week I get a spreadsheet about a month in advance with their itinerary and what will happen on each day.

Don't start me on the dishwasher, which will be unfilled if I have filled it, and filled CORRECTLY and also the supermarket bags which must be flattened properly and folded in to small neat squares.

Ah, one of my favourite threads returns :)

Posy the clocks on every wall sound quite terrifying.

I find it irritating that it is only about parents of boys.
Parents of girls can be just as irritating and many have both.

My inlaws are fanatical about their tea. They will only consume a specific brand which despite being readily available they still import it from the UK in catering packs. They have special mugs in their house and ours and I've had to have numerous masterclasses in how to make it. Whenever they travel they take it with them but buy a fresh sealed box just in case it's ceased by customs. They often travel from here to the states via the uk and once spent ages trying to find a supplier of said tea at lgw in case their tea got ceased on the first flight! They were both in hospital last year and couldn't possibly drink hospital tea, despite the bakery next door selling English tea and the hospital easily providing hot water and milk we had to take flasks several times a day and special mugs. When I made it dg had to sample it to check id made it right he's lucky I didn't throw it at him!

My PIL are the very opposite of anal. They came to visit us last summer & my MIL blocked the toilet, which then flooded all over the bathroom floor. She yelled, me, FIL and her all standing there in shitty dirty water, flinging down every towel I possess to soak it up once I'd stopped the running water in the loo. Once all the water had been soaked up, she asked me 'should I just hang the towels up to dry?'

Last time she was trying to help FIL get his shoes on without a shoe horn, and what else would you use but a knife?? Which is then replaced in the cutlery drawer as though it had never been used to force rancid smelly feet in to shoes.

Urgh.

My dad made dd eat an ice lolly at the table, using a plate and a napkin, gave her cutlery just in case, too.

Oh God, I know this is an old thread but a lot of these could be written about and I'm only 28......

• I meal plan for a week, and buy my groceries in date order for this purpose
• I cut my name and address off any junk mail and shred it before throwing it away (also anything confidential is shredded)
• I turn off things at the wall, only sky plus, bedside lamps and the fridge/freezer is left on. Though in my defence, this is because as a child our house was totalled by a house fire, which was down to an empty kettle turning on itself somehow. Luckily we all made it out alive, but our pet cat didn't, and the house was practically ashes :-(

My parents do the slipper thing, they cart them about everywhere they go. My mums attitude to it is a bit odd though, she popped out into my back garden for a bit in them and came back in again. I pointed out that she'd been outside and she said 'I'm in my slippers!' so that made it OK?

DH likes to mock me for my middle class-ness and is proud of his working class roots and yet he's the one with an item if glassware for every kind of drink. Pint glasses, tall tumblers, lo-ball tumblers for spirits, brandy glasses (he doesn't even like brandy!), sherry glasses and a crystal glass tankard. Me I slurp beer from the bottle.
Oh I forgot the normal wine glasses and the champagne flutes. Woe betide anyone for using the wrong type of glass!

Today, PIL's have arrived. They have brought their own kettle, tea and instant coffee, because they don't like our coffee (We don't have instant). They are only visiting for the day, and came on the train.

Kettle?! Did they bring their own water too ! My mum / dad always used to pack weeks before they went on holiday and we're always outraged that I never pack until the day before! They ask our "plans" for events months before e.g. What is happening at Christmas ? in August ! My mum used to have this thing about serving sandwiches in baskets when people came over for lunch - no plates - I think she thought she was being very European !

A friend's DF buys the cheapest tea bags he can find then cuts open the bag and uses a teaspoonful of tea to make each cup of tea. That way you can get 3 cups from each tea bag

@Lottie

No, apparently my water was acceptable! it was just my kettle, tea and coffee that was not.

Oh god I have laughed!

Nothing too mental but my mum and dad are very fussy that they only drink filter coffee with one of those pump things and bought me one as a christmas present so they had one taking up space at my house. I have a perfectly tasty and active stove mocha that takes no space at all and live with an Italian so we do know good coffee! Also they have an unhealthy relationship with flasks and take one on the shortest journey which my mum cracks open the minute they start down the drive.

My in laws have the same tablecloth/eating everything at the table obsession including cups of tea. And I am so scared of being told off about DS not wearing slippers that I lock him in the bedroom until I have had chance to get them back on his feet with lots of threats!

But some of these are so so much worse!!

Newspaper clippings: aged uncle clips "interesting" obituaries from the daily paper and even took them along when visiting his dying sister in hospital as she'd be interested .