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.

Back from few days freezing to death at PILs and this thread had cheered me up so much. I had no idea there were so many of them out there with similar habits.
MIL has totally rigid routines and sellotapes notes all over the house stating HOW THINGS ARE DONE so there shall be no divergence. She also has this habit of never saying that she doesn't want to do something, instead she pronounces 'I don't think anyone wants to... insert activity of choice.
EG she walks into room where people are watching TV, announces 'Oh I don't think anyone wants to watch that' and turns off TV.
She is also very anti-alcohol and polices FIL (who isn't) mercilessly.

Fluffy - she CRIES if people don't eat all their food. Really, properly cries?

Sparkling my pils are the opposite - instruction books are never read and probably thrown away. When they can't get something to work they will ask dh - who will have no idea because he is'nt familiar with it. The item is then declared useless and replaced...

Sparkling my pils are the opposite - instruction books are never read and probably thrown away. When they can't get something to work they will ask dh - who will have no idea because he is'nt familiar with it. The item is then declared useless and replaced...

My mum also insists on palming of random bits of food onto us.

A single sausage, 3 sprouts, a tiny piece of cheese and other stuff all of dubious vintage.
Never enough to do anything with, and quite often it would be stuff we don't even like

It has taken me years to get DH to understand it is easer to take it and then just bin it at home. He would try and have the we really don't want/need it conversation that would end up with her being quietly hurt and bewildered that someone wouldn't want her second-hand foodstuffs

This thread has made me a bit teary thinking of my late grandparents.

They were sticklers for routine - breakfast at 9, coffee and biscuits at 11 (with a pinch of salt because grandad said it improved the flavour), lunch at 1 etc etc. For their entire retirement together. You could set your clock by what they were doing.

My DM and DSF eat at 5.30 on the dot every evening. I briefly moved back home with them between houses, and dad called me at work to tell me off for not being home for tea . I was 26 and married.

They live in Spain these days. When we go out to eat we can occasionally persuade them to eat as late as 8pm, which is a good 2 hours earlier than everyone in the area. We are often the only people in the restaurant.

Dad invariably orders spaghetti bolognese. Because he doesn't like Spanish food very much...

My stepmother does the food planning thing. If she is making a roast dinner for four she will go and buy four potatoes. If we are having cheese sandwiches she will go and ask at the cheese counter for four slices of cheese. There will not be any variation or surplus or, you know, flexibility. Once when on holiday with her I saw her buy the four potatoes and I then just had to make an excuse to nip to the post office "for some stamps" because I knew they sold sweets in there. I bought four double deckers to hide in my suitcase . She basically made me become a compulsive eater for a week just by being so weird.

Actually I think I had some of these come through my checkout at Asda over christmas, mainly older people that would have a system of packing their shopping into different bags, freezer, fridge, kitchen cupboard etc, then the husband would be putting things into the wrong bag which would be taken back out again by the wife. One couple was so slow I had to stop scanning things as there was no room on the end of the checkout!!

My PIL are OBSESSED with their weight. Every conversation will, inevitably, turn to their weight and their various diets, and/or the weight of their daughter and how much she has gained/lost. Im sure that I am a big dissappointmnet to them!

They are both physically active and secret chocoholics. They go on a massive diet in November so they can pig out at Christmas. We usually visit on Boxing Day and its like receiving a food parcel from Fortnums when we leave - all the left over biccies, cheese, cold meat, pickles, olives....(yum)

My FIL is the worlds most fussy eater...strictly meat and potato, no poultry, no spice, no starch other than spuds and bread, no cheese, onions, tomato, garlic, mushrooms.

I once cut the chips the "wrong" way - I had cut enough for 7 people - he repeeled a whole new batch of spuds in order to cut them the RIGHT way. Before cooking in beef dripping [boak].

You obviously don't work in Aldi galifrey! Otherwise you would have just hurtled everything at them till only their heads were visible above the pile! :o

My dad has been bullied trained into the same ways. They take electronic scales with them to holiday cottages so that they can measure out precisely the right amount of oats for porridge each morning. You are not permitted to have anything else because the bread has already been allocated to another meal.

Once my dad was weighing out the oats for 6 of us and I took a spoonful out to mix into baby ds's yogurt. He went nuts because I had ruined the measurements.

A holiday picnic on the beach comprises one round of no-butter brown bread and peanut butter sandwiches and an apple each. That was my only holiday last year.

My DM is forever telling me health facts she 'read in the paper'. Except she only reads the Daily Mail.

Dave and Jean sound lovely

My mother is obsessed with airing clothes. She is horrified that I use a dryer and will wear clothes straight out of it or put the bedding back on fresh from the dryer.
My dad won't let anyone turn on the tv or use the DVD player. Even now I'm 43 I'm not allowed.
My mum makes a pot of tea at night and in the morning, she heats up the leftovers on the hob so as not to waste it She also washes up the breakfast dishes, then saves the water to wash up for the rest of the day!
She announced that we clearly didn't know how to take a shower and proceeded to explain that the correct way is to wet yourself a bit, turn off the water, use shampoo/soap and then finally rinse off. Under no circumstance should you stand under running water. Even though there is ice on the window because "it's not cold enough to have the heating on"
We haven't visited them for 2 years now, wonder why?!

This thread is making me smile!

DH's family are faffers. Drives me bonkers! Organising anything takes forever, especially anything involving the possibility of car sharing i.e. weddings etc.

Us: 'Would you like a lift?'.

Them: '...well I could go with Lindsey but she might go straight from work...Sue could collect us but she has the carseats in so it might be a squash...why don't I see if Andrew will do two journeys...or you and I could get a taxi and DH could drive Amy and the kids....' AARGH! Followed by weeks of phonecalls and changes of plan!

My ILs faff forever like recharge's, so getting a cooked roast dinner from kitchen to table takes up to an hour (seriously!), as they debate which plates to use, which glasses for wine, extra water glasses, plates must be warmed and then discussed whether they are warm enough, and all.veg etc must go on serving platters. By the time it's dished up it's all cold so then they can debate who uses the microwave first... Also they 'save' money by buying reduced food. Daily. Enough for 20. So you get to argue over whether pork pie from Waitrose needs to be eaten before or after the pork and ham one from the butcher or should they first eat the French green cheese, no not that one, that one shouldn't be green, the other green one...
I just ignore them, fill up on fruit and snacks before the meal and go along with FIL who insists I have to try 4 different red wines, pronounce which goes best with the meal (I choose at random. The overcooked gammon won't go with anything.), insist I have more wine, coffee, then tea, then liqueur after.dinner...

Meanwhile MIL will complain they don't have all 50 condiments on the table, buy she can't walk much so FIL has to then fetch the right sauce, no not the Tesco redcurrant jelly, the Lidl one we got on holiday that's in the cupboard with the postcard from Jane, you know Jane, she used to be married to Nigel who worked at the garage round the corner from the house we lived in 20 years ago...

Despite the food, the wine is excellent and they really are lovely if you can ignore the faffing. And mouldy food.

When my children were small and needed spoon feeding my mum would sit next to me with one dry cloth, one wet. Every time they inevitably grabbed at the gloopy spoon she would immediately leap into action cleaning each grubby paw with the wet and then drying them before another spoonful could be offered. Now they are bigger she is even worse, DS1 has been told off for getting the bath dirty and one time when I jokingly mentioned they were less than pristine she made them sit on the floor not the furniture! My dad and his obsession with the dustpan and brush is a sight to behold.

This thread is great, like the therapy I think I really need but can't afford

DF doesn't like to drive on the Motorway on Mondays and Fridays as he says there are more lorries then.

DM likes those little food bags with the wire and paper ties-everything is put into one.

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!!

I'm laughing at this thread as I have my parents visiting at the moment. They have just returned from a three week holiday and I am getting ALL the details of ALL the conversations they had, ALL the food they had, what ALL the staff said and friends. If I hear Alvin did/said etc I will scream. Alvin served the tomatoes at breakfast

I think we have only got to the end of week one

Oh and we have just had a disagreement as I wouldn't feel her knickers....she was wearing them at the time

My DGM is like this.

She buys brands - if that brand and size is not available she wont but an alternative, she will go without.

When going for dinner at my parents house one must give ones arrival time to the second. one must then sit and have exactly one drink before dinner is served.
Dinner is carefully measured out portions such as exactly two roast potatoes per person (no extras made if anyone wanted more) and one piece of brocolli etc.
Drives me bananas!!

I am heartened to hear about the food counting thing TBH. Maybe it will come to us all.