My parents are mad (lighthearted)

[FellOutOfBedTwice]

Okay so it's 4.30am and I can't sleep because my parents are quite mad.

I am pregnant and suffering from morning sickness as well as having had some bleeding for the last couple of weeks. My husband is away with work this week and when me and toddler DD caught heavy colds it became clear that I couldn't look after us both, so we've come to stay with my (very lovely, it has to be said) parents.

They live a three minute drive from us so we never ever stay. As such I haven't been here overnight- aside from one Christmas when I got pissed some years ago and the night before my Nans funeral- since I left for uni.

In that 15 years my parents seem to have gone a bit potty in a way that I didn't notice without staying over.

Examples-

• the broadband gets switched off at bedtime (ie 10pm). When I queried this, my Dad said its a fire hazard. Do people do this? Our broadband has been on constantly since we moved into our house in 2010. How would it record sky otherwise?!
• bedtime, as mentioned, is 10pm. Like a weird lodging house from 1973 we are all expected to have retired to our room by then.
• I am in the spare room, in the spare bed. I noticed that the bed was a bit short. My feet touch the footboard. When I queried this my Mum said "your Dad sawed the end off to shorten it. He doesn't like a long bed." WHAT?! He's not a tall man- 5ft 9ish- but that's mental. I'm 5ft 8... I don't think anyone much taller could sleep in it. The room is not small and my Dad doesn't routinely sleep in it, so he's ruined a bed for no reason.
• my Mum has a washing turn around time of maybe 2hours from washing basket to ironed. Honestly, it's mental. She asked if I had anything of mine and DDs to wash. Gave her a pile of washing and it was back and clean and pressed on my bed within two hours tops.
• we had to sit in silence for the duration of Midsomer Murders.
• despite being absolutely filthy rich, they don't have sky upstairs, decent toiletries (I'm talking Tesco Value Hair Spray) or contract mobiles (they burn through credit like 13 year old girls in 2001) because "there's no need".
• when my morning sickness struck I wandered into the kitchen and asked my Dad what the had that was "plain, dry and maybe crunchy" ie a cracker or rich tea biscuit. After much hunting the only thing in their kitchen that even touched that description was some celery. They had just had their shopping delivered but tend to "not eat snacks" said my Dad. There's not eating snacks and then there's just being weird.

Parents are mid sixties and clearly barking.

Tell me I'm not alone.

Love this thread.
I see your sawn off bed and raise you a small hallway with flooring made from a dismantled wardrobe.

Well more a square than a hallway really, in a Bungalow, as you walk through the front door.
My lovely dad likes to have a bash at DIY and always makes a real mess of things. Our house was bound together by his favourite tool - masking tape -when I was growing up.
He decided to chuck away the grubby hall carpet and had dismantled the built in wardrobe as they'd bought new bedroom furniture. He decided to place the wood down on the floor. The first I knew about it was when I went through the front door and thought the floor felt weird. Sort of springy and slidey. He was very proud of it.

They have a mobile phone. They remember to take it with them but they never switch it on.

They Skype their friend in Spain and talk really loudly to her asking her repeatedly if she can hear them. The first time they used it my mum made my dad hold one of the leads above his head like a television Ariel so 'the picture would be clearer.'

There's more.
My mum spent the past 18 months wearing her hearing aid upside down. She was puzzled as to why it was so uncomfortable.

She won't use a computer so when she wants to contact anyone, regardless of what it's about, she will write really long winded letters in a very elaborate scrawl on small notepaper. She only ever writes on one side and always starts it with 'To whom it may concern'.

If she's on the phone to a stranger who's female she always calls them 'my love' and tells them what everyone in the family does for a living.

She refuses to wear jeans. I saw her wear them once about twenty years ago and she's never worn them since. She looked really odd and out of place in them, like I'd imagine the Queen would in a Onesie.

like I'd imagine the Queen would in a Onesie.

This mental image makes me very very happy.

"Little pieces of ear" omg, Im dying

My Nanny and dear departed grandad had a set time of day they would go for a walk. So if you turned up at about 3pm you would have to sit in the house whilst my gran used my grandad as a walking aid and they shuffled up the road and then came back again. Every day without fail. They couldn't possibly go before guests were due to arrive!

My mum is a fiend for turning electrical things off at the switch but it's an electricity thing with her. She's also insistent that not one thing I ever owned can be stored in her house, which is fair enough apart from the time she kept a jar of apricot jam and some other food items I once bought for over a year and made me take them back on the train with me. It had gone funny by this point.

Little pieces of ear?! Bwahahaaaa!!!!

My livelovelyly old Nana, god bless her soul, was adamant you shouldn't put hot teabags in the bin or it'd catch fire....

Lovely, even!

My late dad had a old tennis ball hanging in his garage, carpet and a notch out of the wall . Happy days

'But DM also has an odd habit of bringing her own sheets and pillow when she comes to stay.'

My mum does this too! "To save you having to wash them."

Lovely lovely mad families

My MIL keeps her phone switched off unless she needs to make a call as she thinks she will be charged for having it on

She leaves notes for herself in every room despite us buying her a calender and filo fax every year

She owns some lovely orthopedic shoes as she has fibromyalgia and plantar fascitis yet insists on wearing flipflops and fabric shoes from peacocks and wonders why her feet hurt!

Love this thread.
PIL arranged to come and stay (and insist on arriving bang on the time they say they will - I swear they park round the corner and wait) and the night before stayed in a Travelodge situated on a roundabout of a busy intersection 4 miles away and dined in the food hygiene rated 1 Little Chef. We were around, footloose and fancy free with more than enough space to accommodate them for an extra night.
MIL has a G&T every evening at 5. For 30 mins she is delightful then that's it.

My elderly relatives were going to have a water meter installed, so they bought a dishwasher to save on water-usage.

They scrub every single item with running water (no soap) before putting it in the dishwasher! When queried, they say it's to prevent the filter getting blocked, because "it's expensive to replace".

If the filter gets blocked, you just remove it and clean it - I do this a couple of times a year - but they pride themselves on never having had to clean the filter, because no food debris goes into the dishwasher!