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Original poster

My parents are mad (lighthearted)

312 replies

FellOutOfBedTwice · 04/02/2016 04:50

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.

OP posts:
tangerinesarenottheonlyfruit · 04/02/2016 07:58

FellOutOfBedTwice MIL does the broadband thing. SIL ppints it out to me if I forget to turn it off when we stay (am usually last to bed).

Original poster
FellOutOfBedTwice · 04/02/2016 08:44

I'm glad to not be alone.

To those asking how the mattress fits the bed- it's a short mattress. Apparently they come in a 5ft 10 option and that's the option he likes. Their bed is apparently the same.

They do a lot of weird things but this is the weirdest and I'm glad so many of you agree!

OP posts:
Original poster
FellOutOfBedTwice · 04/02/2016 08:46

Actually- now I think of it- and see it out of the kitchen window- signs of my Dads eccentricity have been there for a while. Last year he modified and painted a large rabbit hutch to look like a Victorian Manor House for the cats. He put a chimney on it and everything. He calls it "the boys pad"
Grin

OP posts:
Gobletofgin · 04/02/2016 08:56

Love it, my cats would love a boys pad I would like one in my garden

HixieRice · 04/02/2016 08:59

I really really want a tiny victorian manor house now, and I don't even have a cat!

CMOTDibbler · 04/02/2016 09:10

My parents have always been a bit bonkers tbh - alas these days my mum has dementia though. But in earlier years:

  1. My dad wanted some ducks. Previously ducks had trashed the garden so there was a duck ban. He smuggled in fertile duck eggs, put them under a hen, and then made sure he was the one who collected the eggs for weeks till they hatched. My mum then ignored the ducklings totally for the next 6 months till someone stole them as they shouldn't be there.
  2. Dad decided to grow some hemp plants 'just because he wondered what they would look like'. Unsuprisingly, someone took those too.
  3. Lights went out at 10 whatever anyone else was doing. Should you want to stay up, you had to switch everything back on (mum still does this, alas at 7.30 and dad sits in the dark)
  4. Every Christmas dad would go to his cousins and get a christmas tree - usually 2 weeks before christmas. Mum would then spend the next 10 days complaining at him that he had to go and get one, never looking in the garden to see the stonking great tree
Original poster
FellOutOfBedTwice · 04/02/2016 09:29

Sort of want to take a pic of the boys pad now but as it is definitely the only one in the country and will absolutely out me!

OP posts:
Wagglebees · 04/02/2016 10:21

None of that sounds that barking tbh. Apart from the bed thing, that is baffling.

I don't see anything wrong with not having sky or having payg phones. My phone is a contract and we don't have sky. I'm mid 30s and fairly normal.

Wagglebees · 04/02/2016 10:22

The 10pm light out thing is annoying though.

Wagglebees · 04/02/2016 10:22

*isn't a contract.

Original poster
FellOutOfBedTwice · 04/02/2016 10:29

Wagglebees the sky/payg mobile comment was more in relation to how much money I know they have. They're well off. Very well off. I think it's that post war make do and mend thing they had growing up- it's a mind set they've not got out of. I just think at their age and with their money, it would be nice for them to have some nice things. Of course if you can't addled it its sensible, but they definitely can. My Dad would love to watch sky in bed- and I know my Mum would enjoy the occasional Lush bath bomb rather than Tesco value bubble bath.... It's just a mind set that they have to keep saving for a rainy day, I think.

OP posts:
Original poster
FellOutOfBedTwice · 04/02/2016 10:30

Afford not addled!

OP posts:
RakeMeHomeCountryToads · 04/02/2016 10:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

spaghettiarms1 · 04/02/2016 10:39

Love "he doesn't like a long bed"
I actually spluttered and cried a little bit while reading that Grin

Original poster
FellOutOfBedTwice · 04/02/2016 10:43

The bed thing is lunacy. I was telling my DH about it on the phone this morning and he just didn't understand. Kept saying "but that doesn't make any sense"- no, it doesn't make any sense, they're mad Grin He is now also concerned in case he has to stay there at some point because he's 6ft 2".

OP posts:
lastqueenofscotland · 04/02/2016 10:49

The bed thing is great. My mother is bonkers. I can't think where to start...

Kelsoooo · 04/02/2016 11:01

My MIL won't have a mobile phone because "they track you with it" but has a tablet with a 4g simcard in it that she takes everywhere......

She hates flying over the sea, reckons the land would be better to crash into ....

And she won't fly further than Europe unless me, DH and DD's are with her because "then if we do crash and die, at least we all go together"

I do love my MIL.

Jillofnotrades · 04/02/2016 11:12

My parents once saw a mouse in their kitchen. Instead of going with one of the many options you'd normally expect in this situation (trap, humane trap, poison, calling pest control, standing on chair sceaming, ignoring in the hope the problem will miraculously disappear etc etc), they opened the back door and laid a trail of cheese from where they last saw it to the door so it could find its way out. That was the moment I realised they were completely mad.

fastingmum123 · 04/02/2016 11:18

We don't have sky either and could afford it. It's just never been something we are bothered about. We also have only one tv in the house.

My mil is slightly crazy she has been wearing the same trainers for years they are so worn they have a hole in but in her house she has a whole room full of shoe boxes full of brand new shoes.

I once put a knife through my hand stupidly trying to get burgers apart (I don't even eat them which made it more annoying) they came round to mil and her partner came round to watch the children while I went to hospital. When I got back all stitched up they told me that they had thrown the knife away in the big communal bins and put the burgers that had been soaked in my blood and thrown on the floor back in the freezer. When I asked why they had thrown my knife away they said "because it was dirty!" The mind boggles!

fastingmum123 · 04/02/2016 11:18

Grin at the mouse

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 04/02/2016 11:26

My parents used to unplug the TV power lead and aerial lead every night - they thought that, if there was a thunderstorm, and lightening struck the aerial, the TV would explode and set fire to the house. The electric cooker and the kettle got unplugged too - but strangely the fridge and freezer were considered utterly trustworthy (thanks for that joke, Michael Macintyre).

I don't think mum still goes round unplugging stuff at night - but she refuses point blank to have a microwave, because she doesn't want something emitting radiation in the corner of her kitchen. But she managed to buy a ready meal that was microwave only, and then fretted on the phone to me about whether it would 'work' to heat it up in a pan.

I am so glad that, when she moved house, she decided to live near dsis, not me - she is nice, but such hard work.

BeautyQueenFromMars · 04/02/2016 11:46

Gosh, I would love for there to be silence in our house during Midsomer Murders! Maybe I'd actually be able to follow the plot then. That part seems eminently sensible, imo.

No comment on the rest, especially the shortened bed! Grin

Original poster
FellOutOfBedTwice · 04/02/2016 11:52

jill the mouse thing is exactly the kind of thing my parents would do. Bingo. Are you my sister? Lol.

fasting I'm by no means saying sky upstairs is essential and I understand it's not everyone's thing. But when we moved house and sky gave us a free box for the bedroom my Dad kept saying "it just be lovely to watch the movie channels in bed" in a wistful tone. He wants it, he just won't pay for it out of his vast fortune lol.

SDT actually my remaining Nan won't have a microwave because of the radiation. This has reminded me...When my Grandad was alive he used to enjoy the occasional ready meal so he kept a microwave in the loft for such times when he fancied a microwaveable curry. He would then go up and get it, use it and stick in back in the loft. When he died my Nan binned it. Thinking about that, it's clear that the eccentricity is genetic.

OP posts:
EatShitDerek · 04/02/2016 11:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

marvik · 04/02/2016 11:59

I'm in my mid-fifties.
I shut down the PC at night - though hub stays connected.
I'll often go to bed at 10.
I don't have Sky anywhere.
Toiletries - soap, bubble bath - are supermarket own brand. No hairspray.
I have a PAYG ancient mobile.
Since my daughter went off to university there are usually no biscuits/snacks.
I do however have a habit that some people would regard as extravagant. (Not saying what it is.)