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.

my dad has a mobile phone that he never switches on. He has rung my mum maybe once, she missed the call rung him straight back and he'd switched it straight off again!

my mum is mobile savvy although was adamant that the reason why she didn't get a tone when i texted her was because my phone was on silent not something she'd done to her phone.

Woe betide you leave a light on in a room you arent in and every single scrap of food waste has to go in the food bin. Literally everything.

Pissing myself at the notebook to record how many times the Eos roof had gone up and down! And the bald stalks in the garden!

My grandma also does the telling you info about random people spiel. Except she usually finishes her story off with a, 'of course, she's terribly old you know.' My grandma is 88.

Friends DM likes giving her DH random handy jobs to do. Last time it was a cat hammock for their cat George.

There was much kerfuffle about getting the position of the hammock exactly right to catch the morning sun. Hammock was dutifully constructed. Cat has used it approximately twice.

Totally out me, but my MIL used to have a "display mirror" which no one was allowed to look in...

Also, my dad used to turn the broadband off at 12 every night so that it could "have a rest"

My late dad got a mobile phone, never switched the damn thing on, but professed that it was such an excellent thing be thought he'd get another one 'for in the car'. It's a mobile dad, just take the damn thing with you!

Oh god ... and directions! Driving with DM, who's 'navigating'.

DM: Turn left up here

Me: [moves over into left-hand lane]

DM: no, the other way

Me: you mean right?

DM: it's just around this corner

Me: there's nothing here, mum

DM: it's just a bit further down this road

[45 minutes later, we've done a complete circle and are back where we started...Eventually persuade her we can believe the SATNAV. Arrive at destination - eventually]

DM: see, I told you I'd get us here

Directions, yes! My mum refuses to drive on motorways. Fair enough but she thinks nobody else should use them to. Casually mentioning that we plan to go somewhere always results in a lengthy description of the route we could take to avoid the motorway.
She also like to warn DH about road works, accidents etc that she's heard about on the travel news. She never warns me about them despite the fact that I drive to work and DH goes by train!

Too, not to and actually I meant either!

My new phrase for keeping someone occupied and out of range:
Please go and make me a cat hammock
Thanks , CaptainWarbeck.

loving the "extra phone for the car"

This thread should go in classics!

just to be fair to all these appliance turner offers.

Old fashioned TVs did have the potential to burst into flames spontaneously. We were always told that you should turn them off at the plug over night, or when away on holiday etc.

I assume that modern tvs no longer have this capacity, but the habit dies hard. And we still have a fat tv in our bedroom, so there are still a lot of them around.

My Dad has a mobile phone that he won't take outside with him. He is worried he may lose it so only keeps it at home. It is therefore pointless him having it as we may as well just call him on the home phone.

My parents are obsessed with routine. They are both retired so can be flexible with when they do things, but will always do things on the exact same day each week even if that's the most inconvenient day of the week for them. E.G, The shopping has to be done a Friday, even if they have several appointments or whatever on that day, just because that's the day they do shopping, even if every other day of the week they were free. This is fine but they will then complain about having to fit everything in on a Friday, as though somehow they don't have a choice in the matter.

Up until very recently my PILs still had their original, 70s avocado bathroom. Nice.

After several years of deciding on a new bathroom suite, they engaged a bloke to come in and remove firstly all the tiling (it was tiled floor to ceiling).

Well, he came, removed every tile, leaving just exposed breezeblock. Then he unfortunately died.

My PILs wouldn't employ another bloke to finish the job, because they thought it would be 'disrespectful' to the dead bloke. So for the next 2 years, their bathroom looked like a bombsite with bare breezeblock and a partially fitted window. It was like having a shower in a Russian gulag.

Finally DH snapped, rang a bathroom fitter and instructed him to just turn up at his parents and finish the bathroom. I luffs my DH.

I am secretly impressed by the idea of writing down everything that goes in the freezer in a book. We could do with that rather than finding something lurking at the back and wondering how long it's been in there which is our normal approach.

We also get the bag full of stuff that you don't want. My gran used to find random tins and try to give them away. I think it was stuff she'd bought because it was on offer but was never going to eat herself. MIL randomly bought some very cheap belts from clothes she'd bought and didn't want. The trouble is I find myself accepting them just to be polite whereas her daughter can just say 'no thanks'. Quite why she doesn't just take them to her nearest charity shop I don't know.

"Old fashioned TVs did have the potential to burst into flames spontaneously."

I've seen both a hair dryer and a tumble dryer start smoking spontaneously. Luckily I was in the room (two seperate occasions) both got unplugged and stopped smoking but I shudder to think what could have happened.

My mum used to have one of those hairdryers that you sat under - like the ones at the hairdresser - I think she bought it from a catalogue. Dsis and I used to have our hair dried under it, until the night when, all of a sudden, she hauled me out from underneath it because it had started to melt, and molten plastic was about to drip on me!

(Still don't pull all the plugs out though! I think it's not crazy but I just don't remember!)

This isn't my dm but a friend of mine - she was convinced mobile phone voicemail was like an answer phone. We used to listen to her messages of - 'hello darling are you there? It's mum. Pick up the phone. Are you there? You must not be in; I'll call you back later.' She was the loveliest women ever, it used to crease us up with laughter.

My parents do a lot of strange things but their worst is letting the dog lick the plates and pots and pans clean. I tend not to eat there and bring my own stuff as it makes me heave. She also lets the dog lick her feet. Double sick face.

They will also clear things away as you are using them. Their house is like a show home at all times.

If they go on holiday, which is about every couple of months, they will start packing the month beforehand.

I'm sure there's much more.

My Mother over the course of several hours yesterday

Mum.."I'm phoning from the car, Dad can hear you as well" (they have Blutooth and tell me this everytime)...We're in a traffic jam and havn't moved for ages. Have you got The Internet on, have a look for me"

I'm thinking..at what ? at the most I will find out you are in a traffic jam, it wont help you at all.

Mum.."We're on the A46, at Brownhills, have a look at The Internet....what does it say on The Internet

I'm totally puzzled as I thought A46 (the way they go home) is the Warwick bypass miles from Brownhills..so I Goggle and yes, I have no clue were they are.

Mum.. A46, A FORTEEE SIX. BROWNHILLS Oh we're moving and I want a wee.

ME.." I'm just eating dinner"... Mum says she will phone later

Mum.." We're on the A442 at a place called Coldhill, look it up."

Me "Where ?"

Mum.."Coldhill...*C...O...L...?...?...H...I...L....L X2"

Can I find it ? can I fuck, as I realise its friggin COLESHILL

My mum refuses to put the light on during the day.She lives in the darkest bungalow known to man, and needs strong glasses to read, but would prefer to screw her eyes up, and hold the paper or book 2 inches from her face, instead of putting the bloody light on.

She thinks it costs too much. It costs about 1p an hour, to run a conventional light bulb, and something like 0.2p an hour to run an energy saving one - so, even if she is using ordinary bulbs, she could keep every light on in her house, 24 hours a day, for under a pound a week! There's no point my telling her this, though, because she won't listen.

My grandad used to do the turning everything off and unplugging thing. He also used to put masking tape on the floor to mark where his chair should be for watching TV at different times of the day as sun would shine on the TV so he would move to get a better view.
He also had a habit of supergluing things that small parts would come off - in case the dog got it. Fine except when he superglued the back of the TV remote and we only discovered when the batteries needed changing.
He had about 20 calendars dotted around his small one bed roomed flat. He would cross off the day, starting at 10pm. It would take about 10 minutes to do this, then the switching off/unplugging and retire to his bed with 6 chocolate caramels and a shortbread.
I miss him and his crazy ways so very much!

My Nan won't let anyone stand near or in front of the microwave when its on - because of the 'leakage'

My lovely great aunt (no longer with us) used to open and close curtains in her living room, which was a beautiful huge sunny room at a corner and so had three windows. The curtains would close as the sunlight moved round because she didn't want it fading the furniture. Even on the dullest days!

I adored her but always thought the curtain thing was hilarious.