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.

I've been reading through these this morning and laughing heartily. I'm so proud of this thread and thrilled that I'm not alone.

I bought my parents a digibox several years ago because I was sick of accidentally phoning them during their tv programme of choice (typically New Tricks or Silent Witness) and then them refusing to talk to me. Once they could pause the tv it was revolutionary!

Yes to never using the dishwasher, obsessive locking of doors/gates, and gossiping about someone you don't know. My mother goes one step further and makes me swear blind not to pass on the gossip despite the fact that a) its rarely interesting enough for me to bother telling someone else anyway and b) if I don't know the person she's on about, it's even less likely that my hypothetical extended circle of gossip receivers are going to identify them.

DFather also has bizarre anxiety re: the tv recorder being too full. As soon as there are more than 10 things on there he starts interrogating everyone in the house to establish who taped it, have they watched it yet, do they want to watch it (um...yes, that's why it was taped) are they going to watch it soon, and if not can he delete it? He's not really happy unless its kept at 95% free capacity which is about three weeks worth of solid programming, so no idea what he wants to use it for. Used to drive me mad when I was at home and would record a film for a rainy day only to find it deleted a few hours later. He gets so worked up when they come back off holiday and their recorded shows have reduced the free space to about 90% he watches his on fast forward so he can delete them quicker

They're not even old (mid 50s).

My favourite so far is the granny writing on the table re: out of date food. Imagine family members shaking their heads 'I knew those left over sausages would be the death of her!'

Oh Fith I proper lol'd!

My gran used to have long conversations with me about people she knew and I had barely heard of so often I was only half listening. One day she started off by saying:
"You know my friend X well her son Y got married last week".
Me: "oh yes.."
Her: "lovely wedding and his wife is such a nice lady too. Do you know her?"
Me: "Er no, I don't think so".
Her: "Oh I am sure you do, she is in that thing with the ship. I think she's called Kate". Turned out it was Kate Winslet!

My DM won't let me get rid of clutter without going through and querying why I want to get rid of it in the first place. She can't bear to see it recycled or go to the charity shop so she takes it home.

Six months later, because she doesn't like taking her tat to the charity shop, she brings it halfway across the country to me, trying to find it all a useful home.

Forgetting, presumably, that this is where she picked it up from in the first place.....

I'm 64. We never turn everything off at night...or even when wego away for a holiday.

We don't go to bed at 10pm.

We don't watch midsomer murders.

I'm seriously concerned for our mental health!

My Dad has sort of stolen their neighbours' cat. He thinks that because they work full time (and are lesbians), they can't possibly know how to look after a cat. He sits stroking it and talking to it all day long (and I think the neighbours are a bit cross about their cat being there so much).

He does have grandchildren but isn't as interested in them.

From my darling departed dad...I had bought some very cute Easter decorations for my mum and wanted to hang them on some twigs/branches in avase - an 'Easter tree', I suppose. So I phoned dad and asked if he could cut a few suitable sized twigs from their large garden. This was followed by a large intake of breath followed by "It's the wrong time of the year for twigs"

And yes all appliances must be unplugged unless they are in use. Including the radio, microwave, kettle, toaster, oven....

Lol at fastingmum123's nan teaching her cat to use the door knocker! When my dear old mum was alive she insisted on unplugging everything that she could before going to bed otherwise it was 'a fire hazard',including any mobile phones that were charging. Used to drive me mad when I got up in the morning to find my phone battery still dead. Also she used to insist that everything on the TV was a repeat,except when it actually was,then she would insist it was new.

Quietattheback Un-son hero

I Do have one strange demand. I do like the outside doors locked when I go to bed!
DP nearly didn't become DH when we went away to a cottage once and he left the door unlocked as he thought it was an ok thing to do.

I can still remember how ballistic I went. Totally ott. It's not like anyone has ever broken in while I was sleeping for eg.

So yes, you can leaveeverything plugged in as long as the effing doors are locked!

Thankfully he's never done it again!

Had a great laugh at some of these posts. My parents seem quite sane now.

Their big oddity is taking great delight (and lots of time) in over-complicating domestic admin. For example, three separate calendars in different rooms- one for medical appointments, one for family events and one for other things. Meaning if someone calls and invites them somewhere Dad is made to run around the house cross referencing calendars and there is then invariably a heated dabate about which calendar the new event should go on. There are also the lists of items in the freezer and loft- a printed copy of the list must be updated by hand when anything is added/taken out and the master copy on the computer is updated later.

My favourite is the fact that if mum wants to call us she will get dad to dial the number and get the right person to the phone then pass it on to her.

The mother in law has her loopy habits too- she always brings her own packed lunch and/or snacks if she visits us (I'm told she does this everywhere and it's not intended as an insult!). I think people assume she has some sort of food intolerance (she doesn't). Like another poster's mum, she also can't resist a 3 for 2, even if she doesn't want more than one. She will frequently bring me her 'free one' and gets quite shirty if I tell her we have plenty or don't use that product. She'll also bring us tat that she doesn't want in her house any more- the best yet was a bag of her old knickers that she seemed to think I might want when she lost weight.

As for the unplugging at night issue- I'm a bit worried as none of the older generation in my life do this but over the last few years I have started to become concerned if I don't unplug the kettle and microwave before I go to bed- I think I need to wean myself off this.

My dad does the locking all internal doors every night and unplugging every appliance in the house too. I wonder was there some safety campaign at one time or another, considering so many of our parents do it !

I always laugh when my dad leaves me a voice message, he starts it with, Hello Tram, this is your father speaking, relays the message and ends it with a stilted, 'Goodbye and thank you, DAD !!! \ Its all spoken in a very 'proper' voice as if he is writing a letter rather than speaking.

He always says Thank you, when the ATM gives him his money.

Love this thread! My mum is pretty not bonkers so I don't have much to share.

But my dh's granddad joined FB a few weeks ago.

He posted on his status this morning that he couldn't get on FB to update his status, and then posted two statuses saying 'help me' I thought he might be dying or something but he is fine. It took a while for my mum to realise that you aren't meant to reply to private messages by writing the reply on your own wall.

crying at the disrespect for the dead tiler. And the stethoscope. Bless em

My mum irons tea towels. And boxer shorts "so the boys dont have crunchy underwear" WTF when her best friend caught her doing this she told her to find herself a job (DM works part time!)

FIL won't throw anything anyway. There have been two pots of yoghurt in his fridge since last September. I haven't touched them as I am just waiting to see how long they stay in there. Probably until SIL comes back from Australia
He also refuses to wear new clothes. Bought him a lovely new coat as his current one is absolutely ripped to shreds and full of wood splinters. It sat hung on a chair for weeks. When we enquired if he was ever going to wear his new coat he said he couldn't possibly wear it because he didn't want to ruin it, it was so nice this has happened with several other items of clothing.

I have seen him in his new coat recently. He says it's lovely and warm

Dad thinks pizza is just cheese on toast and people are fools for liking it.

oh man this is amazing

I just nearly fell off the sofa laughing at "it's the wrong time of year for twigs"

Divafever Thank goodness it's not just mine. We're starting to get worried that un-son will turn up at her funeral and contest the will. He's such a nice boy you know. (We have no idea how old he is, who he is, or anything about him other than sharing a name with my brother).

Anyone else got an obsessive recycler? If I stay for a few days she comes into the guest room and starts ferreting about in the bin to check I haven't mixed up the general waste with any recyling. She is convinced the council check every single bag and will know if a single incorrect item is in the wrong bin. She also unfurls any screwed up receipts, notes etc to check what they say in case they are incriminating and could identify me along with her rubbish. This irks the shit out of me as at my age I really shouldn't be getting interrogated on the contents of my shopping lists.

My Dad is Unable to rest if there is any sort of problem with the house like a leaky shower, it has to be sorted immediately.
A few years ago in winter storms dad needled the roofer CONSTANTLY to get three tiles replaced. There were people locally who had lost their whole roof...

My MIL is very generous with our DDs, and always spends a lot on them at Xmas and birthdays. Generally she buys them clothes, which is fine because she knows their taste. But, for reasons only known to herself, she can only ever bfung herself to buy them clothes that are the exact correct age for our DDs...

So when DD1 was 9, MIL would only buy her age 9 clothes. This was despite the fact DD1 was already 5ft 4 and waaaaaaaay too tall for age 9 clothes. I casually mentioned that DD1 needed at least age 12-13 clothes, to fit her. But MIL couldn't compute it at all.

DD1 and I thought the problem would resolve itself when she turned 12, as luckily she was also an adult size 12 (she's 5ft 8)...but no. MIL determinedly bought her a sweater from Next (age 12) which probably would have fitted DD1 about 3 years ago?

By the way, MIL does physically see DD1 every month, and is perfectly aware that DD1 is head and shoulders taller than she is.

And, back.in the dark scary days when MIL was still driving [shudder], she could only drive on a set route through their (very small and quiet) rural town. This set route avoided all roundabouts ('they stress me') and any right hand turns in front of on coming traffic ('I just never can tell whether to go, or not').

So, if she offered to drop you in town, so you could have a drink, you had to arrange to meet friends in a pub that was vaguely on her 'route' or face a hike across town.

She also refused to reverse the car or do a 3 point turn. So when SIL started riding lessons I was puzzled why it wasn't at any local stables, but was somewhere 15 miles away...turns out, it was the only stable with a large enough yard for MIL to just drive fully around it, without having to manoeuvre it, or reverse, in order to drive out again.

She also wouldn't ever drive at night, as she couldn't co ordinate steering and dipping her headlights at the same time. On the one occasion, I know of, where she had to drive at night, she took along 10 year old SIL to dip the headlights for her, from the passenger seat.

I was once in the back seat, SIL in the passenger seat, and MIL driving. A pheasant ran out into the road, MIL screamed...took her hands off the wheel and covered her face with them...causing young SIL to grab the wheel, else we would have gone off the road.

There was a huge collective sigh of relief when MIL finally hung up her car keys, for good in 2009.

Ddad always locked doors at 10. If Dsis and I were late we were locked out, despite still being able to see him through the kitchen window and repeated knocking, he would ignore us, as the door CANNOT be opened after 10 because things happen (I have never found out what these 'things' are).

We would then end up wearing all the spare coats and sleep in the greenhouse or porch (luckily alcohol meant a good nights sleep)

I love this thread. There is something so cosy about it.

I'm a bit worried that I actually understand some of these things, though. (I'm 44.) "wrong time of the year for twigs" means that you prune the plants in winter before they grow and if you cut them at Easter you're cutting off the growing tips. However. Ignore me.

My parents have a very annoying dribbly shower. you stand in it, cover yourself in shampoo and soap, and then take about 45 minutes trying to get it off by distributing individual drops over water one by one over your body, centimetre by centimetre. This despite having had the bathroom done relatively recently.
I was horrified (and yet somehow not at all surprised) to find out from my sister that there is nothing wrong with the water pressure, and the new shower was fitted with a really good shower head that produced powerful jets. It was taken off and replaced with this one that barely seeps water "to prevent flooding the bathroom if water escapes". I absolutely screamed with simultaneous amusement and frustration at this.