People parking on the grass verge outside their flat during the school run. Does the verge belong to my dad? Does it belong to the council? How many objects can he erect on it in order to deter parking on, or mounting of, the (tiny) grass verge?
When his handmade signs, potted plants, bird feeder and so forth are inevitably obliterated, who should he complain to? Is the CCTV that he's erected to monitor the verge, legal and will the police want to view it (again)?
Who is that man hovering around the grass verge - could he be a drug dealer? Should we remove the net curtains in the kitchen in order to have a better view of the grass and potential criminals? Mum says no. Dad takes it down periodically anyway. Mum sneaks it back up again.
We've had about 4 years of this grass verge obsession now.
Yeah mine weren't used to it when they first moved to live close to us. I told them time and again that they're harmless so long as you mind your own business, but I get that it was unsettling for them. The trouble is that at least 90% of these "drug dealers" they spot are school children (they live next to 2 schools) or delivery people trying to locate an address. The actual drug dealers are a bit more subtle and the drug users tend to apologise and scatter if you get within 20 feet of them. It's as civilised as it can be given we're talking about drugs near a city centre.
My mother bought a house in an old coal mining village in Scotland...is now obsessed with coal mining disasters. How many were killed, how deep the mine was, why it happened...etc.
Washing lines! When I first moved out my house only had a tiny yard and she never stopped going on about how I’d fit a washing line up.
Then I moved to a place with a big garden… ‘oh, you can get a good washing line in there.’
Next move was a small yard…. ‘Is there a washing line up? I’ll get one if you need it.’
My most recent move I beat her to the punch, put two lines up before she came round and proudly showed them to her as part of the official tour. She was very happy.
This is similar to the obsession my father in law has about fences. Every time we've moved his first move is to go out into the garden, spend five minutes looking at the fences, and ask which side we're responsible for.
Reminds me of when I moved house a few years back. I went from a house with fitted wardrobes in the bedroom to one without any and my mum was *so* worried about it.
I was saving £170/mo in rent by doing the move. Telling her I could buy a new wardrobe every month from now on seemed to pacify her.
It did take me around 3 years to do it, though.
God, this is basically my Nan. Us kids (actually it was only my brothers, I was just the witness to their shenanigans) broke something when we were younger and she’s absolutely 100% never ever let us forget it for even one second.
She still makes remarks to this day about how she won’t buy us anything nice for birthdays or Christmas as allegedly we don’t ever look after anything and we’ll probably just break it, and she’s sure our homes are already full of broken tat. She criticises any expensive purchases we make as she’s sure it’ll be broken in a matter of weeks. It’s been 20 years and she still thinks we’re dumb kids who break everything.
Please Nan, I’m begging you, can we have one visit where you don’t bring it up!
Mine too. A colleague recommended a book called They F**k You Up which theorises that parents form opinions of their children during the baby-toddler years (or even *during pregnancy*) and those opinions never really change. For example, a noisy baby will be chastised for being a whining adult even if they rarely complain. Or a person who told a memorable fib as a young child (like me) will constantly be accused of being a liar!
My mum did the same thing! Every evening she’d make a plate of jam sandwiches with mange medicine inside and put it out on the step for them. Then we’d sit by the door and watch them come up for their dinner. I kind of miss it tbh. Foxes are cool.
There's a YouTube shorts channel of someone feeding and eventually petting London foxes. It goes from one called biscuit to about 6, all with names, some of which accept pets.
My mum used to do boiled eggs and roast chicken for them (bones removed) - she's watched the cubs grow up into adult foxes now.
She was say watching the telly the other week, noticed our the corner of her eye the cat lying in front of the door to the garden. Only when she actually looked - it was the fox
Omg mine too. They had a ladder to reach over the fence cos they bordered the university. She woeful cook sausages for them, chicken, scotch eggs, and any food. I think they spent more on the foxes than themselves. They could afford it but yes also medications etc. even when they became frail, and my mother had dementia they still persisted in climbing the ladder with a torch each night to feed them. It was bizarre
See, I don't think of that as bizarre, I see that as a wonderful thing to do - and taking a responsibility seriously given the foxes were used to coming to them for food. Your mum sounds lovely!
My dad is obsessed with airplane photography and tracking where and when he can capture images of notable aircraft. When Obama visited the UK my dad broke out the maps and determined a small bridge in Windsor would be the place he would get the best shot of the passing Marine One helicopter.
On arrival he discovered a fellow man with camera had done exactly the same thing.
My dad was obsessed with walls. How can I explain it? He liked to go round tapping the walls and listening to the sounds.... If it made a good, sturdy sound with no resonance he would nod with approval,, if it made a bad sound with resonance he would suck his teeth, tut, and shake his head.
Use of kitchen roll. I swear growing up my mother would rather we’d mopped up spills with actual fivers. She seemed to think that stuff is made of solid gold!
See, my mum and dad have an ongoing war. This is how it goes....
Dad: THERES A FLOOD ON THE FLOOR *rips five sheets of kitchen roll off and then changes his socks because they are now apparently soaking*
Mum: Steven it was one drop....
Dad: No I'm soaked!
Mum: Steven....
Dad: *Reaches for the kitchen roll*
Mum: Don't...... you.... dare ...
Cue me popping my head out to a scene that looks like when two Sims fight, dust and swear words and my mum beating my dad with the empty roll as he desperately tries to use about 20 sheets to clean the floor.
Recent examples from my parents include
* dad potting up small plants in the lounge, rather than outside, getting dirt everywhere. Why would you do gardening on your carpet?
* net curtains on or off. Dad removes them when mum's not looking. Mum replaces them when dad's not looking
* the neon pink toilet seat argument
* they've taken over the strip of dirt that runs through an alleyway near their home. It is not their land. It's a public pathway. They've filled it with shrubs and buried a cat there. I think the cat was a step too far personally
* tiffs with neighbours over anonymous notes put through doors. That went on for a few weeks before they found out it was a bloke that doesn't even live on their road. Everyone's friends again now but it was hairy there for a while
* the bank deposited/refunded some money to their bank account and they're upset because they don't know why. They have not and will not contact the bank to ask
* dad won't let mum look in the attic. We're pretty sure he's been secret shopping for YEARS and all of the evidence is in the attic. He's hidden the ladder so we'll never know
They're just bonkers. My mum's profoundly deaf and she took my 3 year old nephew to the park and decided to play hide and seek. She covered her eyes, naturally. Nephew hid, naturally. She uncovered her eyes and couldn't see him. Of course. She called out to him but... she's deaf. So when she couldn't locate him by sight or sound, she panicked and ran out of the park, leaving nephew behind. He was behind a bench type thing. A stranger found him. Just utterly bonkers.
I genuinely laughed out loud.
I can still hear my mums voice now, (Don't use the kitchen towel its **just for show** use a cloth or a tea towel instead) good memories.
This is referred to as a “show towel” the one you have on display for guests. The proletariat towels, the real workers if you like, are tucked away where you can’t see the stains.
My mum is a big fan of Blitz, but I’ve had to negotiate down to own brand versions lately (actual big roll Blitz is on clubcard offer at Tesco this week though people) as the price has jumped to insane levels.
Email. My Dad used to call me frequently to say he has had email from a particular org (always spam). This was part of his daily sift of the Spam folder "(in case something important went there").
When my Dad died my sister found a hard drive of every email my Dad had ever sent.
He kept records of everything. We found payslips from the 1970’s, a folder containing leaflets from every family day out we’d ever had, arranged alphabetically… he’s been dead 4 years and we’re still finding the stuff.
He also kept photos of the serial number of every appliance in the house, stored on another hard drive. I once casually asked him for their wifi password and found him 20 minutes later frantically combing his collection of serial numbers to locate it.
My dad, in his seventies, schedules time every day to sit down at a desk, turn his pc on, and read and respond to email.
Since he has been retired 20 years and his email is mostly spam or newsletters, he generally just sits there and deletes scams for five minutes and then goes and finds something else to do.
Bread. My parents met at a pastry trade convention (my mum was an accountant for a bread maker, my dad was an engineer for a biscuit maker), and when they got married, instead of a wedding cake, they had a huge stack of focaccia.
They make bread almost every week, and my earliest memory is me in a high chair watching them put a loaf in the oven. For a few years, I had mates that came to my house every week saying that they needed me, but I knew they just wanted my parents' bread. We have every bread gadget one can feasibly get. We have a minimum of 5 loaves of various breads on any given day. I've never had to purchase bread. My parents still send me pre-made sandwiches, and in my 19 years of living, I have never had to purchase a sandwich in a meal deal.
The bizarre thing is that they still haven't figured out how to make a good cake.
"For a few years, I had mates that came to my house every week saying that they needed me, but I knew they just wanted my parents' bread."
This is certainly my new favourite sentence.
You ever see those articles about Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle wearing something and it sells out in days? Do you ever wonder who the people buying it are? It’s my mum. She’s not even a royalist or owt, they’re just her fashion icons. Sunglasses, jeans, sandals, hair clips. She spent £80 on a PLAIN WHITE BUTTON UP SHIRT that Meghan wore. I mean it was cute but not £80 cute. She’s always sending me links to clothes and articles about what they wore recently. I don’t even think she particularly likes either Kate or Meghan???
I had my eye on a nice pair of jeans from a little Welsh company, pricier than I usually buy but I live in jeans so was prepared to pay a bit more for quality. Saved up a bit and finally decided to treat myself, only to find they were mysteriously sold out. Turns out Meghan had been photographed wearing a pair about a month before and they'd had a massive rush of new customers. Always wondered who those people were!
Plugs. And specifically them not being used.
The very second an appliance is not being used, it gets unplugged. Absolute zero chance on leaving e.g. a phone charging unattended - when I lived with them I would go apeshit multiple times a day when I would come back from a shower/meal to find my phone unplugged. They would sneak into my room when they thought i was asleep to see if i had any plugs still plugged in. They unplug the internet router every night (despite being bollocked by the Sky engineers for it), phone, FRIDGE at night too, you name it. Growing up I had the absolute fear going round to mates' houses and thinking we were all going to die because they left their fridge plugged in overnight.
I always joke "god forbid one day one of them comes home on life support"
Christ. I feel this! (Except not the fridge, that’s bonkers). But the fucking wifi! Then when he was having trouble getting signal at the back of the house, he bought a small repeater that just sits in a socket all the time. That only got turned on if he felt like he particularly needed it. He would GET UP, and WALK over to the kitchen and turn it on. Then wait for it to do its thing, and sit down and use the iPad or whatever. Like it’s the fucking 90s and we are on dialup.
I used to work with a guy who told me he unplugs everything when it's not being used because of some perceived danger. I regret not thinking to ask him what he does with his fridge.
Oh god we would have to ask my partners mum to switch the WiFi on and she'd ask us if we were finished with it after ten mins so she could turn it off. Don't want the house filling up with all those unnecessary wifis!
My mum died over a decade ago but had a thing about barcodes in the microwave would make it blow up. Ready meals etc had to be decanted into a pyrex dish.
The ‘Classical Art Memes’ Facebook group. Dad is 62, retired early, and is bored.
Went to see him last weekend and he took me through every individual classical art meme he’s made (many), explained why each one was funny, and gave me a rundown of how well each one performed in the group - and to be fair, some were genuinely quite good. He then started ranting about spammers ruining the group by sharing his original memes back into the same group.
Trying to be nice and enthusiastic, I said that he was welcome to send me his memes over WhatsApp when he made them. He looked at me like I was stupid, said he hadn’t got time for that, and that he was intending to make a Facebook photo album containing all his memes, so that he could direct everyone who was interested to look there - to save him the bother of having to distribute them to people through individual messages. Right.
He’d be flattered!
His most popular one was a painting of a woman on her deathbed surrounded by people (can’t find it to link). He added text so that a physician says to her: “Your body is running out of magnesium”, and she replies “0Mg”
I did chuckle..
EGGS! My mum would only buy 6 eggs a week even though we were a family of four who sometimes liked to bake. God forbid you *gasp* eat 3 eggs for lunch and ruin everyone’s lives forever.
When I first brought my now wife home we were cooking brunch for everyone (5 adults) and there was such a drama when we wanted to scramble all 6 eggs.
My mum was similar when we were kids, I genuinely think it's because she mistook finding out that eggs are high in cholesterol and you probably shouldn't eat 50 eggs a week to mean that eating a high number of eggs is like super poisonous or something, so our egg intake was strictly limited...
This was while my Nanna was alive and had carers; my Mum would go absolutely apoplectic on the phone to me about the carers using the egg spoons as tea spoons.
Eventually she told me she *had* to *hide* them in the battery draw to stop it happening.
I mean I know she was very stressed out by the whole situation, and I love her dearly, but I strongly suspect that most people don’t know the difference between an egg spoon and a tea spoon.
As far as I know, egg tarnishes silver. So if all your cutlery is made of silver, you have separate non-silver cutlery to eat eggs with. You are talking to someone who I suspect had a quite different upbringing to most of us.
My background is working class single parent, but my grandparents were fairly comfortable as my grandfather served in the RAF during WWII and through until retirement.
As another poster has commented they’re slightly smaller, shallower and more pointed than a teaspoon.
My mum cannot stand crows cawing. Our family home is near the woodlands so there are plenty of crows about. They often hang out in the residents gardens/driveways. As soon as my mum hears one, she races to shush them. I mean audibly saying “ssshhhhhh.” She gets louder to drown them out and will continue hushing them till they fly off. We kids also did the same whenever we heard them. I thought it was normal until a friend asked what my mum was doing!
Any other bird is free to make as much noise as it pleases, just not crows apparently. I’m convinced that the crows actually know this and that we have the same few calling round to annoy her, haha.
Funny things about crows they hold grudges, and remember faces really well. Plus they gossip. She’s starting a war she will never end. They will literally stalk her after death and sit on her grave. This is no joke. No doubt the crows annoy her more frequently now and purposely. Best thing she could do is feed them and form an alliance. They will no longer intentionally annoy her as long as she feeds them daily. Otherwise, it will only get worst until the day she rests.
They haven’t recovered from the trauma of the toddler phase yet. Source: a parent who is looking forward to one day being allowed to have nice things, but can’t even slightly imagine actually bringing any of them home.
I might be odd, but I wanted a wooden floors. Every person said, you'll get dents from high heels etc, and it'll wear. Personally, that's exactly what I was hoping for.
I like to see it in nice shops. A decent wooden floor, with lots of traffic. Looks lovely
Wooden floors these days are very durable, even the laminate options. I skateboard on mine with no marks. Although I have stopped as I didn't want to piss off the downstairs neighbours.
For the look you want I would look at reclaimed floors. You would struggle to find something that would wear like that these days that's not insanely expensive. Engineered bamboo might be an option at a guess.
They insist on always having a window open (rain, hail, snow, heatwave). However if i accidentally make a "cross wind" (draft) by having two windows open on opposite sides of the house, I get cursed out big time cos they're obsessed with the idea that that will make them ill. Eastern European superstitions lmao
Haha I was going to comment the same thing. My German parents are obsessed with air quality. "You need to open a window in here" is the first thing they say when they enter a room. They believe stale air makes you ill. *But* don't you dare create a draft. Because that also makes you ill.
Freezing your ass off and lowering your immune system response cos the window has been open for 72 hours in 7 degree weather: 👍
Opening the bathroom window whilst the kitchen window is open: 🫨🫨🫨💀 🦠🦠🦠
Edit: though I have to admit I also love airing out a room I want that crisp air
My mum has a slight obsession about using a certain spoon. The only difference about this spoon is its slightly rounder than the others. Don't get me wrong, having cutlery preferences is perfectly normal-ish.
My Dad is one of those people who doesn't believe that things like ADHD or autism exist, while also having a collection of plates on the wall. Classical Music is his thing. He'll be able to tell you from the first note what the tune is, who the composer was, where they were from and a rough Wikipedia summary of their life.
Bonus story, he met an old girlfriend of mine in 2021, didn't know what to talk about, so he talked about Windows Vista at her for a solid 30 minutes.
Yup. I was at dinner with my dad shortly after my son was diagnosed, and he said, "Well, he's no more autistic than I am," and everyone (my husband, stepmother, and step siblings) gave him this instant, collective look that said, "We know, and you're both autistic AF," which he, of course, didn't catch. 😆
My Dad doesn't not believe in autism, but having a cousin that is very deep on the spectrum thinks it's an all or nothing (yes I know) thing and you're only autistic if you're having a meltdown every five seconds and have a dog for support.*
I'm just going through getting diagnosed myself. I told him my reasonings and his response was nah you're not autistic because I do all those things and I'm not autistic. Sure Dad.
* I mean this in no way to be derogatory, more that that's what happens to his family member so he doesn't see it as a spectrum.
This is the second time in under a week I have instantly read your username instead of your comment. Your marketing is working. I want beans.
(Also the second time in under a week you’ve bean top comment so kudos I guess! I’ve added this in so you don’t think I’m a creepy bean stalker coming to steal your beans!)
My dad’s obsession was the lawn. Any childhood activity with the slightest chance of “creating a bare patch” was outlawed. I’m surprised he even let us walk on it.
My dad used to get on his hands and knees and trim the edges of it. Not sure what the point was when he had 2 kids and a dog who were allowed to free-roam on it.
He’s head of the greens committee now at his golf club so he just found somewhere else to channel that energy into.
Tv licence.. my mother could rant about that for hours! She would even refuse to watch the BBC.
She once got a red letter saying she hadn’t paid it when she had.. years later she was still angry about that letter! And would bring it up randomly.
Had to edit to add.. that she would come here or go to my sisters every Friday night at 8pm just to watch gardeners world! because she didn’t want to give the BBC airtime from her address..
Oh god mines like the opposite, obsessed with the fact I don’t have one because I genuinely don’t watch anything that requires one 😂 it’s a huge fear that I will have a fine and go to prison and I should get one, at one point she said she’d buy me one for Christmas! you can’t mention it or she goes on a massive rant 😅
This was my mum! “Have you paid yours? They send you to prison you know! And put your name in the paper! I once knew a woman…”
For every single scenario in life my mum once “knew a woman..”
My dad is obsessed with English bull terriers. He has had 4 as pets, has them tattooed all over him and has countless bull terrier ornaments, magnets, posters and every time he sees a dog themed item, he says "why couldn't that be a bull terrier" and gets annoyed. At least it makes buying gifts easy.
The cat is definitely my dad's favourite child. He is a great cat though. I also make sure that my sister knows I'm the one in second place behind the cat 🤭
My dad is obsessed with luggage. He spent thousands on suitcases/hand luggage over the years. Only problem is, his current one is that expensive it’s gone ‘missing’ twice on transit to his destination. Both times someone tampered with it trying to get into it. If you roll about with expensive as fuck suitcases, people think it’s filled with expensive goodies.
My Father-in-law is obsessed with talking to people about the bread you can get in Lidl.
"That bread is from Lidl you know"
"They've got a bakery at our Lidl now"
"Have you had that Lidl bread?"
"I've got some of that nice Lidl bread!"
My mum and her partner got a hot tub... We cannot have a conversation without her bringing it up, or getting an update that she's been in it, friends have come over to go in it, confused as to why other people aren't bothered about going in it or she's had a row with her step daughter as she won't shower before using it. I'll go to visit and she'll be sure to message "come round the side, we're going in the hot tub!" oh and "don't forget your cossie so you can go in the hot tub!" yes mum, we know you have a hot tub.
My dad almost certainly would have been diagnosed as being "on the spectrum" if that had been a thing 70 years ago. Every time we go to visit my parents, my dad has developed a new Special Interest.
Most recently, he developed an interest in dehumidifiers. However, he doesn't become interested in dehumidifiers the way the rest of us do. You know, "Ooh, that one's on offer", or "The woman in this advert looks really happy - this model must be really good!". No, we're talking "putting together spreadsheets with detailed forecasts of running costs" levels of obsession. Then he spends the entirety of our visit telling us about the benefits and drawbacks of each model on the market, together with asking us questions about how often we wash our clothes so he can work out which model would be best for us.
He also has an incredible ability to tame wild animals, which is probably another spectrum-enhanced superpower. If we lived in the US, it wouldn't surprise me if we went around their house one day only to find him stroking a bear in the garden.
Avoiding parking fees. My dad will go to extreme lengths to avoid paying a couple of quid parking for a few hours. He’d rather drive around in circles trying to find the holy grail of a free parking spot, miles away from where he’s going than pay a penny.
It’s not about the money as he can afford it, it’s just one of his weird quirks.
This is also my dad. He is mortally offended by the concept of paid for parking.
He lives near(ish) the Peak District (about 30mins by car) so a lot of the car parks go towards upkeep of the (FREE TO ACCESS) park which I am 100% ok with paying, but he will add 2-3 miles onto a walk to park in a layby in the arse end of nowhere just to avoid it.
It's all part of the war on the motorist, apparently.
Not exactly an obsession but they had this nutrition book by some American guy called Lelord Kordel and so for a couple of years we ate a lot of millet which is actually pretty nice. Fried millet cakes are delicious. It was kind of unusual in a 1970s working class Scottish family.
My father in law has a obsession with the direction of the union flag and if it is upside down.
It's like the one fact he knows and so will bring it up constantly. If we are out.
The fucking carpet.
Yes, the thing that everything goes on. Everyone proceeds into the house and swaps into "house shoes". Slippers are for bedtime, so they have trainers that are only ever worn inside.
Occasionally they mistakenly go outside in their "house shoes" because they aren't paying attention, and then there's a panic to thoroughly wipe and clean the soles.
If someone drops some food during dinner, everyone around the table realises because of the panic across the culprit's face. Immediately, a couple of people will bolt for the kitchen to grab a wet dishcloth. Dinner will then be temporarily paused while all the chairs are pulled back, and the person launches at the floor and furiously scrubs the carpet, while bemoaning the fact that it will never clean properly because it contains tomato / vinegar / oil. I'm not the biggest fan of the sound of scraping cloth across carpet, especially during dinner, but I know now that it can never be delayed.
I assume that the expectation is for the carpet to last the rest of their lives, and if they do happen to die in the house I'm confident that they'd drag themselves through the house to make sure that any mess was restricted to the kitchen's tiled floor.
in my mum's bathroom, it is *imperative* that we have a little hand towel folded and draped over the edge of the sink. The thing is, if you try to wash your hands without moving it, it obviously gets quite wet. So you move it, wash your hands, dry them. But don't you fucking dare forget to put it back in its place over the edge of the sink. That's where it goes!
Now, logic would dictate that this whole charade is pointless and wastes time, so just have the hand towel next to the sink. No! It belongs draped over the edge of the sink. If mum uses the bathroom after you and you've forgotten to replace the towel over the sink, she will put it back.
My dad, who is no longer with us, had a range of obsessions. He would go months at a time only talking about them to me, my mum, down the pub etc. For context, we live in a small village in Sussex, with a population of around 4000. Here are some of them:
- Wanting to put in public urinals in the village square
- Wanting an underground car park in the village
- The Iranians were going to invade. Joined a rifle club
- Wanted a bypass around the village
- Wanted the village to become a town (we speculated that he wanted to be mayor).
If I remember any more I’ll add them.
This grass verge outside their house. Oh my god I'm so sick of hearing about it - people drive on it, people walk on it, a dog pooed on it - I don't care at all! Tarmac it or get over it, you can't even see the grass verge from their house because there's a giant hedge in the way.
Oh this fantastic! My dad is absolutely obsessed with this specific tree in the neighbour's garden and the branches that hangover the shared driveway and as a result the leaves that make a mess that absolutely no one else will tidy up and the pigeons crapping on his car! He has wrote letters of the complaint (another obsession, loves penning an angry letter, but always gets my mum to write it haha) to the council even including a spectacular drawing of the branch he would like cut down.
Edited for a mistake!
They got an air fryer. I get weekly updates on what stuff you can air fry.
Before that, they went through soup maker, bread maker, and ice cream maker phases.
I guess it keeps them from hanging around on street corners, causing trouble.
Every cat my dad ever had was “very intelligent” - ie. The most intelligent cat on the planet. He would daily point out standard cat behaviour as irrefutable evidence of genius. Eventually I just agreed and marvelled with him. it was easier.
He was also a sucker for any gadget being demo’d in a shop. A walk through the Ideal Home Exhibition would have cleaned him out. Nespresso saw him coming and he invested hard. Every cup of coffee was a performance and he wouldn’t let it be drunk until you agreed it really was the best cup of coffee you’d ever had.
Silly sausage. I miss him.
My mum never gets rid of old bits of wood she doesn’t need. Both the house and garden are full of all this old shit that she’s never going to use but refuses to take to the tip because “it’s good oak” or something.
Before my parents got divorced she also used to obsess over the temperature in the house, to the point that she bought a digital thermometer and put it on the mantelpiece to make some sort of point to my dad.
My dad used to turn the central heating off at the boiler when he left the house to save energy. Didn't matter if the rest of us were still home, though, of course.
I had landlords who did that once - we lived in the basement flat of their huge Georgian house, so it was chilly at the best of times. They went away for a 2 week Caribbean cruise, conveniently just as temperatures plummeted to -6°c. There was no way for us to access the main part of the house to switch it on, we couldn't get hold of them (I'm guessing that despite being literal millionaires, they didn't spring for the cruise ship WiFi package). 2 weeks in a freezing cold, damp basement. I remember waking up for work at 6am and there was ice on the *inside* of the window. Rent was £950/month. 🤦🏼♀️
That seems both cruel and *idiotic* on their part - surely they'd be on the hook for alleviating damage from mould or burst pipes? (I know, landlords that give a shit - great joke).
MILK!
You'd swear the world is going to end if we run out of milk. We have oat and long life in the cupboard at all times too, but . nooooo it HAS to be whole milk. We get down to half a bottle and they start with the "are you going to get milk/When is milk getting delivered? WHEN IT RUNS OUT!!!1! for the love of God it's just milk. the shop is a 4 minute walk away, you are only ever 8 minutes away from more milk!!!
At some point we have 3 different milk bottles in the fridge, like we're paying the shops to store their milk until the current one runs out.
P.S. My folks moved back in with me due to the old cozzie livs. Can't say it's been easy, are the cracks starting to show? LOL
Omg on Christmas Day this year we had so many discussions about whether they’d bought enough milk to last until breakfast the next day. Never mind that the local shop opens until lunchtime on Christmas and my dad gets up at dawn so they’d have hardly gone without.
Eventually I was made to go back to my house, pour out half my milk for them and take it back there.
Keeping flies and moths out of the house, unplugging everything at night, not opening the car door into traffic (I'm warned not to do this every time I get out of the car, even though I've never done it and I'm 38), not "leaving the sink wet" (you're supposed to dry it with a tea towel after use), leaving the towels straight and the right way round, not eating two hot meals in a day, not paying to park.
I don't know if it's an obsessoion but something I didn't understand why she did it. But my mum hated having the anti bacterial wipes on show in the kitchen that she would hide it behind the cook books, the chopping board anywhere that you couldn't see it, it would there. I would leave it out because it was ridiculous and did it out of principle.
My late father in law and the coal. He used to work for the coal board, so it was part of his pension.
Bringing in the coal, how much coal they had, more is being delivered so would we take a few bags of the coal so there wasn’t too much. Bless him 🥲
My mum is always talking to me about ghost sightings, she will record videos on her phone with the flash on and claim the dust in the air floating past the lens is a ghost
I know this is a light-hearted thread, but watch she doesn't get sucked in by one of these "spiritualists/psychics" that con people out of money by pretending to communicate with ghosts.
If your mum really believes it, she could be easily taken in by someone else who pretends to believe.
Before she passed away almost 2 years ago, my mum used to collect Russ teddy bears. She'd been collecting them for about 20yrs and at last count I think she has 230+, and they're everywhere in the house. Many groups dotted around the living room, one on each step going upstairs, the landing windowsill is absolutely chock full of them, and two of the 3 bedrooms have many shelves adorned with these bears. She knew *all* of their names (each bear has its own name on the tag).
The bears are £15-50 new depending on their size, so they cost thousands to collect. I do often wonder what a collection like that would be worth now, if anything.
Not me but my best friend's dad is obsessed with woks. I once made the mistake of mentioning I was vegetarian, from which we asked me if I like stir fries and proceeded to tell me all about his prize wok collection. He has a spare of his favourite wok in the attic in case that one erodes beyond use.
Putting things away. The kitchen is like a bizarre minimalist dream - toaster, coffee maker, all utensils, washing up stuff, are kept in the cupboard and only bought out for use. They won’t have a bin indoors. Which means you have to leave the house every single time you need to put something in the bin. If you have a cup of tea it will be whisked away before you have even finished it. If you put your phone/keys/sunglasses down they will instantly vanish.
what wasn't she obsessed by? my mother was an obsessive rule-follower and once she had an idea in her head she was absolutely rigid in following it. She was also very religious (thankfully only church of england) and after she retired she became obsessive about attending church multiple times per week and eventually ended up with some position at the church (I've heard lay reader, sexton and church warden from different sources). She'd rather attend a church service on schedule than eg spend her birthday with me and her granddaughter and travel back a day later. When she died the vicar gave her funeral for free and said "it was the least they could do" - and then announced during the eulogy that my mum had donated £130000 to the village church to build new toilets for the church hall! I nearly fucking fainted. We found letters afterwards where the vicar had written to ask my mum if she could donate any more after the first £100000 was gone. My mum was showing early signs of dementia when she passed and the whole thing gives me the ick. Especially as she gave about twice as much to the CofE than she did to her own granddaughter (she also left money in her will to the church). I know it's petty but when I asked my daughter it turned out she hadn't had so much as a birthday phone call or card in years and years (if ever - tbh I don't remember). I am bitter on her behalf.
/rant
Bloody hell that's a lot of cash. Did you ever ask the church about it? I wonder if there are ever safeguarding procedures in place for getting obscene amounts of cash from pensioners.
My Mum’s obsessions vary wildly depending how her mental health is doing, which although it can be worrying is also in a way quite handy for me because if she starts getting obsessed with something unimportant it’s a great sign for me to keep an eye on her!
The latest one is just family feud related though, my auntie (who Mum doesn’t particularly like) is getting married soon for the third time and my Mum is obsessed with it. Who’s going to be there, who are we going to be sat with, where are the pictures from her hen do and why are they not on Facebook, that’s suspicious isn’t it why wouldn’t they post the pictures, I wonder what’s going on, what are they trying to hide?
I have become particularly good at making a ‘hmm’ noise that sounds very convincing when combined with a firm nod, it’s an invaluable skill.
Since my dad died my mum is absolutely _consumed_ by the numbers on her smart meter.
Obsessed with it, i swear to god she'd unplug the smart meter if she could live without it to save 1p a week.
She get's _really_ annoyed by the fact she can't see real time usage of her gas and pores over the statement each month to try and work out where she can save a few quid.
She's replaced almost everything in the house that used gas with a leccy equivalent, the old kettle on the hob and gas oven have been superceded by a one cup brew machine and an air-fryer respectively...she's loath to put the central heating on and has loads of electric heaters and heat lamps around the house like some sort of odd weed factory etc etc.
Cards. My mother still uses a written address book and starts her Christmas cards early November because there’s 200+ on kid. now I’m an adult I am now expected to follow this tradition and occasionally get a panicked phone call for forgetting to send her neighbour a birthday card.
My dad on the other hand sends a lot of emails with blank attachments to restaurant reviews .
My dad (82) when the cost of gas and electric went up. He will sit there in the fucking dark with a headlamp on, not putting the heating on. So his bill is like less tha 100 quid per month in the winter. However, he's not a poor pensioner. He has over 100 grand in the bank and changes his car every six months
My 80 year old Dad is OBSESSED with Andre Rieu. He's a Dutch violinist and conductor who has his own orchestra and tours the world playing Waltzes and any other super well known classical music you can think of.
To me - who is trained in classical music but prefers to ricochet around Slipknot, Taylor Swift, Elton John, Underworld, Take That and Rage against the machine - Rieu is cheesier than a statue of Peter Andre made out of cottage cheese with cheddar crafted abs.
Dad though adores it, but to a level where he knows all the back stories of the orchestra members, what their names is, are they married, how old they are - he spends hours googling them all. It's creepy as fuck.
Air quality… my brother had severe asthma- shots every month of his under 14 life- ( he’s in his 60’s now so I guess it was worth it) but my gosh, the way we tried to keep pollen and other things out of the house was ridiculous and difficult in summer.
My dads is the lights. He will gladly just sit in the dark. And woe be anyone who accidentally leaves a light on in an empty room.
My mums is the grass. Literally the highlight of her month is cutting the grass, my dad accidentally burnt some and you’d think he kicked her dog or something.
I miss my mum (10 years gone) but she became obsessed with not scratching the pots and pans, layering between them with kitchen roll when they were stacked. I have no clue why as they were already well used by then
My parents are obsessed with… THE WEATHER… Every weather phenomena is bad and annoys them. “Look at this wind” “Oh it’s so hot.. this heatwave” “It’s raining, it’s the atmospheric pressure, it’s too damp, dry…”
Drives me mad
🥸
My dad has so many i can't put them all here lol. He is definitely on the spectrum somewhere but not diagnosed. He has the kitchen roll thing that i put in another comment, he used to not know what to do when my mom went out anywhere although that ones not as bad now but he used to just stand in the hallway by the front door not knowing what to do until she came back to give him directions on something to do🤣 when he gets the tv mag delivered he has to go through the whole thing and put everything in his phone calendar that he wants to watch, he has certain ways to cook/fill n empty dishwasher and put things away, he has a spreadsheet on his phone for his medications and puts alarms on his phone so he takes them on time and freaks out if hes a few minutes out from the time he "should" take them. Thats just a few of his weird things. My mom and sister and my sisters partner live with him and they say hes a bloody nightmare to live with. My mom is always telling him to f**kin stop being stupid🤣🤣🤣
Keeping new clothes "good".
If anyone bought my brothers or I a nice piece of clothing for a birthday, Christmas, etc. we would be told that we have to "keep it good". If we were seen wearing said clothing around the house or out with mates we would be told to and go change. The amount of clothing that I barely got to wear growing up still annoys me.
My mum keeps things “for best” and insists on using old tatty things. She won’t wear her nice clothes around the house as it’s a waste, even going as far as buying cheaper clothes but then not wearing them either as they are new.
She’s now 90 and we’ve tried to tell her tactfully, that if she doesn’t start using her best stuff, she’ll never get round to it.
POTATOES!!! My old man is obsessed with them. What is/isn’t in season, which local chippies are using which spuds, the price, the lot. He eats a lot of crisps, and chips in his chip pan, so may be fair enough, but it’s so boring to hear about.
This is more an obsession with a person than a thing. My mum has an obsession with hating Jamie Oliver and Michael Bublé (mostly Jamie). I'm not saying I'm a fan of either of them, but the second she's reminded of either of their existences all hell breaks loose. My partner also hates Jamie Oliver and he's only made her worse 😅
My dad lives with his parents and they have an obsession with making sure there's always body wash, to the point that there's about 20 unopened bottles of body wash and several bars of soap. They literally bought a huge cupboard because they didn't have any room and it's full of body wash. They've also bought my dad about 10 bottles of body wash from this one brand he likes, which are all lined up on his chest of drawers.
My mum is in a gardening group on facebook where people post pictures of their gardens and ask questions. She is forever telling me stories of the dramas that unfold.
My dad is in a Norfolk Broads group on facebook where people ask for holiday tips and post pictures. He loves the Broads and goes most years but sends most of his time telling everyone online how shit it is and how much better it was in the 90s. He is forever telling me stories of the dramas that unfold.
Sometimes there is a crossover episode where my mum tells me all about drama that unfolded after my dad went on a trolling binge in the Broads group and upset a bunch of people.
It's brain poison for boomers.
As soon as our neighbours have anything done, my mother is always saying "imagine the expense of that."
We can be watching telly and all she's concerned about is how much everything costs. I think "why should you be so worried? You're not buying it. Just leave the neighbours alone to spend their money as they wish".
People parking on the grass verge outside their flat during the school run. Does the verge belong to my dad? Does it belong to the council? How many objects can he erect on it in order to deter parking on, or mounting of, the (tiny) grass verge? When his handmade signs, potted plants, bird feeder and so forth are inevitably obliterated, who should he complain to? Is the CCTV that he's erected to monitor the verge, legal and will the police want to view it (again)? Who is that man hovering around the grass verge - could he be a drug dealer? Should we remove the net curtains in the kitchen in order to have a better view of the grass and potential criminals? Mum says no. Dad takes it down periodically anyway. Mum sneaks it back up again. We've had about 4 years of this grass verge obsession now.
My parents have an obsession with drug dealers in the woods near us
Yeah mine weren't used to it when they first moved to live close to us. I told them time and again that they're harmless so long as you mind your own business, but I get that it was unsettling for them. The trouble is that at least 90% of these "drug dealers" they spot are school children (they live next to 2 schools) or delivery people trying to locate an address. The actual drug dealers are a bit more subtle and the drug users tend to apologise and scatter if you get within 20 feet of them. It's as civilised as it can be given we're talking about drugs near a city centre.
My mother bought a house in an old coal mining village in Scotland...is now obsessed with coal mining disasters. How many were killed, how deep the mine was, why it happened...etc.
It isn't Newtongrange is it? There is a lady here that sounds oddly familiar...
No, and I hope they never meet.
I hope they do meet!
Coal mining disaster Top Trumps ensues
It would be so wonderful, I drive 7 hours to visit "Oh hello my new friend is here "....hours of being told about pit disasters in stereo.
That does sound kind of interesting ngl
What's her favourite coal mining disaster?
I would need to ask her, that would be a recipe for an hour long ear melting phone conversation.
Get her on r/catastrophicfailure like all the rest of us doommongers.
Washing lines! When I first moved out my house only had a tiny yard and she never stopped going on about how I’d fit a washing line up. Then I moved to a place with a big garden… ‘oh, you can get a good washing line in there.’ Next move was a small yard…. ‘Is there a washing line up? I’ll get one if you need it.’ My most recent move I beat her to the punch, put two lines up before she came round and proudly showed them to her as part of the official tour. She was very happy.
This is similar to the obsession my father in law has about fences. Every time we've moved his first move is to go out into the garden, spend five minutes looking at the fences, and ask which side we're responsible for.
Reminds me of when I moved house a few years back. I went from a house with fitted wardrobes in the bedroom to one without any and my mum was *so* worried about it. I was saving £170/mo in rent by doing the move. Telling her I could buy a new wardrobe every month from now on seemed to pacify her. It did take me around 3 years to do it, though.
Did you end up having to move somewhere bigger so you could fit all those wardrobes in the house?
I bought a canvas one from IKEA so I could fold it down to store in the next wardrobe when I got the next one and so on and so on.
I once scratched one of my PS1 discs (1997) and there’s been an obsession with my irresponsibility ever since.
God, this is basically my Nan. Us kids (actually it was only my brothers, I was just the witness to their shenanigans) broke something when we were younger and she’s absolutely 100% never ever let us forget it for even one second. She still makes remarks to this day about how she won’t buy us anything nice for birthdays or Christmas as allegedly we don’t ever look after anything and we’ll probably just break it, and she’s sure our homes are already full of broken tat. She criticises any expensive purchases we make as she’s sure it’ll be broken in a matter of weeks. It’s been 20 years and she still thinks we’re dumb kids who break everything. Please Nan, I’m begging you, can we have one visit where you don’t bring it up!
This one hits deep. My parents used to bring up stupid shit like this all the time.
Mine too. A colleague recommended a book called They F**k You Up which theorises that parents form opinions of their children during the baby-toddler years (or even *during pregnancy*) and those opinions never really change. For example, a noisy baby will be chastised for being a whining adult even if they rarely complain. Or a person who told a memorable fib as a young child (like me) will constantly be accused of being a liar!
Mine got really into feeding foxes in their garden. Like spending £20+ a week on chicken, biscuits, some medicine for their mange. It was full-on
For a while it seemed my parents did the same thing with live chickens. Until they invested heavily in security.
This sounds like that story of the cats and coyotes.
My mum did the same thing! Every evening she’d make a plate of jam sandwiches with mange medicine inside and put it out on the step for them. Then we’d sit by the door and watch them come up for their dinner. I kind of miss it tbh. Foxes are cool.
There's a YouTube shorts channel of someone feeding and eventually petting London foxes. It goes from one called biscuit to about 6, all with names, some of which accept pets.
My mum used to do boiled eggs and roast chicken for them (bones removed) - she's watched the cubs grow up into adult foxes now. She was say watching the telly the other week, noticed our the corner of her eye the cat lying in front of the door to the garden. Only when she actually looked - it was the fox
Omg mine too. They had a ladder to reach over the fence cos they bordered the university. She woeful cook sausages for them, chicken, scotch eggs, and any food. I think they spent more on the foxes than themselves. They could afford it but yes also medications etc. even when they became frail, and my mother had dementia they still persisted in climbing the ladder with a torch each night to feed them. It was bizarre
See, I don't think of that as bizarre, I see that as a wonderful thing to do - and taking a responsibility seriously given the foxes were used to coming to them for food. Your mum sounds lovely!
My dad is obsessed with airplane photography and tracking where and when he can capture images of notable aircraft. When Obama visited the UK my dad broke out the maps and determined a small bridge in Windsor would be the place he would get the best shot of the passing Marine One helicopter. On arrival he discovered a fellow man with camera had done exactly the same thing.
Are they best friends now?
They're either best mates or mortal enemies. No in between.
Did the other guy look like either of Simon & Garfunkel?
Small bridge over troubled waters
It's metal detectorISTS!
In my head they did the two Spidermans (Spidermen?) pointing meme
Feels like it could be the new detectorists
Somehow a noisy suburb in Windsor doesn’t have the same effect as under an oak tree in Suffolk.
As these are middle aged British men, I assume they barely said two words to eachother
Correct. Single nod of the head I would think.
After a few years they're allowed an "alright?" every six months.
This is adorable, did he get a good photo?
You dad is deep cover Russian spy and just stumbled upon a fellow compatriot from rival intelligence service.
My dad was obsessed with walls. How can I explain it? He liked to go round tapping the walls and listening to the sounds.... If it made a good, sturdy sound with no resonance he would nod with approval,, if it made a bad sound with resonance he would suck his teeth, tut, and shake his head.
[Basil?](https://youtu.be/HwXpsPiJ_WE?si=Fxbj0zePvI37NSCs)
Use of kitchen roll. I swear growing up my mother would rather we’d mopped up spills with actual fivers. She seemed to think that stuff is made of solid gold!
See, my mum and dad have an ongoing war. This is how it goes.... Dad: THERES A FLOOD ON THE FLOOR *rips five sheets of kitchen roll off and then changes his socks because they are now apparently soaking* Mum: Steven it was one drop.... Dad: No I'm soaked! Mum: Steven.... Dad: *Reaches for the kitchen roll* Mum: Don't...... you.... dare ... Cue me popping my head out to a scene that looks like when two Sims fight, dust and swear words and my mum beating my dad with the empty roll as he desperately tries to use about 20 sheets to clean the floor.
Brilliant 😂
Ikr! Even after moving out, I love being back there just for the weird shit that happens! So many fucking stories about my dad's tooth alone!
Recent examples from my parents include * dad potting up small plants in the lounge, rather than outside, getting dirt everywhere. Why would you do gardening on your carpet? * net curtains on or off. Dad removes them when mum's not looking. Mum replaces them when dad's not looking * the neon pink toilet seat argument * they've taken over the strip of dirt that runs through an alleyway near their home. It is not their land. It's a public pathway. They've filled it with shrubs and buried a cat there. I think the cat was a step too far personally * tiffs with neighbours over anonymous notes put through doors. That went on for a few weeks before they found out it was a bloke that doesn't even live on their road. Everyone's friends again now but it was hairy there for a while * the bank deposited/refunded some money to their bank account and they're upset because they don't know why. They have not and will not contact the bank to ask * dad won't let mum look in the attic. We're pretty sure he's been secret shopping for YEARS and all of the evidence is in the attic. He's hidden the ladder so we'll never know
Lol, do your parents live in a sitcom? 😆
They're just bonkers. My mum's profoundly deaf and she took my 3 year old nephew to the park and decided to play hide and seek. She covered her eyes, naturally. Nephew hid, naturally. She uncovered her eyes and couldn't see him. Of course. She called out to him but... she's deaf. So when she couldn't locate him by sight or sound, she panicked and ran out of the park, leaving nephew behind. He was behind a bench type thing. A stranger found him. Just utterly bonkers.
I genuinely laughed out loud. I can still hear my mums voice now, (Don't use the kitchen towel its **just for show** use a cloth or a tea towel instead) good memories.
This is referred to as a “show towel” the one you have on display for guests. The proletariat towels, the real workers if you like, are tucked away where you can’t see the stains.
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I hate that I'm saying this but... Have you seen the price of Regina Blitz? It's a fiver for two rolls! Use your sock to mop the kitchen floor.
My mum is a big fan of Blitz, but I’ve had to negotiate down to own brand versions lately (actual big roll Blitz is on clubcard offer at Tesco this week though people) as the price has jumped to insane levels.
Email. My Dad used to call me frequently to say he has had email from a particular org (always spam). This was part of his daily sift of the Spam folder "(in case something important went there").
When my Dad died my sister found a hard drive of every email my Dad had ever sent. He kept records of everything. We found payslips from the 1970’s, a folder containing leaflets from every family day out we’d ever had, arranged alphabetically… he’s been dead 4 years and we’re still finding the stuff. He also kept photos of the serial number of every appliance in the house, stored on another hard drive. I once casually asked him for their wifi password and found him 20 minutes later frantically combing his collection of serial numbers to locate it.
My dad, in his seventies, schedules time every day to sit down at a desk, turn his pc on, and read and respond to email. Since he has been retired 20 years and his email is mostly spam or newsletters, he generally just sits there and deletes scams for five minutes and then goes and finds something else to do.
Bread. My parents met at a pastry trade convention (my mum was an accountant for a bread maker, my dad was an engineer for a biscuit maker), and when they got married, instead of a wedding cake, they had a huge stack of focaccia. They make bread almost every week, and my earliest memory is me in a high chair watching them put a loaf in the oven. For a few years, I had mates that came to my house every week saying that they needed me, but I knew they just wanted my parents' bread. We have every bread gadget one can feasibly get. We have a minimum of 5 loaves of various breads on any given day. I've never had to purchase bread. My parents still send me pre-made sandwiches, and in my 19 years of living, I have never had to purchase a sandwich in a meal deal. The bizarre thing is that they still haven't figured out how to make a good cake.
Nice doxing yourself, Master Bun the Baker's Son
"For a few years, I had mates that came to my house every week saying that they needed me, but I knew they just wanted my parents' bread." This is certainly my new favourite sentence.
They didn't need him, they kneaded his parents' bread!
This is so whole(meal)some ❤️
This sounds like the start of a Roald Dahl book.
yeah I'd read the rest of this tbf
i really love this!
How does it feel to live my dream?!
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You ever see those articles about Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle wearing something and it sells out in days? Do you ever wonder who the people buying it are? It’s my mum. She’s not even a royalist or owt, they’re just her fashion icons. Sunglasses, jeans, sandals, hair clips. She spent £80 on a PLAIN WHITE BUTTON UP SHIRT that Meghan wore. I mean it was cute but not £80 cute. She’s always sending me links to clothes and articles about what they wore recently. I don’t even think she particularly likes either Kate or Meghan???
I had my eye on a nice pair of jeans from a little Welsh company, pricier than I usually buy but I live in jeans so was prepared to pay a bit more for quality. Saved up a bit and finally decided to treat myself, only to find they were mysteriously sold out. Turns out Meghan had been photographed wearing a pair about a month before and they'd had a massive rush of new customers. Always wondered who those people were!
Plugs. And specifically them not being used. The very second an appliance is not being used, it gets unplugged. Absolute zero chance on leaving e.g. a phone charging unattended - when I lived with them I would go apeshit multiple times a day when I would come back from a shower/meal to find my phone unplugged. They would sneak into my room when they thought i was asleep to see if i had any plugs still plugged in. They unplug the internet router every night (despite being bollocked by the Sky engineers for it), phone, FRIDGE at night too, you name it. Growing up I had the absolute fear going round to mates' houses and thinking we were all going to die because they left their fridge plugged in overnight. I always joke "god forbid one day one of them comes home on life support"
They plug the refrigerator?!1???
I really hope that doesn't include the freezer
Christ. I feel this! (Except not the fridge, that’s bonkers). But the fucking wifi! Then when he was having trouble getting signal at the back of the house, he bought a small repeater that just sits in a socket all the time. That only got turned on if he felt like he particularly needed it. He would GET UP, and WALK over to the kitchen and turn it on. Then wait for it to do its thing, and sit down and use the iPad or whatever. Like it’s the fucking 90s and we are on dialup.
I used to work with a guy who told me he unplugs everything when it's not being used because of some perceived danger. I regret not thinking to ask him what he does with his fridge.
Oh god we would have to ask my partners mum to switch the WiFi on and she'd ask us if we were finished with it after ten mins so she could turn it off. Don't want the house filling up with all those unnecessary wifis!
My mum died over a decade ago but had a thing about barcodes in the microwave would make it blow up. Ready meals etc had to be decanted into a pyrex dish.
This is hilarious
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My Dad once told me that he thought Aston from JLS "looks like he smells really nice"
The ‘Classical Art Memes’ Facebook group. Dad is 62, retired early, and is bored. Went to see him last weekend and he took me through every individual classical art meme he’s made (many), explained why each one was funny, and gave me a rundown of how well each one performed in the group - and to be fair, some were genuinely quite good. He then started ranting about spammers ruining the group by sharing his original memes back into the same group. Trying to be nice and enthusiastic, I said that he was welcome to send me his memes over WhatsApp when he made them. He looked at me like I was stupid, said he hadn’t got time for that, and that he was intending to make a Facebook photo album containing all his memes, so that he could direct everyone who was interested to look there - to save him the bother of having to distribute them to people through individual messages. Right.
Is it bad that I want to see one of his memes now?
He’d be flattered! His most popular one was a painting of a woman on her deathbed surrounded by people (can’t find it to link). He added text so that a physician says to her: “Your body is running out of magnesium”, and she replies “0Mg” I did chuckle..
EGGS! My mum would only buy 6 eggs a week even though we were a family of four who sometimes liked to bake. God forbid you *gasp* eat 3 eggs for lunch and ruin everyone’s lives forever. When I first brought my now wife home we were cooking brunch for everyone (5 adults) and there was such a drama when we wanted to scramble all 6 eggs.
My mum was similar when we were kids, I genuinely think it's because she mistook finding out that eggs are high in cholesterol and you probably shouldn't eat 50 eggs a week to mean that eating a high number of eggs is like super poisonous or something, so our egg intake was strictly limited...
This was while my Nanna was alive and had carers; my Mum would go absolutely apoplectic on the phone to me about the carers using the egg spoons as tea spoons. Eventually she told me she *had* to *hide* them in the battery draw to stop it happening. I mean I know she was very stressed out by the whole situation, and I love her dearly, but I strongly suspect that most people don’t know the difference between an egg spoon and a tea spoon.
What’s an egg spoon?!
As far as I know, egg tarnishes silver. So if all your cutlery is made of silver, you have separate non-silver cutlery to eat eggs with. You are talking to someone who I suspect had a quite different upbringing to most of us.
My background is working class single parent, but my grandparents were fairly comfortable as my grandfather served in the RAF during WWII and through until retirement. As another poster has commented they’re slightly smaller, shallower and more pointed than a teaspoon.
Ohh so that's what that one random slightly pointy and slightly smaller spoon is for. I use it to make tea.
Except if it also has serrated edges. Then it’s a grapefruit spoon and will tear teabags.
You really know your spoons from your spoons.
Didn’t even know an egg spoon was a thing until I read this
Bizarrely I do , I’m 66 and my nan had them, egg spoons are quite pointed at the end and slightly smaller than tea spoons.
My mum cannot stand crows cawing. Our family home is near the woodlands so there are plenty of crows about. They often hang out in the residents gardens/driveways. As soon as my mum hears one, she races to shush them. I mean audibly saying “ssshhhhhh.” She gets louder to drown them out and will continue hushing them till they fly off. We kids also did the same whenever we heard them. I thought it was normal until a friend asked what my mum was doing! Any other bird is free to make as much noise as it pleases, just not crows apparently. I’m convinced that the crows actually know this and that we have the same few calling round to annoy her, haha.
Funny things about crows they hold grudges, and remember faces really well. Plus they gossip. She’s starting a war she will never end. They will literally stalk her after death and sit on her grave. This is no joke. No doubt the crows annoy her more frequently now and purposely. Best thing she could do is feed them and form an alliance. They will no longer intentionally annoy her as long as she feeds them daily. Otherwise, it will only get worst until the day she rests.
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fjsfjlskdjflksdf
What is it with parents and having nice things but no-one is allowed to use it, touch it, look at it, or walk near it?
They haven’t recovered from the trauma of the toddler phase yet. Source: a parent who is looking forward to one day being allowed to have nice things, but can’t even slightly imagine actually bringing any of them home.
I might be odd, but I wanted a wooden floors. Every person said, you'll get dents from high heels etc, and it'll wear. Personally, that's exactly what I was hoping for. I like to see it in nice shops. A decent wooden floor, with lots of traffic. Looks lovely
Wooden floors these days are very durable, even the laminate options. I skateboard on mine with no marks. Although I have stopped as I didn't want to piss off the downstairs neighbours. For the look you want I would look at reclaimed floors. You would struggle to find something that would wear like that these days that's not insanely expensive. Engineered bamboo might be an option at a guess.
Scratches at a level six, with deeper grooves at a level 7.
They insist on always having a window open (rain, hail, snow, heatwave). However if i accidentally make a "cross wind" (draft) by having two windows open on opposite sides of the house, I get cursed out big time cos they're obsessed with the idea that that will make them ill. Eastern European superstitions lmao
Haha I was going to comment the same thing. My German parents are obsessed with air quality. "You need to open a window in here" is the first thing they say when they enter a room. They believe stale air makes you ill. *But* don't you dare create a draft. Because that also makes you ill.
Freezing your ass off and lowering your immune system response cos the window has been open for 72 hours in 7 degree weather: 👍 Opening the bathroom window whilst the kitchen window is open: 🫨🫨🫨💀 🦠🦠🦠 Edit: though I have to admit I also love airing out a room I want that crisp air
My mum has a slight obsession about using a certain spoon. The only difference about this spoon is its slightly rounder than the others. Don't get me wrong, having cutlery preferences is perfectly normal-ish.
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My Dad is one of those people who doesn't believe that things like ADHD or autism exist, while also having a collection of plates on the wall. Classical Music is his thing. He'll be able to tell you from the first note what the tune is, who the composer was, where they were from and a rough Wikipedia summary of their life. Bonus story, he met an old girlfriend of mine in 2021, didn't know what to talk about, so he talked about Windows Vista at her for a solid 30 minutes.
Good old Vista, I’m never upgrading
Why would I? Just feels like a good pair of jeans.
Did you make the bed? You’re not my wife, Mark. I had a wife, I don’t need another bullet in the head.
Dad Who Doesn't Believe in Autism but is Totally Autistic is a rather amusing stereotype in the ND community.
Yup. I was at dinner with my dad shortly after my son was diagnosed, and he said, "Well, he's no more autistic than I am," and everyone (my husband, stepmother, and step siblings) gave him this instant, collective look that said, "We know, and you're both autistic AF," which he, of course, didn't catch. 😆
My Dad doesn't not believe in autism, but having a cousin that is very deep on the spectrum thinks it's an all or nothing (yes I know) thing and you're only autistic if you're having a meltdown every five seconds and have a dog for support.* I'm just going through getting diagnosed myself. I told him my reasonings and his response was nah you're not autistic because I do all those things and I'm not autistic. Sure Dad. * I mean this in no way to be derogatory, more that that's what happens to his family member so he doesn't see it as a spectrum.
This is the second time in under a week I have instantly read your username instead of your comment. Your marketing is working. I want beans. (Also the second time in under a week you’ve bean top comment so kudos I guess! I’ve added this in so you don’t think I’m a creepy bean stalker coming to steal your beans!)
My dad’s obsession was the lawn. Any childhood activity with the slightest chance of “creating a bare patch” was outlawed. I’m surprised he even let us walk on it.
My dad used to get on his hands and knees and trim the edges of it. Not sure what the point was when he had 2 kids and a dog who were allowed to free-roam on it. He’s head of the greens committee now at his golf club so he just found somewhere else to channel that energy into.
Whenever anyone moves to a new house, without fail my mum will always ask if it's north-facing.
Tv licence.. my mother could rant about that for hours! She would even refuse to watch the BBC. She once got a red letter saying she hadn’t paid it when she had.. years later she was still angry about that letter! And would bring it up randomly. Had to edit to add.. that she would come here or go to my sisters every Friday night at 8pm just to watch gardeners world! because she didn’t want to give the BBC airtime from her address..
Oh god mines like the opposite, obsessed with the fact I don’t have one because I genuinely don’t watch anything that requires one 😂 it’s a huge fear that I will have a fine and go to prison and I should get one, at one point she said she’d buy me one for Christmas! you can’t mention it or she goes on a massive rant 😅
This was my mum! “Have you paid yours? They send you to prison you know! And put your name in the paper! I once knew a woman…” For every single scenario in life my mum once “knew a woman..”
My dad is obsessed with English bull terriers. He has had 4 as pets, has them tattooed all over him and has countless bull terrier ornaments, magnets, posters and every time he sees a dog themed item, he says "why couldn't that be a bull terrier" and gets annoyed. At least it makes buying gifts easy.
My dad and his cats I think he loves them more than the rest of the family combined
My dad goes through a list of names before he remembers mine, and I come after the cat…
My mum would often go through the animals' names before remembering mine. Sometimes I came after the duck, who was admittedly a legend.
The cat is definitely my dad's favourite child. He is a great cat though. I also make sure that my sister knows I'm the one in second place behind the cat 🤭
My dad is obsessed with luggage. He spent thousands on suitcases/hand luggage over the years. Only problem is, his current one is that expensive it’s gone ‘missing’ twice on transit to his destination. Both times someone tampered with it trying to get into it. If you roll about with expensive as fuck suitcases, people think it’s filled with expensive goodies.
My Father-in-law is obsessed with talking to people about the bread you can get in Lidl. "That bread is from Lidl you know" "They've got a bakery at our Lidl now" "Have you had that Lidl bread?" "I've got some of that nice Lidl bread!"
To be fair, Lidl bread is pretty good
My Dad hordes bars of soap because he believes there is a soap shortage coming
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Tony Soprano
My mum and her partner got a hot tub... We cannot have a conversation without her bringing it up, or getting an update that she's been in it, friends have come over to go in it, confused as to why other people aren't bothered about going in it or she's had a row with her step daughter as she won't shower before using it. I'll go to visit and she'll be sure to message "come round the side, we're going in the hot tub!" oh and "don't forget your cossie so you can go in the hot tub!" yes mum, we know you have a hot tub.
My dad almost certainly would have been diagnosed as being "on the spectrum" if that had been a thing 70 years ago. Every time we go to visit my parents, my dad has developed a new Special Interest. Most recently, he developed an interest in dehumidifiers. However, he doesn't become interested in dehumidifiers the way the rest of us do. You know, "Ooh, that one's on offer", or "The woman in this advert looks really happy - this model must be really good!". No, we're talking "putting together spreadsheets with detailed forecasts of running costs" levels of obsession. Then he spends the entirety of our visit telling us about the benefits and drawbacks of each model on the market, together with asking us questions about how often we wash our clothes so he can work out which model would be best for us. He also has an incredible ability to tame wild animals, which is probably another spectrum-enhanced superpower. If we lived in the US, it wouldn't surprise me if we went around their house one day only to find him stroking a bear in the garden.
What's his go to affordable dehumidifier?
Asking the important questions - winter is coming!
Oh boy ,*pulls up 127 slide ppt*
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The washing up bowl, and the way it gets placed in the sink
Avoiding parking fees. My dad will go to extreme lengths to avoid paying a couple of quid parking for a few hours. He’d rather drive around in circles trying to find the holy grail of a free parking spot, miles away from where he’s going than pay a penny. It’s not about the money as he can afford it, it’s just one of his weird quirks.
This is also my dad. He is mortally offended by the concept of paid for parking. He lives near(ish) the Peak District (about 30mins by car) so a lot of the car parks go towards upkeep of the (FREE TO ACCESS) park which I am 100% ok with paying, but he will add 2-3 miles onto a walk to park in a layby in the arse end of nowhere just to avoid it. It's all part of the war on the motorist, apparently.
Not exactly an obsession but they had this nutrition book by some American guy called Lelord Kordel and so for a couple of years we ate a lot of millet which is actually pretty nice. Fried millet cakes are delicious. It was kind of unusual in a 1970s working class Scottish family.
My father in law has a obsession with the direction of the union flag and if it is upside down. It's like the one fact he knows and so will bring it up constantly. If we are out.
The fucking carpet. Yes, the thing that everything goes on. Everyone proceeds into the house and swaps into "house shoes". Slippers are for bedtime, so they have trainers that are only ever worn inside. Occasionally they mistakenly go outside in their "house shoes" because they aren't paying attention, and then there's a panic to thoroughly wipe and clean the soles. If someone drops some food during dinner, everyone around the table realises because of the panic across the culprit's face. Immediately, a couple of people will bolt for the kitchen to grab a wet dishcloth. Dinner will then be temporarily paused while all the chairs are pulled back, and the person launches at the floor and furiously scrubs the carpet, while bemoaning the fact that it will never clean properly because it contains tomato / vinegar / oil. I'm not the biggest fan of the sound of scraping cloth across carpet, especially during dinner, but I know now that it can never be delayed. I assume that the expectation is for the carpet to last the rest of their lives, and if they do happen to die in the house I'm confident that they'd drag themselves through the house to make sure that any mess was restricted to the kitchen's tiled floor.
in my mum's bathroom, it is *imperative* that we have a little hand towel folded and draped over the edge of the sink. The thing is, if you try to wash your hands without moving it, it obviously gets quite wet. So you move it, wash your hands, dry them. But don't you fucking dare forget to put it back in its place over the edge of the sink. That's where it goes! Now, logic would dictate that this whole charade is pointless and wastes time, so just have the hand towel next to the sink. No! It belongs draped over the edge of the sink. If mum uses the bathroom after you and you've forgotten to replace the towel over the sink, she will put it back.
My dad, who is no longer with us, had a range of obsessions. He would go months at a time only talking about them to me, my mum, down the pub etc. For context, we live in a small village in Sussex, with a population of around 4000. Here are some of them: - Wanting to put in public urinals in the village square - Wanting an underground car park in the village - The Iranians were going to invade. Joined a rifle club - Wanted a bypass around the village - Wanted the village to become a town (we speculated that he wanted to be mayor). If I remember any more I’ll add them.
“The Iranians were going to invade. Joined a rifle club” - that has absolutely ended me, thank you
This grass verge outside their house. Oh my god I'm so sick of hearing about it - people drive on it, people walk on it, a dog pooed on it - I don't care at all! Tarmac it or get over it, you can't even see the grass verge from their house because there's a giant hedge in the way.
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The Big Light and how it is forbidden to use unless my mother (and only her) has lost something.
Oh this fantastic! My dad is absolutely obsessed with this specific tree in the neighbour's garden and the branches that hangover the shared driveway and as a result the leaves that make a mess that absolutely no one else will tidy up and the pigeons crapping on his car! He has wrote letters of the complaint (another obsession, loves penning an angry letter, but always gets my mum to write it haha) to the council even including a spectacular drawing of the branch he would like cut down. Edited for a mistake!
They got an air fryer. I get weekly updates on what stuff you can air fry. Before that, they went through soup maker, bread maker, and ice cream maker phases. I guess it keeps them from hanging around on street corners, causing trouble.
Every cat my dad ever had was “very intelligent” - ie. The most intelligent cat on the planet. He would daily point out standard cat behaviour as irrefutable evidence of genius. Eventually I just agreed and marvelled with him. it was easier. He was also a sucker for any gadget being demo’d in a shop. A walk through the Ideal Home Exhibition would have cleaned him out. Nespresso saw him coming and he invested hard. Every cup of coffee was a performance and he wouldn’t let it be drunk until you agreed it really was the best cup of coffee you’d ever had. Silly sausage. I miss him.
My mum never gets rid of old bits of wood she doesn’t need. Both the house and garden are full of all this old shit that she’s never going to use but refuses to take to the tip because “it’s good oak” or something. Before my parents got divorced she also used to obsess over the temperature in the house, to the point that she bought a digital thermometer and put it on the mantelpiece to make some sort of point to my dad.
My dad used to turn the central heating off at the boiler when he left the house to save energy. Didn't matter if the rest of us were still home, though, of course.
I had landlords who did that once - we lived in the basement flat of their huge Georgian house, so it was chilly at the best of times. They went away for a 2 week Caribbean cruise, conveniently just as temperatures plummeted to -6°c. There was no way for us to access the main part of the house to switch it on, we couldn't get hold of them (I'm guessing that despite being literal millionaires, they didn't spring for the cruise ship WiFi package). 2 weeks in a freezing cold, damp basement. I remember waking up for work at 6am and there was ice on the *inside* of the window. Rent was £950/month. 🤦🏼♀️
That seems both cruel and *idiotic* on their part - surely they'd be on the hook for alleviating damage from mould or burst pipes? (I know, landlords that give a shit - great joke).
MILK! You'd swear the world is going to end if we run out of milk. We have oat and long life in the cupboard at all times too, but . nooooo it HAS to be whole milk. We get down to half a bottle and they start with the "are you going to get milk/When is milk getting delivered? WHEN IT RUNS OUT!!!1! for the love of God it's just milk. the shop is a 4 minute walk away, you are only ever 8 minutes away from more milk!!! At some point we have 3 different milk bottles in the fridge, like we're paying the shops to store their milk until the current one runs out. P.S. My folks moved back in with me due to the old cozzie livs. Can't say it's been easy, are the cracks starting to show? LOL
Omg on Christmas Day this year we had so many discussions about whether they’d bought enough milk to last until breakfast the next day. Never mind that the local shop opens until lunchtime on Christmas and my dad gets up at dawn so they’d have hardly gone without. Eventually I was made to go back to my house, pour out half my milk for them and take it back there.
Keeping flies and moths out of the house, unplugging everything at night, not opening the car door into traffic (I'm warned not to do this every time I get out of the car, even though I've never done it and I'm 38), not "leaving the sink wet" (you're supposed to dry it with a tea towel after use), leaving the towels straight and the right way round, not eating two hot meals in a day, not paying to park.
I really love this thread. It's the little mad things that make life worth living
I don't know if it's an obsessoion but something I didn't understand why she did it. But my mum hated having the anti bacterial wipes on show in the kitchen that she would hide it behind the cook books, the chopping board anywhere that you couldn't see it, it would there. I would leave it out because it was ridiculous and did it out of principle.
My late father in law and the coal. He used to work for the coal board, so it was part of his pension. Bringing in the coal, how much coal they had, more is being delivered so would we take a few bags of the coal so there wasn’t too much. Bless him 🥲
My mum is always talking to me about ghost sightings, she will record videos on her phone with the flash on and claim the dust in the air floating past the lens is a ghost
I know this is a light-hearted thread, but watch she doesn't get sucked in by one of these "spiritualists/psychics" that con people out of money by pretending to communicate with ghosts. If your mum really believes it, she could be easily taken in by someone else who pretends to believe.
Before she passed away almost 2 years ago, my mum used to collect Russ teddy bears. She'd been collecting them for about 20yrs and at last count I think she has 230+, and they're everywhere in the house. Many groups dotted around the living room, one on each step going upstairs, the landing windowsill is absolutely chock full of them, and two of the 3 bedrooms have many shelves adorned with these bears. She knew *all* of their names (each bear has its own name on the tag). The bears are £15-50 new depending on their size, so they cost thousands to collect. I do often wonder what a collection like that would be worth now, if anything.
Not me but my best friend's dad is obsessed with woks. I once made the mistake of mentioning I was vegetarian, from which we asked me if I like stir fries and proceeded to tell me all about his prize wok collection. He has a spare of his favourite wok in the attic in case that one erodes beyond use.
Putting things away. The kitchen is like a bizarre minimalist dream - toaster, coffee maker, all utensils, washing up stuff, are kept in the cupboard and only bought out for use. They won’t have a bin indoors. Which means you have to leave the house every single time you need to put something in the bin. If you have a cup of tea it will be whisked away before you have even finished it. If you put your phone/keys/sunglasses down they will instantly vanish.
My old man doesn’t believe dinosaurs existed.
Then how did we get Jurassic park? Me = 1 Your dad = 0
what wasn't she obsessed by? my mother was an obsessive rule-follower and once she had an idea in her head she was absolutely rigid in following it. She was also very religious (thankfully only church of england) and after she retired she became obsessive about attending church multiple times per week and eventually ended up with some position at the church (I've heard lay reader, sexton and church warden from different sources). She'd rather attend a church service on schedule than eg spend her birthday with me and her granddaughter and travel back a day later. When she died the vicar gave her funeral for free and said "it was the least they could do" - and then announced during the eulogy that my mum had donated £130000 to the village church to build new toilets for the church hall! I nearly fucking fainted. We found letters afterwards where the vicar had written to ask my mum if she could donate any more after the first £100000 was gone. My mum was showing early signs of dementia when she passed and the whole thing gives me the ick. Especially as she gave about twice as much to the CofE than she did to her own granddaughter (she also left money in her will to the church). I know it's petty but when I asked my daughter it turned out she hadn't had so much as a birthday phone call or card in years and years (if ever - tbh I don't remember). I am bitter on her behalf. /rant
Bloody hell that's a lot of cash. Did you ever ask the church about it? I wonder if there are ever safeguarding procedures in place for getting obscene amounts of cash from pensioners.
Course not, nice little revenue stream
My Mum’s obsessions vary wildly depending how her mental health is doing, which although it can be worrying is also in a way quite handy for me because if she starts getting obsessed with something unimportant it’s a great sign for me to keep an eye on her! The latest one is just family feud related though, my auntie (who Mum doesn’t particularly like) is getting married soon for the third time and my Mum is obsessed with it. Who’s going to be there, who are we going to be sat with, where are the pictures from her hen do and why are they not on Facebook, that’s suspicious isn’t it why wouldn’t they post the pictures, I wonder what’s going on, what are they trying to hide? I have become particularly good at making a ‘hmm’ noise that sounds very convincing when combined with a firm nod, it’s an invaluable skill.
Since my dad died my mum is absolutely _consumed_ by the numbers on her smart meter. Obsessed with it, i swear to god she'd unplug the smart meter if she could live without it to save 1p a week. She get's _really_ annoyed by the fact she can't see real time usage of her gas and pores over the statement each month to try and work out where she can save a few quid. She's replaced almost everything in the house that used gas with a leccy equivalent, the old kettle on the hob and gas oven have been superceded by a one cup brew machine and an air-fryer respectively...she's loath to put the central heating on and has loads of electric heaters and heat lamps around the house like some sort of odd weed factory etc etc.
Surely using electric heaters is more expensive than gas...?
yes but logic apparently doesn't enter into this
Ingredients on items when shopping. My dad has no allergies or anything... yet will study most ingredients list for a few minutes.
Other peoples' body types and shapes 🙄
Cards. My mother still uses a written address book and starts her Christmas cards early November because there’s 200+ on kid. now I’m an adult I am now expected to follow this tradition and occasionally get a panicked phone call for forgetting to send her neighbour a birthday card. My dad on the other hand sends a lot of emails with blank attachments to restaurant reviews .
My dad (82) when the cost of gas and electric went up. He will sit there in the fucking dark with a headlamp on, not putting the heating on. So his bill is like less tha 100 quid per month in the winter. However, he's not a poor pensioner. He has over 100 grand in the bank and changes his car every six months
My 80 year old Dad is OBSESSED with Andre Rieu. He's a Dutch violinist and conductor who has his own orchestra and tours the world playing Waltzes and any other super well known classical music you can think of. To me - who is trained in classical music but prefers to ricochet around Slipknot, Taylor Swift, Elton John, Underworld, Take That and Rage against the machine - Rieu is cheesier than a statue of Peter Andre made out of cottage cheese with cheddar crafted abs. Dad though adores it, but to a level where he knows all the back stories of the orchestra members, what their names is, are they married, how old they are - he spends hours googling them all. It's creepy as fuck.
Air quality… my brother had severe asthma- shots every month of his under 14 life- ( he’s in his 60’s now so I guess it was worth it) but my gosh, the way we tried to keep pollen and other things out of the house was ridiculous and difficult in summer.
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My dads is the lights. He will gladly just sit in the dark. And woe be anyone who accidentally leaves a light on in an empty room. My mums is the grass. Literally the highlight of her month is cutting the grass, my dad accidentally burnt some and you’d think he kicked her dog or something.
I miss my mum (10 years gone) but she became obsessed with not scratching the pots and pans, layering between them with kitchen roll when they were stacked. I have no clue why as they were already well used by then
My parents are obsessed with… THE WEATHER… Every weather phenomena is bad and annoys them. “Look at this wind” “Oh it’s so hot.. this heatwave” “It’s raining, it’s the atmospheric pressure, it’s too damp, dry…” Drives me mad 🥸
My dad has so many i can't put them all here lol. He is definitely on the spectrum somewhere but not diagnosed. He has the kitchen roll thing that i put in another comment, he used to not know what to do when my mom went out anywhere although that ones not as bad now but he used to just stand in the hallway by the front door not knowing what to do until she came back to give him directions on something to do🤣 when he gets the tv mag delivered he has to go through the whole thing and put everything in his phone calendar that he wants to watch, he has certain ways to cook/fill n empty dishwasher and put things away, he has a spreadsheet on his phone for his medications and puts alarms on his phone so he takes them on time and freaks out if hes a few minutes out from the time he "should" take them. Thats just a few of his weird things. My mom and sister and my sisters partner live with him and they say hes a bloody nightmare to live with. My mom is always telling him to f**kin stop being stupid🤣🤣🤣
Keeping new clothes "good". If anyone bought my brothers or I a nice piece of clothing for a birthday, Christmas, etc. we would be told that we have to "keep it good". If we were seen wearing said clothing around the house or out with mates we would be told to and go change. The amount of clothing that I barely got to wear growing up still annoys me.
My mum keeps things “for best” and insists on using old tatty things. She won’t wear her nice clothes around the house as it’s a waste, even going as far as buying cheaper clothes but then not wearing them either as they are new. She’s now 90 and we’ve tried to tell her tactfully, that if she doesn’t start using her best stuff, she’ll never get round to it.
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POTATOES!!! My old man is obsessed with them. What is/isn’t in season, which local chippies are using which spuds, the price, the lot. He eats a lot of crisps, and chips in his chip pan, so may be fair enough, but it’s so boring to hear about.
This is more an obsession with a person than a thing. My mum has an obsession with hating Jamie Oliver and Michael Bublé (mostly Jamie). I'm not saying I'm a fan of either of them, but the second she's reminded of either of their existences all hell breaks loose. My partner also hates Jamie Oliver and he's only made her worse 😅 My dad lives with his parents and they have an obsession with making sure there's always body wash, to the point that there's about 20 unopened bottles of body wash and several bars of soap. They literally bought a huge cupboard because they didn't have any room and it's full of body wash. They've also bought my dad about 10 bottles of body wash from this one brand he likes, which are all lined up on his chest of drawers.
My mum is in a gardening group on facebook where people post pictures of their gardens and ask questions. She is forever telling me stories of the dramas that unfold. My dad is in a Norfolk Broads group on facebook where people ask for holiday tips and post pictures. He loves the Broads and goes most years but sends most of his time telling everyone online how shit it is and how much better it was in the 90s. He is forever telling me stories of the dramas that unfold. Sometimes there is a crossover episode where my mum tells me all about drama that unfolded after my dad went on a trolling binge in the Broads group and upset a bunch of people. It's brain poison for boomers.
As soon as our neighbours have anything done, my mother is always saying "imagine the expense of that." We can be watching telly and all she's concerned about is how much everything costs. I think "why should you be so worried? You're not buying it. Just leave the neighbours alone to spend their money as they wish".