Tell me what's weird about where you're staying: Tgiving '18 Edition
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Anonymous
Keep complaining about your own decisions, and I'll keep saying the word choice for sure. |
Anonymous
How nice for you that you don’t have elderly relatives in your life whose bodies don’t work perfectly. My FIL is like PP‘s. When he has to go, he has to go, or he WILL PEE HIS PANTS. Are you suggesting that is an acceptable burden to put on an elderly person in their own home? Get some compassion. Luckily for us, my ILs have an extra bathroom so we don’t have this issue at their house, although we do when we vacation with them. You learn to plan around it, like making up errands to get him out, or you of course could choose not to stay there. But that doesn’t make her FIL a control freak or a creepo. |
Anonymous
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^^ I don’t understand this. He’s able to control his bladder when he’s out doing errands but not when his DIL is taking a shower???
If anything, errands take longer than a 10 minute shower. This totally makes it creepy... DH shouldn’t subject his wife to this. |
Anonymous
| This happened 15 years ago at my parents house but not much has changed.....the first time we were visiting my parents new home. My husband got up early with our toddler and was letting me sleep in. He was in the kitchen getting DS a bowl of cereal. Bowl, cereal and milk were no problem. Now to find a spoon. He opened a few drawers and found no less than 200 spoons. All different sizes. He grabbed one and breakfast started. Grandma walked in at this point and went a bit crazy over the fact that dd was not using a cereal spoon! She was using an ice cream spoon. Only in my mother's eyes is this a problem. To this day she sets out cereal bowls and spoons every night we visit so we don't make that mistake again. |
Anonymous
+1. There is a lot about that story that is not adding up. |
Anonymous
What shocks me the most is saying "even if it's your own parents' home." Are you really a GUEST in your parent's home? I'm not. I am their child. I can't imagine a relationship where you would feel you have to ask to open their pantry. |
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Anonymous
Yeah, me neither. My parents are very welcoming and casual. But hey, as we know, some parents, ILs and other relatives are batshit crazy, eh? Best to avoid any potential confusion or toe-stepping. The rule of thumb is to always ask before helping yourself to anything in your hosts' home. They may well say, "Of course, help yourself to anything at all for the rest of the visit." But you are still showing respect and good manners by asking the first time. Even with parents whose attitude is "mi casa es su casa," you don't want Little Timmy inadvertently eating a huge chunk of the banana bread that was supposed to be for tomorrow's breakfast. Asking first is never a bad idea! Communicate. |
Anonymous
| Didn't stay there this year, but most of the windows at FIL's house are painted shut. In a warm climate where you can have windows open much of the time in the winter. |
Anonymous
| All the dishes taste like their plastic shelf liners. |
Anonymous
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This is all incredibly strange to me. At my parents house and my ILs house, everybody is welcome to eat what they want when they want
No asking necessary. Do I want to eat what is at my ILs? Hell no! Do my kids? Hell yes! Chocolate and peanut butter cereal ( who can eat anything that sickly-sweet for breakfast?), tons of candy and chips, and no fruits or vegetables. I really don't get how they have lived so long (mid-90s), because I have never seen MIL or FIL eat any fruit or even a taste of a vegetable. I have brought fruit with us, and always, always, always bottled water (they live in FL - don't understand how anyone can drink the nasty stuff that comes out of their tap!). But no one in any of our homes (ours, my parents, my ILs) ever asks permission to get food of any kind. We are close family, not guests. Even my genteel, southern ILs would be offended if I asked. |
Anonymous
Why are you tasting dishes? 
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Anonymous
Who says people only ever stay with their parents or their ILs? Some people are staying with aunts/uncles, friends, friends of the family, cousins, the list goes on. Asking before you take something or use something in your host's home is a pretty basic standard good guest behavior. Doesn't everyone know that? Not asking is "incredibly strange" to me. I once asked my mom if my DS could eat some blueberries (he easily can take down most of a pint in one sitting). She said no, she was using them to make blueberry French toast casserole the next day, but to help ourselves to bananas and other fruit. Good thing I asked, even in my mother's home. -np |
Anonymous
This. My parents and inlaws are very generous and hospitable but they don't expect a ravening hoard to come in and eat all of the XYZ they bought for themselves. If it's something like cereal or peanut butter that I can see they have multiples of, I don't ask. But if it's strawberries or cheese, I ask if my kids can have it because maybe they are saving it for something. I appreciate when they do the same visiting us, because I typically go food shopping only once a week and buy only what we expect to need for the week. (Tiny kitchen, no pantry, and cook mostly from scratch; and young kids and work full time, which makes it hard to do spur of the moment shopping.) The time MIL ate most of my prunes in one sitting I was upset (though didn't say anything, of course) because I rely on them for, ahem, digestive purposes, and didn't have enough left for the week. Now I stock extra for her when I know she's coming, so she can eat however much she wants! Actually, since both my parents and inlaws are within driving distance, what we do now is either bring a bunch of food or just go food shopping the first night after the kids go to bed. So much easier to get what I know we'll eat and not have them try to do it ahead of time. My mom never gets the right food even when she tries ("what do you mean my skim Lactaid milk is not the same as whole milk?" "you wanted a dozen eggs? oops, I only bought 6"). And my MIL has a lot of food that I don't mind my kids eating as treats, but don't want them to subsist on for 3 days, which they would if I didn't supply something else. |
Anonymous
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We spent 3 days in the home where DH grew up. His parents have lived there for over 30 years, and I'm pretty sure they've not washed the bath mats in either bathroom that entire time (I'm only sort of exaggerating). Every flat surface in the house is piled with junk. There are pathways through all the rooms, around the piles and piles of stuff that they have accumulated over the years. Nothing ever gets tossed or donated. The house is sorely in need of a vacuum and a dust rag.
Oh, and we have a very active toddler. Never again. Next time, we stay at a hotel. I don't care how far away we have to go to find one. |
Anonymous
It sounds like FIL is a creeper OR he is in the beginning stages of dementia and can't handle a temporary change. |