Do you still have any items you "appropriated" from your parents?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Kind of a random topic that popped into my head thanks to the mention of red Swingline staplers in another thread. Do you have any items in your home that just kind of took from your parents when you were younger? I’m not talking about stuff like valuable family heirlooms, but rather random household items, tools, and the like.

And I of course thought of this because that’s how I got my stapler. It belonged to my parents, it’s probably older than I am, and I just took it with me when I went off to college and I never gave it back. And I still have it; it’s currently on my desk. It’s a little pocket sized stapler, but it is Swingline and it is red. My parents probably didn’t miss it; by then they had another, better, stapler.

I got my dad’s lug wrench in a similar manner. When I was in high school I put it in the trunk of my car because I thought it might be useful to have with me. And then it stayed in the car when I went to college, and transferred it to my new car when that cat got replaced, and then it stayed there when I moved to California and the car came with me.

My hairbrush is also probably older than me. It’s just some cheap thing with plastic bristles, but it was the one I always used as a kid, I took it with me to college, and I still use it today. Because it’s the one I’ve always used and I don’t like changing stuff like that.

I just came across an old probably 1980s vintage Radio Shack solar powered pocket calculator in a junk drawer. My dad is one of those people who calculats his fuel economy every fill up, and keeps a calculator in his car for that purpose. So he taught me to do the same thing, so I took this calculator they had, put it in my car, and it stayed with me in the same manner as the lug wrench. Of course I have a calculator on my phone now, and for that matter an actual app for tracking fuel economy, so no need for the calculator, hence it moving to the junk drawer.

I’ve also got some plates and silverware that used to belong to my parents, although they actually gave me those when I moved out; I didn’t just take them. At least one of the forks my mom stole from the dining hall when she was in college.

2

I’ve got my dad’s power washer and extension ladder. I’ve needed them both at my house and frankly I don’t want him using either without me (he’s 70 and has a bad back and is just generally not in good health.) So I don’t return them but I’m happy to bring them over to use them together/myself if he needs them.

3

What do you need to do with your cat that requires a lug wrench? Spray bottle of water maybe, but lug wrench seems extreme…:purple_heart::smirk:

4

I have a book I borrowed from family bookshelves way back when. I know it’s not mine; I don’t have it on my shelves but instead it’s sitting on top of my dresser. I store my wallet on it when I’m sleeping. I could return it any time, but then where would I put my wallet?

I have another book that I straight up stole - I replaced it with my own personal copy. The crime was motivated by the fact I liked their copy’s cover image better.

5

I have maybe a dozen of my mother’s iced tea glasses that I stole (back) over the years before she went into Assisted Living. The only reason she had those glasses in the first place was because Coca-Cola, many many years ago used to run drink specials with independent fast-food places. “Buy a large Coke and you can keep the glass!” type things. Since I worked for such a place during several of those promotions, Mom got gifted a couple dozen really neat tulip fountain glasses, perfect for iced tea. It was standard practice for everyone there to grab a glass and hit the drink dispenser whenever they went off-shift and home.

6

Yes.

My queen sized bed, my big screen TV, my computer and large computer desk, 2 night stands, an easy chair and 90% of the other furniture and housewares and linens and appliances in my home.

I retired last year. My mom, who is very sick, moved into a nursing home last year. I moved into her room, the master suite in the family home. I took my personal possessions with me when I moved but I got rid of all my furniture and appliances. So pretty much everything is appropriated from her. I even kept some of her clothing.

7

Back in college I swiped my mom’s coffee grinder (she didn’t buy whole bean coffee anyway, it was shoved in the back of a cabinet). My friends and I needed it for something…less than legal. Years later she was looking for it and couldn’t find it. That was about 20 years ago and to this day she goes looking for it once every few years.

8

I got a melamine bowl that I used to love for Kraft Dinner as a kid. I still have it, and use it for the same purpose.

We didn’t have much, so there was really nothing else of value to take, even if I wanted to.

9

Speaking from the other side - way back when we were setting up house, my spouse bought a very nice expensive set of cutlery for everyday use. Eventually, the small spoons & forks started migrating to the kid’s room and then to never be seen again. So now we have no small spoons & forks. We never bothered to buy more, because they are expensive and we didn’t want to donate them to the missing cutlery gods. The kid is grown and still living at home, but (fingers crossed (f* you COVID)) has general plans on job/moving out, etc.

It is my plan, once they have a place of their own, to finally buy more cutlery. And every time I visit them in their home, to secretly steal a spoon or fork.

10

I still have this. Seldom use it, but it works. It’s 5 years older than me. The only record player I know that can play 16 rpm and 78 rpm. Never had a record to be played at 16 rmp, but still…
Sadly, it is missing the adapter for singles (you can see it in the picture on the lower right side of the lid, with a metal clip to hold it). It once was forgotten to remove it before closing the lid and the green plastic covering of the loudspeaker snapped a bit, a collector would be sad, I accept it as history.
The last thing I keep from my mom. And a Penguin paperback of Three Men In A Boat.

11

Ain’t it time you surprised mom with a new herb grinder ? :v:t3:

12

Between that and the fact that I don’t drink coffee, I really can’t tell her I took it.
If I was a coffee drinker, I would have just asked her for it since she never used it. And, since I couldn’t get the smell out, I really couldn’t put it back.

Besides, any guilt I might feel when she’s looking for it balanced when I think about what we did with it.

13

I swiped two chairs, a lamp, and a wall clock that’s older than I am when I moved out. I always liked the clock when I was growing up, it has Roman numerals and I always thought it was neat. So I smuggled it out, Mom didn’t notice for a few weeks. The chairs were supposed to be temporary until my couch was delivered but Mom never asked for them back so here they still are.

14

I’m not sure what you mean by appropriate. Speaking as a parent of grown kids, I wish they appropriated more stuff.
My mother had a few science fiction books which I grabbed when I started my collection, but which she never missed. I have my father’s tools, but again I got them when they moved out of our house. None of this was swiped, though.

15

This just came up in our house last week. I saw a white plastic comb in the bathroom that I recognized as the one that used to belong to my mom when I was growing up, and it followed me to college. I hadn’t seen it in years (since it’s been ages since I needed a comb) and just figured it had gotten tossed at some point. My wife has had it in a drawer, and had been using it that day to comb our granddaughter’s hair.

16

My parents have been encouraging that. There are sets of Wedgwood, Lenox and Mikasa china, crystal wine glasses, a silver tea service, and more. They want my brother and me to take some of this stuff. The weird thing is that they actually entertained before they retired, with dinner parties and the like and even they never used some of the fancy things. We used to joke that my mother was saving the stuff for when the British queen came to dinner. I almost never have guests in my house and of course no dinner parties, so what am I going to do with any of this stuff?

17

When I was little, my dad bought this decrepit old house, and I didn’t understand til I was older that it was his great-uncle’s. Old “Unc Ed” had built and hand-customized a lot of it. He liked my dad, so when he realized he’d have to go to a nursing home, he sold it to dad for cheap.

Oh, when I said “hand-customized”, he did everything by hand, no power tools. No, he used tools that he’d crafted himself.

So decades later, before my folks went to that same nursing home, I grabbed my favorite hand-made tools… with ED on the handles (burned in if it was wood, or stamped if it was steel).

And I do almost all my woodworking with those manual tools, no power.

18

Sort of? When I was 18 we moved in with my great-grandmother who had alzheimer’s because my grandfather’s dying request was that we did so his mother wouldn’t need to go into a nursing home. He died four months before she did :frowning:

Anyway, while my mom and her siblings were still working out what to do with her stuff I took the bench to her sewing table and hauled it up to my bedroom. No one ever said anything about it, and I still use it to this day to keep my computer mouse and pad on. It’s just the right height to be perfect for the task.

19

I’ve got my dad’s slide rule, trying to remember why. It was probably when I grabbed a bunch of his college math books. Also got a bunch of his sci fi books, but I’ve been borrowing them since middle school.

20

My dad’s favorite Phillips screwdriver was also my favorite. If ever I needed a screwdriver, that’s the one I’d grab. I would usually forget to put it back in the garage, until Dad asked for it. He would then sternly remind me that I needed to put his tools away after using them.

I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but the screwdriver eventually wound up in my own toolbox and went with me when I moved out. Almost 30 years ago. I just used it yesterday to put up a shelf.