[offtopic]this is a great thread, it makes me feel ok that my family isn’t the only set of people with puzzling quirks. 
I _am _ wondering about the foot-dragging quirk. It’s been metioned a couple of times… why would someone do that? Wouldn’t the tips of their shoes wear out?
[/offtopic]
-k
curious
It pisses me off that everyone in my family is so damn uninitiated when it comes to the holidays. I don’t think we celebrated a christmas, birthday, New Year, etc… since I was 11. My mother has bought me one gift for christmas in the last 15 years and it was a pair of socks. I shit you not. I finally gave up a couple years ago when I was the only one still buying gifts.
I just thought of one my husband does. After he eats an apple he’ll put the core in his mouth and suck on it and roll it around and lick it and slurp on it. It’s one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen.
My mother will sing all the time just to annoy me, then claim that I like it. Then again, she deludes herself into thinking that about everything. She’ll also mispronounce words like “anus” and “red.” Don’t ask me…
F_X
In warm weather, Momma walks around the house in her underwear. In front of people. People she doesn’t know.
She says underwear covers the same places a bathing suit does, so what’s the big deal?
Momma turns 70 next month.
::shuddershuddershuddershudder::
My dear husband will sit down at the table and start eating long before anyone else is seated. His mother encourages this behavior, and because of that, my children started to pick it up. I can control them at my own house and on other occasions, but at their grandmother’s house, they’ll hop into their chairs next to their dad and start picking at whatever food is already on the table, even if the silverware isn’t set yet. Never mind the fact that their grandmother is still at the stove and their mother is helping get things ready; Daddy is helping himself to the bread and the crudites, and Grandma thinks it’s cute, so why shouldn’t they follow suit?
Oh! Did I mention the masonry? Every male on my dad’s side is either a stone mason, carpenter, contracter, or steel worker. And all they ever talk about is construction. Borrring.
Subsequently, every female on my mom’s side is a nurse. And all THEY talk about is the things they see at the hospital. Open wounds and stitches and disease. And they talk about it while I’m eating.
My mother slams cabinet doors. I spent the first seventeen years of my life severely sleep deprived because she wakes up at three thirty in the goddamned a.m. and feels no need to close the kitchen cabinet doors quietly.
I’ve lived on my own for a decade, and there’s a TON of stuff she does that makes me crazy, but I still seethe over the door slamming like nothing else. I need therapy.
My dad has a habit of trailing off in the middle of a sentence. Conversations will go like this.
“Hey, Dad, have you seen my nail file?”
“It’s upstairs on the…”
Five minutes later.
“Yes? Yes? WHERE is it?”
“Oh. On the dresser.”
My little brother leaves his pajamas all over the floor.
He also never rinses the toothpaste out of the sink after he brushes his teeth.
Aarrrgggghhh, nothing makes me crazier than slamming doors! In addition to my mother dragging her feet, she slams cabinets like a pro. In fact, I have a “Do Not Slam” sign on the door to my office.
My grandmother constantly quotes Rush Limbaugh.
I don’t “hate” the habit, but my mother saves things. I believe she’s got about 15 years worth of Redbook magazines under her bed.
My father doesn’t seem to be hard of hearing, but he watches TV with the volume turned way, way up, and it always seems to be the same show on the History Channel.
Grandpa: I don’t even know anymore. Racist conservative who reads a lot of Edgar Cayce. “Good thing for that WTC towers thing - now those damn Mexican Gooks will go back to their country and take the influenza with them.” WHAT?! That’s very nearly an exact quote.
Dad: Teases my siter and I so badly, that we rarely believe that he’ll actually do something he says he will. Ug. Oh, and he gets cats declawed, then puts them to sleep once they turn unfriendly because “he won’t last out on the street.”
Step-mom: Sends dirty Emails to my 14/15 (just turned 15 on Thurs) y/o sister. Like, “What do you get if you cross a pickle and a deer?” … “A dildo.” Ahem. Oh, and she puts food scraps in the sink. Just to sit there. And she got annoyed at The Cody for waking her up because I was vomiting with food poisoning. All he wanted to know was where the Pepto was. Gaaaaaaah. I could go on with her. I think I must, actually.
And then she ate my can of “I can actually stomach this” soup that The Cody made a special trip to the store for and yelled at me for not labelling it, even tho she always buys generic soup, does all the shopping, and my soup was Healthy Choice. I cried. Then I had to go to the store, since I was starving, even tho I felt like shit. My dad asked, “Do you feel okay to drive?” “NO. But I just spent 2 days puking, and I need to eat. And she ate me soup.” And I cried some more.
Mom: No phone conversation with her will last for less than 2 hours.
The Cody: Gets his Indoor and Outdoor voices confused sometimes. Like, will talk in a normal quiet tone while we’re in the car with the music on, road noise, and the window down. Also, sometimes I’ll say something to him, and he won’t reply. All I want is confirmation that you heard me.
Phew. I feel better.
This is EXACTLY what my mom does. If your dad and my mom ever had a conversation I think the world might explode.
My brothers lift their legs (like a dog does to pee) when they fart. They’re 19, 22 & 25 years old!
My mom thinks that she “just knows” things or has a “bad feeling”, especially when it comes to people’s relationships. For example “I just know that your brother’s girlfriend is going to leave him” or “You shouldn’t be buying a house with him, I just have a “bad feeling” about it” (she said this to me when my now DH and I bought a house). It drives me up the wall. Its always something negative also… and on the rare chances that whatever doom she’s predicting comes to pass, she gloats and brings it up for YEARS afterwards. I still hear about “bad feelings” she had about boyfriends of mine from 10 years ago.
Well, I think I love my grandma more than the rest of the family put together. So I won’t tell you how she smacks over her food or talks on the phone for hours about people I don’t know or drifts off in the middle of sentences. Let’s talk about my ex-husband instead. (Dear, dear, where to start…)
I bet I can think of more, but those have to be the top three.
Man, I keep coming up with em. When I go home to visit my mom and sister, I’m always annoyed by the stupid stuff, like:
The TV ALWAYS has to be on. My sister will turn on the TV, wander out of the room for 30 minutes, I’ll get annoyed and turn it off, she’ll come RUNNING out of her room yelling “Hey! I was watching that!”, turn it back on, and disappear again.
My dad talks soooo… very…slowly… when I call I usually ask him how he is and then " Okay Dad, can I talk to Mom?"
My mother breathes really loudly - I can’t stand to sit next to her in the movies.
My brother ( who is living in my house rent-free due some horrid legal stuff and a marriage break-up which is also something that bugs me but whattya gonna do? It’s family ) His three year old is with us 4 days out of the week and he NEVER makes her bed or makes her pick up her toys. She will gladly clean up when I ask to, but it bugs me that HE never tells her to.
My sister talks to me for hours and hours on the phone about people I’ve never heard of doing things I wasn’t present for in places I’ve never been. Then she asks me why I keep on saying “hmmm.”