That image is lovely. I want to take it home and hug it.
We have sugar in a glass cannister, along with cannisters for flour, brown sugar, powdered sugar, fake sugar, and popcorn. No, they don’t all match.
I’m trying to remember what the cannisters were labeled when I was a kid. I think it was flour, sugar, tea, and coffee. Four labeled cannisters varying in size, with flour being largest and working down from there (although tea may have been the smallest). And my folks didn’t drink tea and kept the coffee in the coffee can, so the second smallest cannister was filled with brown sugar and the smallest was filled with coupons.
My kids have finally trained me to put the lid down in the bathroom “to keep the dogs from going in there to drink.” It’s true that the door will unlatch if they push on it and once they’re in there, they chew on things in the wastebasket. And my dog will chew on the side of the toilet paper roll. But having the lid down doesn’t keep them away - our vigilence does. Still, it was obviously important to them and I adjusted.
We have sugar in the house, but in a sealed Tupperware, not a nice bowl. I’d like to have a nice bowl, but it seems to be too humid or something and the sugar always clumps. I do own a sugar bowl for entertaining.
We don’t have a microwave. I don’t know when I’d use one, or what space I’d willingly give up for one. I did just fine with the stove top for heating baby food and milk (recently too, so I’m not remembering this through the fog of time or anything).
How about changing the locks on the doors as soon as you move in? I know that’s how we always do it, and without really thinking about it would assume to be universal, but now that I’m actually giving the old neurons something to ponder, I’m thinking probably not (esp. if some people are going around without house keys at all, wtf…)
I have a pair of scissors in pretty much every room in my house - I hate needing to cut something and rummaging through every drawer in the house to find a pair. Cheap dollar store scissors took care of that!
We don’t have a working dishwasher - the one that came with the house bummed out on us a couple of years ago, and we just can’t be bothered to replace it.
I was well-advanced in age before I learned that block heaters in cars weren’t universal. I bought a car, went to plug it in one cold day, and where the hell is my block heater cord?!? Apparently you have to go out of your way to add those to a car, which still doesn’t make sense to me because my experience of life is that every car needs one.
I do keep a sugar bowl, although it’s not a bowl; it’s a covered container that my late husband made (he was a potter). I keep lovely, misshapen brown sugar lumps from India in it, and I put them into my tea with silver tongs.
I also always keep the toilet lid down so animals won’t drink or fall in and also so I won’t accidentally drop in my hair brush, hair dryer, glasses, earrings, toothbrush, etc.
One thing that I ALWAYSALWAYS have around, and not everyone does, is/are multiple boxes of kleenex. I blow my nose, clean my glasses, pick up small amounts of kitty throw-up, wipe off excess hand lotion, and plenty of other stuff. I have a friend who NEVER buys kleenex. I would drown in my own secretions without it. I’ve tried using toilet paper [and can we please call it “toilet paper,” not “bath tissue,” as no one bathes with/in it. Thank you.] but TP is designed to disintegrate when it hits copious moisture.
Curious about the following reply. Not intending to be challenging or confrontational at all, but simply curious. What sort of meals do you eat at home-- or do you eat at home? Cereal and milk? Cheese and crackers? Make sandwiches?
ETA: Ditto what Cat Whisperer said: I have scissors EVERYWHERE and also metal nail files. I got tired of never being able to find them, so bought zillions and put them everywhere.
I’ve always suspected that ThelmaLou, CatWhisperer and I were triplets separated at birth. Now I have the evidence. I keep Kleenex, scissors, nail files and nail clippers in every room of the house. You just never know when you’re gonna need them!
We always have sugar although in a sealed container rather than a bowl. Can’t imagine not having sugar, it seems such a staple to me.
We don’t put the toilet lid down - I didn’t even know that was a thing. Our toilet is in its own little room though, don’t know if that makes a difference.
We don’t lock doors in the day time. We don’t usually wear shoes in the house but it’s a lazy comfort thing, not a ‘you must take off your shoes’ thing. I don’t expect visitors to take off their shoes and I don’t mind if they do or if they don’t.
The microwave died and we use it so rarely that we haven’t replaced it and we don’t miss it.
We have scissors everywhere, and a few sets of nail clippers, and several rolls of sticky tape around the place.
And we always have tissues - a box in the kitchen, a box in the loungeroom, a box in the bedroom and a box in the bathroom!
Well, the people lucky enough to be in our lifeboat will have dry noses, trimmed hair, and filed nails when we set up the colony on that desert island.
I know I’m not going to make the edit window so making a new post.
I just experienced something that used to be “universal,” and I’ don’t think it is any more. I made some beef stew in my crockpot last week that was just too much for me, so I took some to my neighbor across the street. She’s also a widow who lives alone, and she’s in her mid 70s, about 10 years older than me.
Today she brought my container back (which I didn’t expect, as it was a disposable one) with some tomatoes and home-grown potatoes in it. (I’ve never had home-grown potatoes.) Many of you probably remember a time when you never returned someone’s dish empty-- it had to contain some treat of yours as a thank you.
Over the past month, I’ve given crockpot surplus to two other households (both with members younger than me) and don’t expect the containers back. It’s perfectly okay… just noted that this custom is probably dying out.
My grandmother was very unusual in not allowing guests to smoke in her house (her stock response was “I’m sorry I don’t have any ashtrays”). Seeing as how she had to quit smoking to marry my grandfather she’d be damned if she allowed anyone to smoke in her house.
This is interesting; my wife and I know very few people who smoke (my brother is probably the only one) and even he is considerate enough to politely excuse himself “I need to get some air” to partake without disturbing the hosts/other guests.
I guess I come from a different generation, but if I saw someone light up as a guest in my own house, I wouldn’t feel rude if I were to hustle them outside like the filthy animal they were (I’m from California, where smokers are second class citizens).
My surprise that apparently isn’t universal is carrying jumper cables in a vehicle. On one of my first jobs in Tennessee, I became the one to ask when someone had a dead battery. Years of living in snow country will do that to you.
One of the most horrifyingly embarassing things is when you go to someone’s house you don’t know very well, use their toilet for the first time, and have to take a massive dump. Water pressure and style of toilets vary, so you never know what you are going to get in terms of the ability of the toilet to handle your…uh…deposit.
So imagine my horror when I went to visit one of my wife’s friends very early on, timed it poorly, had to take a dump, and then clogged their somewhat low flow toilet. Not so bad, you think, because you’ll just have to ask them for a toilet plunger. You’ll all laugh about it later, right?
Right, unless these people announce that they don’t own a toilet plunger :eek:. But wait, aren’t they universally owned by EVERYONE? Apparently not. Yep, then you have to go fishing with your hand to unclog the toilet manually, making for an even more uncomfortable situation. I couldn’t believe there was such a thing as a home that didn’t have a toilet plunger. Well, needless to say, we are all friends now and as a joke/serious gift one year, I put a toilet plunger under their Christmas tree with a bow from ‘Santa’, though I have never had a repeat performance.
Still, I couldn’t believe that someone who owned a low flow toilet didn’t own a toilet plunger. I’d feel like every time I dropped a deuce I’d be playing Russian Roulette.
Low flow toilets must be different in Australia. We don’t have a toilet plunger and there’s never been a time when we’ve needed one. We’re getting older too though - perhaps I should invest in one??
This has happened to me, too. It makes you wish someone would invent a collapsible toilet plunger that you could carry with you (like a collapsible umbrella). Note to self: don’t visit these people after a heavy lunch.
Hmmm…I’ll be bringing you a BIG container of my wonderful beef stroganoff next week.
Absolutely. Ditto the tweezers. I probably have at least a dozen pairs scattered around the house-- on the coffee table, in the bathroom, next to the computer (in addition to grooming my eyebrows while waiting for the computer to do things, I use the tweezers to pluck cat hairs from between the keys), on my bedside table, in my purse, and in my computer bag (I’m exclusively a laptop user). I’m in a constant quest for the perfect pair of tweezers. (I said my life was simple.)
I don’t have nail files everywhere, but I do have dental floss in just about every room. (The kleenex in every room is because of my husband and his allergies - I’ve never met anyone who blew his nose as much as he does!)
