The thread about going through a relative belongings after their death got me thinking. There were a few mentions of people who grew up during the depression stashing money around the house.
My Grandma has a weird habit of hiding knives and forks under the table when it started thundering. I’ve heard two explanations for it, the first that the metal could attract the lightening, and the second that it reminded her of the blitz, and loose metal flying around in the event of a bombing was bad.
What other weird habits / superstitions do you know old relatives having?
When I was a kid and over at my grandmother’s, she’d make me wash my face before breakfast. Not my hands. Just my face. I never got an explanation for why.
My other grandmother will NOT leave the house without putting on lipstick. Not any other makeup, neccesarily, but if she’s going out in her robe and slippers to get the paper, she’ll put on lipstick.
As a child whenever I slept over at my grandmothers, She would make us cross our arms over our chest. The idea was that if you didn’t do that your soul would escape during the night. Well, being a little smartasss and not liking to sleep like that, I told her one night that I had tied my soul to the bedpost. I think I was maybe 6 years old. I never thought about how odd that was until just now.
My father has a whole row of jars of change across the back of his dresser: a jar of pennies, a jar of nickels, a jar of dimes, a jar of quarters, a jar of dollar coins, a jar of two-dollar coins. Pennies aren’t that unusual, but two-dollar coins? There’s some serious sums adding up there.
I guess he’ll never run out of bus fare. Pity he’s too frail to get on a bus…
My dad only wants one light on in the room… This drives me nuts. Oh, he has a freezer that has got to be 55 years old. I’m sure it cost nothing to run that!!!
Girlbysea reminds me of another one. My grandfather only wants a light on when you’re using it. Now, this is not “when you’re in the same room,” oh no, you better have a reason like you’re reading and it’s dark outside. Now, I understand not burning the lights all day, but this?
Related to lights: my father goes absolutely batty if there’s a light on in a room that’s unoccupied. If you have to go to the bathroom, you turn off all the lights in the room you’re occupying, head into a dark hallway, turn on the light, head into the bathroom, turn on the light there, head back into the hall and turn off the light there, and then do what you have to do in the john. The ritual is reversed when you leave the bathroom.
I don’t know how common it is now, but when I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, it seemed like older people were very reluctant to use battery-powered radios and remote controls, because they’d “wear out the batteries.” Same thing with many amenities found in cars, like power windows and air conditioning; they just didn’t use them, because “they’ll wear out.” I always found this very illogical; why were they so worried about wearing out something that they never used? What sort of soecial occasion were they saving the auto air conditioning or the remote control for?
Hey, I try in vain to insist that lights not be on when they’re not needed. Why should a light be burning away, using up its useful life and the electricity I’m paying for when it’s not needed? Do you get your power for free? Same with batteries. I turn my cell phone off when I’m home.
Now, not using the A/C, etc. in the car *when you need it * is silly.
I find it hard to believe that someone wouldn’t use the power windows. How did they open the window, then? I’ve never seen a car that came with both manual and power on the same window. Must have gotten pretty stuffy in the summer with no a/c and all the windows permanently closed.
My grandfather used to keep an empty corn can in the car in case he had to pee when he was on the road. I’ve always believed it was because there was not a 7-11 on every corner when he was young but it’s still gross.
I actually carry a bottle of some kind on road trips, just in case I hafta go.
Maybe I wasn’t adequately conveying the weirdness of the light usage. He’s the type that’ll hold up his book to the rapidly-fading light out the window (and contort into a weird position) rather than turn on a light to read. My power isn’t free, but my rates aren’t so high that one bulb is going to drive me to penury.
I’m okay with having the lights on when you need them, but why not turn 'em off when they’re not needed? My daughters drive me nuts with this. They can turn on every light in the house on their way to get something from the basement, but can’t turn them off again on the return trip. ARRGGH!
I don’t know. I’ve been practicing being an old fart for so long, maybe I’ve actually become one.
Backed in the days when I needed computer tech support, and was on one of those interminable holds while the techie was administering to other users, I
peed into an empty coffee can rather than risk missing the time when the guy picked up.
Heck, not only my kids but my husband does this! I’ve come home to find almost EVERY light in the house on AND the television. One person home, working on the computer. The excuse is that whoever’s home is doing laundry (as if the machine needs to see what it’s doing), had changed clothes in the bedroom and gotten food in the kitchen and was planning to watch t.v. soon. WTF? So why is the dining room light on? It’s next to the office with the computer and it’s nice to have some light nearby. :rolleyes:
Both of my grandmothers would keep a fresh Kleenex tucked into the sleeve of her sweater. Just the end would poke out and it always reminded me of a magician getting ready to do a scarf trick. My mom has started doing this as well. One of the above grandmothers also always had a safety pin somewhere on her clothing. Not to keep her clothing mended, but rather for emergencies.
[grandpa simpson]“We can’t bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell them stories that don’t go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heal for my shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which was what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry costs a nickel. And in those days nickels had pictures of Bumble Bees on them. `Gimme five bees for a quarter’ you’d say. Now where were we…oh yeah, the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time…they didn’t have white onions, because of the war, the only thing you could get was the big yellow ones.” [/grandpa simpson]
My mom in law’s grandma lived thru the depression…When she would visit her during her childhood, grandma would complain to her mom over the phone that she was going to charge her “potato money” because my mom in law would eat a raw potato just about every day.
Once, when his mom and dad were visiting her, she decided to make grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. She asked my m-i-l (V) how many sandwiches they wanted, and she said three…one for her and two for her husband (J). Grandma made a half sandwich for V, and a whole one cut in half for J…
In her later years, (1980’s) when they would take her places she would always ask to eat at McDonald’s and always ordered a hamburger…they couldn’t figure out why she liked McDonald’s so much… they later figured out it was because they (the burgers) were so cheap.
Her Grandma also liked to stockpile canned goods. My own grandmother had a large deep freezer almost completely full of plastic bags of frozen vegetables she had grown in her garden over the years.
My parents always had a thing about not taking a bath or shower during a thunderstorm. I thought it just one of those old folk tales until I learned that my grandfather had been taking a bath when the telephone pole outside got hit by lightning. In addition to blowing every eletrical device out, the lightning arced across the room and hit the old steel tub my grandfather was bathing in.
My in-laws are like this. To this day, my FIL won’t use the remote to turn the TV on or off. He turns it on and off at the set, because he thinks using the remote for anything other than changing channels and adjusting the volume wears out the “batt-ries” (two syllables :rolleyes: ) faster.
He also won’t buy a car with AC or power windows or locks, because they drain the car battery faster, too. “Everyone” he knows with AC and power windows and locks has to buy a new car battery just about every year, and it’s because of that damn AC and power accessories. Yeah, whatever…
He also never buys new cars, only used, but that’s another thread.