The Weirdest Things That Happen at Other People’s Houses

27. A Glimpse into Military Family Life

Staying at a friend’s house when I was about 9. He had a younger sister and younger brother. And Colecovision, but that’s an aside despite how cool it was at the time. Everything seemed normal until morning.

“Get up,” Eric said. “Reveille.” (Despite it being called reveille, there was no actual horn playing or anything. )

“What?”

“Get UP!” he whispered urgently. “That means inspection!”

So, groggily, I helped him make his bed, which he did with a panicked urgency. I was sleeping in a trundle unit, which he also made, and did some weird “pinched seaming” to make the flat sheet creaseless. Then he said we had to stand in front of his bedroom door, hands behind our back, standing upright and straight ahead. His brother and sister were doing the same, all of us in our pajamas.

His dad came up the stairs, dressed in a plain white shirt, slacks, and a tie like he was going to work. He went into the younger brother’s room, and the little kid followed him in. I heard the father say stuff like, “Does that belong there? Why is your comforter backwards? I told you to fix that poster!” Then he comes back out and does the same thing to the sister. “I did not buy you that doll so it could sit slouched on a shelf! Those books need to be straightened! You didn’t put away your socks neatly!”

Every time I turned my head to look down the hall at the spectacle, Eric hissed (almost desperately) “Stare straight ahead! Don’t look!”

Then it was our turn. The father nodded at me, said my last name as in a greeting, and then went in. The father inspected whatever he inspected; by now I was too scared to look at him so I am not sure what he was looking at or for. Eric did better than his siblings, all he got told was that his scout uniform needed to be washed and his windows were dirty.

Then the father went into the hallway and shouted, “TEN HUT!” He quickly inspected fingernails, hair, and teeth. He commented mine were dirty and that I should not bite my nails.

Now, he didn’t seem to mean per se, just really strict and firm. And the rest of the day went normally. And yes, when I asked, his dad was a former drill sergeant.

28. The Hoarder’s Dilemma

The one I always remember is the lady who told me she had called us 5 times and the previous 4 techs could not complete her installation so this time she wanted me to install it in a way that DID NOT encompass the basement. That didn’t seem… good.

Well, I tried, but essentially her drop came up from the ground, and literally the only way I could hook her up was to go into the basement, install a splitter and pick up her network throughout the rest of the house. I told her this and she sighed and said, “well I guess this isn’t happening”.

At this point, I was morbidly curious and a little worried, so I told her I at least had to try or else my boss would be mad. Surprisingly, she agreed to let me try but said there was no way it could be done. She leads me to the basement door and opens it and turns the light on. Right away I understood. Stacked on literally every inch of her floor and including two-thirds of the stairs were magazines, newspapers, and other assorted papers. They were stacked LITERALLY floor to ceiling. It wasn’t like a giant stack here and a giant stack there and lots of little stacks all over the place. Literally floor-to-ceiling stacks of papers, magazines, etc, covering literally every inch of the floor and 2/3 of the stairs. I went down the 1/3 of the stairs I could access with my eyes above the level of the ceiling and shined my flashlight through a small space created by a steal beam and a rafter too small for the stacks near the ceiling and it went all the way to the wall in both directions. It was as if her basement was filled up like a bathtub, only with paper. Unreal.

She told me that she just had a hard time throwing any of it away and was planning to read it someday. I apologized for not hooking her up and quickly left.

29. Dinner Becomes a Chore

I suppose it isn’t too weird in and of itself but an old friend of mine invited me to her new apartment in order to cook dinner for me. When I showed up she told me that the rule was that whoever doesn’t cook has to do the dishes and was that okay?

I said yes though I thought it was a little bit rude. The way I was raised was that as a guest, you must always offer to help with dishes or just jump in and help. But as a host, you never ever ask. But oh well, my friend was probably raised with slightly different values.

Anyway, I start scrubbing after our meal and then my friend’s two roommates who had both made their own meals threw their dishes in the sink too. I gave the girl roommate a significant look and she responded “Oh, all Sam’s guests do dishes in this house. It’s our rule.”

My friend also had to ask her two roommates for permission to invite friends over. She had to give at least a day’s notice and they couldn’t be there after ten o’clock.

30. Dad’s Gas Was a Hit

Dad farting at the dinner table at one of our family friends’ house and the whole family laughed like it was their everyday farting gag or something.

Dad goes, “one more… one more?”, he lets another one rip, and laughter intensifies.

Thank God I never had to eat with that family.

31. Not-So-Generous Host

When I was a kid, my brother and I used to eat dinner at the house of my then-best friend almost every weekend. Well her mom had this rule that you couldn’t have anything to drink during dinner. You literally had to finish everything on your plate until she would give you a drop of water. Well, one time I remember I was extremely thirsty and remember my throat was so dry to the point that I had trouble swallowing. I probably hadn’t had anything to drink all day because I’m always bad with that, but I still am actually. This grown woman refused to give a child any water or milk even though I was basically crying my eyes out at this point. She eventually gave in and gave less than half a glass of milk. I went home and told my mom I didn’t want to eat there again because of what happened. Apparently, she wasn’t aware of that rule and was super pissed. Especially since whenever my best friend and her 3 siblings were here my mom would always treat them to food and make sure they had more than enough.

purple_melancholy

32. Spoiled or Sensible

I had a best friend, but usually, she would come to my house. One day I went over, and for dinner, her mom gave us hot yogurt in a bowl. Like literally she put strawberry banana yogurt in a pot and heated it up and served it. I remember being so grossed out. And I always was a very outspoken child and told her I couldn’t eat it after taking a spoonful. She was offended. Later that night when my parents came to pick me up, she scolded them for raising a spoiled child…awk.

Splishsplashcoconut

33. Sharing Isn’t Always Caring

My mom was showering at a friend’s house once and didn’t have any shampoo of her own so they said she could use theirs. She started to realize something was off when it was too watery to make a proper lather, but she figured they may have just added some water to make it last longer. It wasn’t until she squirted some more out that she noticed the dirt, dandruff and hair in the shampoo. These people were using their shampoo and then putting as much of it as they could back in the bottle before rinsing.

34. The Art of Saying No

When I was ~10 I was at my best friend’s house and his mom told him to go do a chore or something and he said “no”. I was completely shocked and just blurted out “You’re allowed to say no??”. A couple of days later he was mad at me because his mom wouldn’t take no for an answer anymore and would say “Well, Urist’s parents don’t let him say no”.

35. Burn calories, Not turkey

Had a Thanksgiving dinner at my friend’s house. I was told her sister was a b*tch before I went over, but I was not prepared for her to do sit-ups on the floor next to the dinner table yelling at everyone about how fat they were. The family continued on like she wasn’t even there. It was very strange.

reddituser

36. Circling Around Rules

I had a friend in high school whose parents had an all-white living room that they kept immaculately clean. They even kept plastic covers over the couch and chairs as if it were 1960. Anyway, their stairs were literally two steps from the entry hall but those two steps were through the living room which nobody was allowed to walk in except my friend’s parents and their adult guests. So to get upstairs to her room we had to circle through her entire house to come around to the stairs from the other side. Her stepdad was a violent man so they were all too afraid to dare challenge the rule.

It wasn’t terribly inconvenient but it was weird, especially when her mom was watching TV and we had to walk past her and which meant we had to stop for an awkward chat. Really that was the worst of it.

37. A Purrfect Palace

Cleaning a huge condo for a wealthy book publisher, the owner felt that cats were sacred, so they had suspended walkways through the entire 6k sq ft condo for the two cats to walk on, so they could move through every room without having to touch the floor, additionally every 12 feet or so in each room, they had a cat balcony the cats could sit on made out of real crystal, we weren’t allowed to touch them as they were valued at $10,000 apiece.

38. Tent Becomes a Home

Home healthcare worker. Met with a patient who refused to let me enter his house. Our first visits were conducted on the street, between his car and mine. As he grew to trust me, we graduated to sitting on his front porch. The outside of his house had seen better days and could use some fixing up, but it really wasn’t all that bad. It was inside. At some point, the roof had progressed from “needs work” to “caved in” and he essentially had no roof, as it was all hanging down in his living room. He didn’t have the money to fix it or a good tarp. But he did have the money for a tent. And so he lived in a tent inside his house. He still had electricity and a partial roof over the kitchen.

floridianreader

39. Finger-Lickin’ Good

Once when I was a kid I was invited to stay over for dinner at a friend’s house. My friend’s mother poured a large quantity of ketchup into a cereal bowl, which the entire family all casually dipped their fingers into and licked throughout the meal.

reddituser

40. Living Among Trash

Rather than a garbage can, my friend’s family had room to throw away their garbage. A room that served no other purpose than a garbage can. I asked him what they were going to do when it was full, and he just said it wasn’t their problem because they were moving in a few months. Even if you’re moving wouldn’t you rather not have rotting piles of garbage in your house.