What is the strangest rule you had to follow at someone else's house?

Apparently absinthe has never been illegal in ?? CC.

Besides my grandmother’s potion had no alcohol (she was TT) simply adding boiling water to the ? and letting it cool to become the most vile, revolting noxious liquid I’ve ever drunk!

I seem to think it was believed to be a cure-all, especially worms! I’ve never had worms so I’m torn between thinking it worked and still being shocked at the sheer glee with which they dosed us! ?

I know it’s wedding etiquette and, as my mum would say I’m common but I was sat in a marquee at someone’s wedding with a lots of other people and we all had to get up and go outside so we could then walk back in and shake the bride and grooms hands ( or speak to them or something). I didn’t really know what to say, especially as we’d chatted throughout the day anyway. It just seemed silly. Especially as my FIL had to do the same even though he was quite old and getting a bit unsteady on his feet.

When I stayed with my best friend and it was very hot in the summer, her mother wore a bathing costume all day and her father, swimming trunks. Cooked, ate, watched TV all in their cossies ?

When visiting friends or family as a child my mother always told me beforehand to "always take the smallest slice of cake or fruit if it's offered" and if I was asked if I'd like a drink to either say "No thank you" or "Just a glass of water please". I should not expect other people to have soft drinks available, not that we ever had them at home either! I can remember telling our sons the same things, especially before visiting my in-laws.

When we visited my husband's parents my FIL always insisted our sons ate everything on their plates whether they liked it or not. They were not allowed to have desert or leave the table until they did. Our youngest used to get quite upset about it. When they visited us one Sunday I deliberately served something I knew my FIL loathed, and then insisted he clear his plate or I wouldn't let him leave the table. He laughed but looked embarrassed as my eldest son said "Granddad that's what you always tell us" Reluctantly he did as he was told, but never told our sons to do that again.

Pantglas2

NanOf8Girls

Another childhood memory was never to mention you felt poorly at Grannys..As a farmers daughterwho then married a farmer she would whisk 2 raw eggs, a splash of milk and sugar in a cup. Then insisted I drank it all quickly. I did as I was told as she stood watching. My dad (her son) carried on with his mother's solution to all childhood ailments. I soon learnt to not admit 'feeling unwell'.

Oh lawdy nan I remember trips to maternal grandparents on the farm and there’d be an enamel jug full of boiled and cooled wormwood….? and we were made to drink a small beaker full?‍? with my mam’s blessing!

I never understood, if it was as ‘good’ for us as all the adults said, why they weren’t drinking the darn stuff themselves! When I said that out loud my mother slapped me later for my impertinence ?

Isn't wormwood what they made absinthe out of? Which is now illegal, at least in this country!

I forgot to add that my father's chair was sacrosanct. No other bottom but his was allowed on the sacred cushions, even when he was out.......and that included my mother!

Baggytrazzas

Being told by my granny to choose either butter or jam on a sandwich but not both. And as a child when both visiting or being visited being told to NOT MENTION the ice cream van chimes, under any circumstances, in case people felt obliged to offer to buy ice cream for me and everyone else.

My mum enjoyed telling the story of her visit to a cousin when they were both children. When my mum was spreading her bread as normal, the other child shouted: "Hey Ma, she taks baith!!!"!!!..... (North East Scots)

1summer

I used to regularly stay with my cousin for overnight stays and my aunt always gave us tinned fruit with carnation milk for pudding which was OK. But she insisted we eat a slice of bread and butter with it! I thought it odd and only wanted the fruit and milk.

I was on a quest for Carnation milk today and was told by a village shop that there's a shortage! So stock up if you see it. I found it on Amazon. There's not much you can't find on there, it seems!

The 'butter or jam only' rule goes back to the war, when everything was rationed. My mother always did the spreading, very thinly, to eke out the tiny allowance each person got. It's amazing that people remained healthy on what rations they were allowed. I remember being told to say that we weren't hungry if anyone came to tea, and were given a very small helping of whatever was going.
When we visited my grandmother the adults sat down to tea. We youngsters were sent out to play in the yard, with a Spam sandwich each, and told not to make a noise. We hated the visits, which were, luckily, few and far between. I was only six when she died.

We had to be still and quiet for a while after eating, to give our dinner time to "fall off the shelf".

Not allowed to eat or drink in the living room because there was a whit carpet!

I am really loving this thread

After the Sunday bath we were given a cube of ‘chocolate’, which was kept high up on a ledge which we couldn’t reach, to keep us ‘regular’.

When I was a kid my mother had her own special favourite chair in living room. We had French students over the summer holidays and my mother used to force me to eat my supper quickly and go and perch in her chair (to reserve it) before this insipid French boy sat in it with a smirk for the rest of the evening, whilst my mother seethed.

I’m amazed how many of us don’t ‘get’ or take exception to people asking for shoes to be removed. I wouldn’t want to take mine off if the house was dirty-but if it was, they probably wouldn’t ask-but surely you can see how much dirt like chewing gum dog faeces etc or squashed berries can be inadvertently on our shoes. Sweaty feet on a carpet isn’t great, but isn’t the previous option worse??

Remember the dettol in the bath water, also had the raw eggs, sugar and milk at my grandmother's but she also insisted on a splash of brandy! Yes, yes, to Yorkshire pudding and gravy before the meal and popovers for pudding (Yorkshire lass) but the strangest one was a friend's relative who locked the kitchen in between meals. As a guest, if you missed a meal (set times laid out on a noticeboard) you just had to go hungry until the next opportunity. Nor could you help yourself, or anyone else for that matter, to a cup of tea or coffee when you felt like one. Coffee was made by the hostess at 11am and tea at 3.30pm and if you wanted water you had to refill your water glass when the kitchen was open at these times. Weird!

Oh jam AND butter in a sandwich took me back! Visiting my then boyfriend's grandmother with his parents, his mother was shocked that his father (now in his mother's house!) had jam and butter. That was over 55 years ago so I suppose wartime habits still stuck.
And bread with jelly or tinned fruit - my FIL could not eat the sweet without the bread!
All of it was alien to me!

When I was a child my mum always gave me a slice of bread & butter to eat with a banana. My mum said it helped with digestion. I think it was to fill me up. I also had to sit down while I was eating it.

When I first started going out with my now DH I used to go to his house for tea every Sunday. It was always a pudding, often tinned fruit and evap, with bread and butter, which was strange to me. Sometimes it was fruit pie and custard, the latter made with sterilised milk which took some getting used to, also with bread and butter!
However the strangest rule I remember was in the home of one of my school friends, where each member of the family had their own towel on a named hook in the bathroom. Her sister had the same name as me and, without thinking, I dried my hands on her towel. I then realised there was a towel named 'guest' that I should've used! I just kept quiet and hoped that no-one would notice.

My mother had a rule at teatime that you could only have a piece of cake for each slice of bread you ate. I blame my lifelong struggle with my weight on all the bread I ate that I didn't want, in order to eat the cake(s) that I did want! She didn't count on my capacity to still eat cake after stuffing my face with bread!

I think my dad used to eat that quite often, as it was one of his favourite things.

I used to have the same thing when I was a child. I used to dip my bread and butter in the carnation and the juice. It was lovely.

Yes, I remember eating tinned fruit, carnation milk with a slice of bread and butter as a child.
Don’t think that would be my taste now.

ditto the dettol
I remember my sister getting out (we bathed together to save
water), bending over to dry her feet and burning her bottom
on the petrol heater, the poor thing was
marked for weeks with the burn bars !

We often had Dettol in the weekly bath - Sunday, to be ready for the school week ahead.
Maybe it was to do with all three children using the same bath water? One after the other, I hasten to add. Huzzah for being the oldest, so in first!!

Like Shysal, we also had a firm F.H.B. rule.