Head
My father in law was a primary school head teacher and magistrate, so his control freakery hit extreme levels. Examples include:
- counting out potatoes so everyone got exactly the same number (whether you wanted them or not). He referred to this as the 'regulation number of potatoes'.
- obsessively pointing out dog crap on the pavement whenever we were within 10 m of it. I'm surprised he didn't get the family to walk in crocodile.
- timing our visits to, well, anywhere really. If he felt we had been somewhere too long he would start to huff and puff and look at his watch. Planning holidays was like a military operation.
- drinks had to be taken at particular times of day, e.g. coffee at 11am, tea at 4pm, glass of wine at 6pm on the dot. He would start to get extremely nervous if the appointed time was missed. Possibly connected to the issue of timing visits out.
- breakfast always had to be exactly the same: orange juice (to be drunk before the meal, not after), a small bowl of muesli, 2 slices of toast, tea.
- phone calls had to be planned to the millisecond. If you didn't call when you said you would he would panic. He would sit by the phone 5 minutes before the appointed time, waiting for the call.
Add to this that he was a small-minded bigot with a taste for petty bureaucracy, and you can imagine that we had a very happy friendship...
(Smale is stuffed, Tue 28 Oct 2014, 5:41, 1 reply)

muesli?

(Porcupine, Tue 28 Oct 2014, 21:37, closed)