No hats on the bed!

Okay, I’ve never actually heard someone say that in real life, but I do remember that from the movie Drugstore Cowboy.

And Matt Dillon’s character got pretty p**sed off when someone didn’t pay attention to that particular rule in his house.

What are the most ridiculous rules you’ve encountered in someone’s house?

Check out what AskReddit users said about this.

That’s…odd.

“I was five and at a friend’s house. We were playing in leaves outside. There was a box of leaves I wanted to move closer to his box of leaves.

My box had no bottom, so the leaves spilled out into a small pile. He went and told his mother, she came out and spanked me, quite hard. I ran home crying to my Mom, partly because it hurt and partly because of the injustice.

She comforted me, but didn’t do much else (or so I thought). I learned, decades later, my Mom called up the spanker and told her to never lay a hand on any of her children ever again.”

Oh, Jesus!

“I was in a friend’s kitchen (we were 8), sneezed, then turned and took a kitchen paper tissue from the roll, cleared my nose, and walked toward the kitchen sink door, to throw the wad into the trash bin.

My friend burst out “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”. I’m like “What? Throw away the trash.” He continued “ARE YOU CRAZY?! SNOT PAPER DOESN’T GO IN THE KITCHEN TRASH!! JESUS, WHAT IF MOM FOUND OUT!!”

I’d already thrown it, but he fished it out of the bin and flushed it in the toilet in under ten seconds.

I already knew his mom was a nasty ol’ battleaxe, but I had no idea how deep her will manifested itself in that sick house.”

Banished.

“When we were 13, a friend of mine was kicked out of the house by his parents for a week because he stacked things wrong in the freezer, and some bread got squished.

He spent the week staying at different friends’ houses each night until his parents let him come back home.”

Controlling.

“My FIL forbade my wife, and tried to forbid my two children, from driving once they passed their driving test.

His wisdom was “put that piece of paper [driving license] in a drawer for five years” to reduce the amount of insurance they would pay.

Spoken like he was passing down the knowledge of the Ancients. Fu**ing idiot.”

Hahahaha.

“That guests have to pay for their stay.

They invited me for dinner, then calculated how many minutes I was over, charged for my portion of food, drink, electricity and water usage.

Yes, they counted toilet flushing and timed me on hand washing.

I could never do this to anyone.”

A little nuts…

“When I was a kid, my friends mom was a little nuts.

She had a sitting room with a couch and a love seat that nobody was ever allowed to sit on. You had to walk through it to get to the rest of the house and it led to the kitchen and then the living room.

If you sat on the furniture in the sitting room she’d throw a fit. I always felt like it was such a waste, to have such a nice room and never use it. It would have been a perfect study room or reading room.

She also had other crazy rules, like punishing my friend when his little sister did anything wrong. As if he was responsible for her actions and looking out for her.”

Off to bed you go.

“I went to visit a college roomate’s family, and everyone had to go to bed at 8 pm because that was the youngest daughter’s bedtime. The kid was 8 or 9 years old.

I laughed because I thought they were joking, but the kid threw a tantrum that I wasn’t going to bed. They weren’t kidding. I did, obviously, but wtf?

The next day the parents told me it would be best if I just head on back to college a day early. Yeah, no kidding, bye!

My roommate thought I was the asshole.

I laughed at her too.”

Legitimately insane.

“I had a friend in 5th grade and her mother was legitimately insane.

She wouldn’t let her daughter come to my house because we had carpeting. I think she had some munchausen by proxy because she was convinced her child was allergic to everything, including dust mites/any innocuous dirt in carpeting.

The girl also developed an eating disorder…she was a dancer when we were kids and her mother apparently monitored what she ate extremely closely. I felt so badly for her.”

That’s totally normal.

“My best friend growing up, had to walk around her house on her tippy toes, because her parents couldn’t stand hearing her footsteps.”

Overdoing it.

“In college I worked on a project with a girl who had to call her mother every time she relocated on campus. Like, when she left a location and then again when she arrived at the next location.

So when she moved from the cafeteria to the library, or when we took a break to go get a coffee and when we left to go back to our dorms, when class started, when she left class, Had to call her mom. I avoided her for the rest of college.”

An old hippie.

“A friend’s mom had gone to Woodstock and never quite recovered.

Her magazines said that processed food was bad, so she wouldn’t let my friend use the food processor they got for Christmas. (I swear I’m not making that up.)

Having once heard “using the microwave” described as “nuking the food”, no one was allowed into the kitchen while the microwave was running. You had to set the timer, hit start, then run to the living room until it beeped.

She read that more people died of lightning strikes than bee stings. (I don’t know if that’s actually true; she read all sorts of bullshit so who knows.) She knew lots of beekeepers, and a couple of them d**d from bee stings, so she inferred that d**th from lightning was somewhat common.

When a thunderstorm was blowing in — and in southwest Missouri, that was all the d**n time — she made everyone sit in the middle of the living room. It wasn’t enough to be indoors. You had to be many feet away from any closed window.

My buddy practically lived at my house.”

Have you ever had to deal with something like this?

If so, tell us your story in the comments.

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