Question of the Day!

[telophase]

What does your family do that you assumed was perfectly normal until you found out otherwise? (Based on this reddit post - don't go in unless you've got a couple of hours to spend reading.)

My answers ... mostly cut-and-pasted from my Reddit comments. :)

-- Salting melons. I remember being at college and sitting across from a German girl in the dining hall, who freaked the hell out when I salted my watermelon. Badly enough that I was mildly concerned I'd traumatized her.

-- My family on my dad's side are all tall, good-looking, red-haired, and musical. They play instruments and sing (in tune, even!) and write songs. Every time the family gets together, eventually the guitars come out and everyone sits around and sings.

I warned myrialux about this. He didn't believe me. Until we went to my cousin's wedding last fall, and the rehearsal dinner was jam packed with tall redheads singing and playing guitars, the wedding had a song that was written by my uncle for his wedding that's been sung at every wedding in the family since, and everyone got up and danced for hours at the reception. He still doesn't quite believe it, and tends to sputter "They're ... they're like the Partridge Family! Only good!"

(Someone said to me, once, "So your dad's family are all elves, then?" And yes, being short, dumpy, non-musical, and brown-haired at family get-togethers is exactly like being a hobbit among elves.)

-- We also tend to play penny-ante poker at every family get-together, which confused a few of my friends whose families thought gambling was a sin.

-- My parents turned me into a skeptic by insisting in the reality of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. I had many, many arguments with my parents where I attempted to point out all the facts that proved these personages couldn't be real, and they continually insisted that no, they were real. Drove me nuts as a kid, because I couldn't believe they would be that stupid.

-- We called the television remote the "flipperdoodle". Only pronounced correctly if you're also miming holding it in your hand and punching buttons with your thumb.

-- myrialux derives endless hours of amusement from "zoot-zoot," which is my family's name for a metal tape measure.

Comments

[ellen_fremedon]

My parents tried valiently to do the Santa thing, but they were so bad at lying to me. I figured out very early on that Santa was pretend, but I refrained from saying anything for a couple of years, until I had decided that letting on that I knew probably wasn't going to stem the tide of presents.

[telophase]

I can't even remember thinking that they were real. Although I was strict enough about ritual that when I was at my grandparents' house with my parents and lost a tooth and managed to actually lose it by knocking it out from under my pillow to somewhere on the carpet that I was terrified I wouldn't get my money, and ran crying to my mom.

[thomasyan]

But at least it sounds like you were never traumatized about Santa or the Easter Bunny:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/year-easter-bunny-died.html

[yhlee]

My dad tried valiantly to do Santa Claus but we caught him out. (We wanted evidence and asked for the names of all the reindeer. My dad, not having been raised with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," claimed that he was old and his memory was going. Also, the letter was in his handwriting.) I don't remember the Easter Bunny (although we did do eggs), and although we saved teeth, I don't think we did the Tooth Fairy either (I read about it in storybooks from England).

I'm trying to think of other stuff but coming up blank. For instance, we habitually had fruit for dessert instead of, e.g., cake or pudding, but that's very common in Korea even if it wasn't common in Houston. And I also suspect making fresh tomato juice with sugar instead of hot sauce or whatever is typical in Korea. (I don't care for V8, but I love sugared fresh tomato juice!)

[telophase]

I read about it in storybooks from England

My idea of what school was like was heavily informed by reading Enid Blyton books when I was in Africa. XD

[morineko]

What, there are people who DON'T put salt on watermelons?

[telophase]

There's at least one in Germany!

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I've never done it or heard of it before! (Although since I'm fond of salted tomatoes, prosciutto on melons, ham on apples, or peanuts/potato chips in Coke, I'm probably going to rush out for watermelon tomorrow so I can try this for myself...)

[telophase]

Report back!

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Verdict: OM NOM NOM!

[solarbird]

I'm totally familiar with the salted-melon thing as a Southern thing. My partner Anna does it, too. (Not usually watermelon, but all other melon.)

[torachan]

My mom never did Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy with me, because she believed it wasn't good to lie to your kids. (I believe the same thing, and also that it's better for your kids to know that you are getting them this stuff, rather than have them just think it magically appears for free, but I have no plans to have kids, so it doesn't matter anyway.)

When I was three or four, I told my cousin Santa Claus didn't exist and made him cry (he was a year older). XD

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

I'm right there with you with salting melons. Of course, a college bud from Madras turned me onto to peppered melons. Yum!

Also - salted grapefruit - get that silly sugar away from me!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I now really like melon, especially watermelon, with prosciutto and cracked black pepper. I didn't realize how good pepper would taste with melon until I was served it that was in a restaurant.

Never tried salted grapefruit, though!

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

It vita the bitterness and acenryatea the sweetness. Very nice with Ruby Reds.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Salting grapefruit or grapefruit juice is very interesting. I think the grapefruit/juice needs to be fresh (as in, don't try with bottled juice), and then the salt makes it a lot sweeter.

I remember on RASFF (I think), someone said they liked eating salted lemons.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Salt is supposed to bring out the sweetness of melons, so I assume it does the same with grapefruit.

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

Wow- autocorrect and rushing don't mix!

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

I had a conversation with a guy from Mexico City over the weekend who had never heard of salting melons (canteloupe in the conversation in question), but understood it, since it's fairly common to put chili powder on mangos and watermelons there. My family salts canteloupe pretty regularly, though I generally leave it unsalted if it's really ripe.

My mother and I have very snarky "conversations" that have worried friends of mine because they think we're fighting. We're not, of course, but the phrase "Are you some special kind of retarded that you can't [fill in task]?" has come up more than once. Not particularly PC, I know, but we don't do it to people outside the family.

We generally do Christmas dinner and presents on the night before Christmas as a family, with "Santa" gifts arriving the next day for the kids. In recent years, this has resulted in me being without anything to do on Christmas, which when I talk approvingly about a nice Asian or Indian restaurant that I found on Christmas Day, I get looks of pity from people who don't know that I've already done the whole Christmas thing (including a midnight service) with my family already.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

My dad's family did Christmas on Christmas Eve also. Mom would reserve the stockings she filled for Christmas morning so I'd have something to do then. But we tended to spread the celebrations and gift-opening out over several days anyway, what with visiting two different sides of the family and having my birthday on the 29th.

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

- Use the phrase 'brain fart' for when you're having trouble thinking about something. As well as not think anything of how it might sound to others. I've had a teacher get after me for using that term for something once. XD

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I picked that up from friends of mine, and often have to stop myself from saying it in inappropriate circumstances. XD

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I picked that up from newsgroups. I now try to use braino (like typo) instead.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Making stuff and fixing stuff and all sorts of general DIY. I grew up surrounded by all sorts of art-and-craft supplies and tools, stuff for sewing and crochet and tatting and embroidery and beadwork, leimaking and flower arranging and corsage-making supplies, watercolors and oils and pastels and colored pencils and charcoals, garden tools and basic woodworking/plumbing stuff, etc. It really, really boggled me to first encounter people who didn't seem to have ANY sort of handicraft or artistic hobbies/skills, or people who paid professionals to alter and mend their clothes, do their yardwork, wax their cars, paint their house, make basic handyman home repairs, etc., not because of simple lack of time or mobility issues, but because they simply DIDN'T KNOW HOW to do any of those things for themselves.

And pretty much inextricably tied in to the first one -- not being raised to think that fix-it tool use, hobbies, etc. were particularly gendered activities. My grandpa, male cousins, etc. knew how to sew leather and do beadwork; my mom, aunts, etc. could drive a tractor or handle a shotgun or use power tools. The first time I encountered folks who thought that my lack of a Y chromosome meant that I must not be competent to hang a picture or assemble an Ikea bookcase blew my freaking mind, and not in a good way.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

My mom had a loom and wove, but as I had a friend whose mother also wove, it seemed perfectly normal to me. :D

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Yeah, most of our close family friends when I was growing up may not have been quite as polycraftual as we were, but they still all pretty much did *something* -- this one did a little bit of embroidery and sewing, that one made lei and corsages, another one did calligraphy, and so forth. I don't think I ran into anyone who literally had no hands-on hobbies and skills, didn't know how to sew on a button or hang a picture or boil water, until I was college-age and on the mainland.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I knew that some stuff we did was unusual due to our circumstances - living in the Serengeti for 2 years and being forced to be partially self-reliant because of that - so I think lots of things like knowing how to wash clothes in the bathtub didn't surprise me that nobody else knew how to do.

[awamiba.livejournal.com]

We grew up somewhat that way. We did most of our own making and fixing of things. No handymen hired in to speak of until I was in high school. My mom did a lot of the outdoors work and renovating and my dad did all the electrical & plumbing. Everyone did some kind of artistic work. I still do all of the furniture assembling and electronics setting-up for my parents & my family. I didn't know until high school that people actually hired people in to do household or car maintenance or painting or building. It still seems weird to me.

[chisotahn]

Freezing bread.

We also still celebrate Sinterklaas as a holdover from our years living in the Netherlands, and we have an Easter tree each year (though that tradition seems to be spreading, when we first started doing that everyone thought it was SO WEIRD).

[telophase.livejournal.com]

As a kid I would have wanted to celebrate Sinterklaas because it would have meant more presents. :D

Haven't come across an Easter tree yet. Huh.

[chisotahn]

I see them in some of the stores here (San Francisco Bay Area) on occasion. They're not pine trees or anything, just branches of a flowering tree, decorated with egg ornaments and little chicks with wire feet that you can perch on the branches. We imported the tradition from the Netherlands though I believe other European cultures do that as well.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I've occasionally seen plastic or metal Easter trees in hobby/craft stores in the DC/NoVa area over the past few years, and Googling for examples turned up the natural-branch version on MarthStewart.com, so that seems to be a bit more anecdata that they're getting a little more common in the US...

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

We stick bread in the freezer, too, because we don't eat all that much of it, and just leaving it in the fridge leads to mold.

[readsalot.livejournal.com]

We froze bread too! If it's pre-sliced, you can just toast the slices to reheat them.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I do that too if I bake a big batch or buy a ton on sale -- otherwise it goes stale or fuzzy before I can finish it.

But I also grew up keeping almost EVERYTHING in the fridge -- butter, condiments like ketchup and shoyu, fruit, homemade or open packages of cookies and crackers, birdseed for my pets. Between the heat and humidity many things would tend to spoil, go rancid or soggy faster if kept out on the counter, and in a two-person household we just didn't go through the food fast enough to make up for that, and I guess the habit extended to almost everything whether it made sense or not. (The one major exception to the rule, for some reason, was peanut butter, which had to be kept at room temperature.)

[awamiba.livejournal.com]

We do the Easter tree, too! My extended family is Norwegian and Swedish, so it probably came from that.

[cicer.livejournal.com]

I had absolutely no idea that salting melons was unusual! We do it too. Also, we call the remote the 'flipperdipper' and do the button-pushing gesture too. XD

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Two more that I hadn't thought of earlier --

Visiting family gravesites throughout the year -- not just on holidays or anniversaries, etc., but just sort of random "it's a nice weekend, let's go visit" just because, with maybe some flowers or a bottle of water to clean the gravestones. It's not like these places were old and neglected...the grave we went to most often was at Punchbowl, which is kind of like the Arlington of the Pacific and pretty well-maintained, but it was just an everyday family sort of thing to also take care of the site ourselves.

Presents from pets. Oh, we did the presents *for* pets too, any animals in the household would get some sort of new treat or toy for Christmas, and their names got "signed" to greeting cards for the humans on birthdays/holidays/etc., but I've known many other pet owners who did that sort of thing. But at some point in my tweens or thereabouts my mom started in on this thing where any gift-giving occasion would typically include one item that was "from" the animals rather than her. _{That only started to weird me out when she kept sending me presents from my dog who'd been dead for five years... o_O}

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Toby's parents' dog has been dead for almost five years, and Toby and his brother still get presents from her!

I get presents from Santa, in my mom's handwriting.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Heh, well, in all fairness I should add that if the dead-pet-gifts had been a continuous thing, rather than starting up years after the fact, and also not seen in conjunction with some other escalating behaviors that were going, ah, somehwhat beyond the usual baseline quirks I was accustomed to, I probably wouldn't have been weirded out either.

[chisotahn]

My family does presents from pets too! Not deceased ones, but... it's fairly normal for some of our Christmas gifts to be from one of the dogs.

[octopedingenue]

-- Sleeping on waterbeds. Bad allergies/asthma in family meant that ever since I can remember, all my household slept on waterbeds. And my best friend growing up and her family all had waterbeds (because they were rich, not asthmatic). Then I got to college and started wondering aloud why I couldn't bring my waterbed with me, and promptly discovered that the rest of the world thinks waterbeds are reserved for A)'80s millionaires B)porn C)'80s millionaire porn.

...I am currently writing this sitting atop the same waterbed frame (now filled with a custom-made, non-water mattress) that I've used since I was five. You just can't beat the extra height plus 2 rows of drawer storage!