The Weirdersons

Awkward Family Photos is one of the greatest inventions.

When you moved out and went to college or when you got married and came face to face with someone else's family habits and traditions, were you ever surprised to find that what was totally normal your whole life was weird to someone else? And the other way around? There are a lot of weirdnesses the other way around, let me tell you.

I've been thinking about a few lately. For one thing, I had some friends who thought my family's taste for the chocolate banana combination was totally weird. (Come on! A chocolate banana shake = heaven.) I thought others were weird for putting peanut butter on their pancakes or eating ketchup sandwiches (bread and ketchup = vomit). One of my friends always eats cooked green beans with her hands. Apparently that's just how they did it in her family. When my family gets a variety of donuts, we cut them into halves or fourths or whatever size we want so we can taste all of them, instead of being relegated to one solitary flavor. But some balk at this. We also mercilessly teased my sister in-law for peeling the whole banana before she ate it. It just seemed so wrong, since the peel was the perfect way to keep the banana slime contained while you enjoyed the fruit. (I do have to admit, though, that I sometimes find myself doing the same thing these days. Sometimes I just want to peel the thing and get it over with so I don't have to peel then eat then peel then eat, and so on. Don't judge. I'm going to in this post, but still don't.)

Another area to consider is sleeping. I know one family where all the kids fall asleep wherever they are late at night, in whatever they're wearing, and they're usually piled all around each other until morning. Not only does this sound incredibly bizarre to me, it also makes me feel claustrophobic. I'll hug you all you want in the daytime, but I need my space when I sleep. And I don't need anyone's knees in my back. I should school them in Ross Gellar's Hug & Roll technique.

And cleaning. I think lots of people have different cleaning practices. I know someone whose mother religiously washed everyone's sheets once a week. Now you might rightfully call me Dust Mite Ashley after I tell you this, but I'm pretty sure we called it good if the sheets got washed once a month-ish. (Or maybe that's just when I started to do my own laundry . . . wouldn't want to make my mom look bad.)

Anyway, what about you? What eye-opening experiences have you had about how other people live? Or was there ever a time where you realized you were the weird one?