You've probably experienced that moment when you share a childhood memory that you think is perfectly normal, and a friend or spouse is like, "Uhhh...that's unhinged."
Which is why when author/editor/married person Kristen Mulrooney tweeted about this phenomenon, it totally resonated with people.
One of the perks of marriage is having someone around to let you know which normal things from your childhood were actually very very weird
Kristen told BuzzFeed that her tweet was inspired by two recent conversations with her husband: "When I was in elementary school, one of the best parts of the day was when the whole class walked across the school together for a big group bathroom trip. And he was like, '...that's not as normal as it sounds like you think it is.'"
Obviously, I'm with her husband on this one.
"Then later that day, something came up about school dances, and my husband said, 'I'm not sure if this is normal for public schools, but we always had a random priest show up to chaperone our middle school dances.' I was like, 'I am very sure that is NOT normal.'"
The responses to Kristen's tweet were filled with people sharing "normal" things from their own childhood. These are some of the best replies:
1.
@missmulrooney My mom was a nurse and after informing us that blue lips is a sign of low oxygen our standard joke after eating blue lollipops was "I stopped breathing!" Fast forward twenty years to my bf's sister staring at me after I playfully asked her children if they were suffocating.
2.
@missmulrooney Her mom is from MN so “duck-duck-goose” was called “duck-duck-gray duck.” I’m from Buffalo so there were butter lambs on Easter. Each believed the other was gaslighting when the concepts first came up.
3.
@missmulrooney many of our family “isms” were from my mom translating things from german on the fly. I was in culinary school and asked my chef if I should “scare the eggs” after cooking them. he was like?? scare them like boo??
4.
@missmulrooney @district12kitty So who else got ceremonially spanked on their birthday - one spank for each year and one to grow on? I thought everyone did until my husband was like “wait, wut?” And this was literally the ONLY time we were ever spanked.
5.
@missmulrooney Her: I thought you said we were having pancakes? Where’s the peanut butter?? Me: …uhhh
6.
@missmulrooney He put butter on ALL bread, even sandwiches. ALL sandwiches. Weird. He stopped when I pointed it out. I've a lot more pain and odd health stuff than I realized and grew up a bit neglected. He helped me normalize seeking medical care. Helpful! But...the butter was weird, right?
Note: To clear up any confusion, buttering plain bread is not weird at all. But for sandwiches, many people prefer condiments like mayo, vinegar, or mustard.
7.
@Blue92Lukas @missmulrooney I grew up putting apple sauce in my Kraft mac and cheese and I thought my boyfriend was going to call the authorities on me as well.
8.
@missmulrooney My mom always referred to arming the car alarm as “chirping.” Like “don’t forget to chirp the car.” I’ve been informed this has never been said before by anyone else.
9.
@missmulrooney The look on my partner's face when I told the kids to "go brush their fangs" like my mama did every night. 🤣🤣 He damn near got the garlic and stakes 😅
10.
@missmulrooney This reminds me of a friend who upon visiting his gf’s family discovered they had a sibling tradition to smash chocolate marshmallow cakes on each others’ foresheads before picking off the broken chocolate. He was utterly perplexed
11.
@missmulrooney For the longest time I didn’t know I was playing a lot of board games wrong because my grandma used to make it easy for us as kids so I was in for a surprise when my boyfriends competitive family wanted to play Yahtzee
12.
@missmulrooney The first time my wife made tacos for us, I'm like "did you forget the taco seasoning!?" And she stares at me blankly and says - "is that how you make them good like the restaurants!?" We both laughed. Her family NEVER used spices while cooking.
13.
@missmulrooney 'what do you mean you never chewed up chips and fed the chewed up dorito mush to toddlers? my aunt and mom had done that for a decade'
14.
@missmulrooney Boys weren’t allowed to wear tops for PE at my secondary school. Didn’t think anything of it at the time. But with hindsight…
15.
@missmulrooney I mean, naked swim class for boys (but swim caps for those w longer hair is mandatory) in a Minnesota public middle school is not ok.
16.
@missmulrooney We always had ketchup on the table for taco night. Ketchup and no salsa. Also one of my chores was to “make a gallon of milk” every night (from powder). 🤮
17.
@missmulrooney I grew up on military bases. The way I can identify aircraft by its sound makes my husband uneasy. Civilian children can’t do that?
18.
@missmulrooney My girlfriend's family puts chunks of ham in their chili recipe. I have told her repeatedly that this is an abomination that shows up nowhere else on earth, but she insists that it is a normal thing to do
19.
@missmulrooney @dirklancer My family had a fourth meal before bed, a substantial bed time snack called Night Lunch, the look my wife gave me the first time I said that out loud … #Priceless
20.
@sixerpackerem @missmulrooney As a kid, my husband had a neighbor w a mountain lion. Chained in the backyard “ if you forgot he was there when you went around the barn he would chase you down knock your foot into the other one so you fell & jump on top of you” terrifying but he thought that was normal
21.
@missmulrooney My husband didn’t think it was weird that his family would bring a pot of spaghetti to the drive in as a movie snack.
22.
@missmulrooney I have recently introduced my husband to many of my favourite films. The villains are often German. Badly caricatured Germans. He is German.
23. In other words, as one man so eloquently put it...
@missmulrooney I know my wife grew up in a house. I just didn't know it was a under a rock.