Wet towels can kill your marriage!

Times of India ^ | MONDAY, MAY 16, 2005 12:15:52 AM | Sunday Times

[CarrotAndStick]

Leaving a wet towel on the bathroom floor may seem a minor issue but it could wreck a relationship. Scientists have identified a list of the most annoying habits that can cause rifts between couples.

The study of minor irritations in domestic life has found that people can almost become "allergic" to a partner's foibles. Failure to control that shrill laugh might end in marriage-destroying fury. Among the most annoying habits are failing to hang up towels, leaving a new loo roll on top of the empty one and using a fork as a back-scratcher.

Cringe-inducing endearments such as "babykins" can also cause an adverse reaction. When repeated, a couple can reach snapping point.

Many of the habits detailed in the study, published in the academic journal Personal Relationships, are the familiar fibre of male-female interaction. They include nose-picking, burping and tatty clothes in men and lateness, verbosity and demands for reassurance about clothing in women.

The study, funded by the US government's health research arm and conducted at Louisville University, charted the grim "deromanticisation" of more than 160 relationships. It also compared what was termed "social allergen frequency" (nasty habits) with relationship satisfaction and failure in a further 274 people. The report, Social Allergies in Romantic Relationships, aims to establish the nature of the link between nasty habits and nasty divorce. Some of the issues raised will provide bored couples with a new range of things to complain about.

[LADY J]

"Lately though, he has been knocking pans and dishes out of the dish drainer and onto the kitchen floor. He also LOVES to claw the rug, couch my speakers, us, etc.. ESPECIALLY when he wants something.... Pets... what are you going to do?? you love 'em too much to get rid of them, you know."

A toy water pistol is a good training tool when cats are naughty! Catch them in action and give them a few shots of water and they soon quit the bad habit!

Worked fine for me to keep the kitty off tables and counters. He soon behaved like a gentleman.

[Nowhere Man]

Why are you living with your mother and your sister and still referring to yourself as a "man?"????

I'll be 39 this year and I still live with Mom. My buddy that I have hung around with since 4th grade will be 40 and he is still at home too. My dentist is in his mid-30's, his parents are from China and he still lives at home and his mom still cooks his dinner. I fail to see any stigma in it and the fact of going out on your own at 18, 21 or whatever is relatively new in history as the result of the prosperity of the post World War II economy. Prior to that, it was common to have more than one generation under the roof, much like the TV show, "The Waltons," where a lot of times, the older folks helped raise the kids and to cook and so on. A lot of times, it was due to economic constraints too and we might be headed back that way. If you want a good background on multi-generations under the same roof, the economics of it thereof, circa 1895-1900, read "Susan Lenox - Her Rise and Fall" (1908. published 1917) by David Graham Phillips (1867 - 1911). For brevity's sake, I won't go into the plot but it was a very dark and sad book and I'm not happy the way it turned out but it did give me a lot of humility. Well Phillips basically made the point that most men stayed at home until they had the ability to marry and support a family, women had to stay wit the parents because the wages for them were so low and even then, if a couple got married, they stayed at one of their parent's homes until they could get a place of their own. If they were in a rural area, usually the family gives out a plot of land for a house, barn and to grow crops and whatnot. American history did not start in 1945 and the idea of moving out after high school/college is a recent phenomenon, an abberation of history if you will

In Europe and most of the world, this is the normal way to live and if I say so myself, I think the Europeans and Asians do have a leg up over us on this one, families do stick together.

[Sterco]

Sign in the bar restroom

If your peters short
Or your pump is weak
Better stand real close
Or you will pee on your feet

[Quix]

I read somewhere that most toilets, most of the time, the water is free enough of bacteria etc. for even humans to drink.

[Joe 6-pack]

"I read somewhere that most toilets, most of the time, the water is free enough of bacteria etc. for even humans to drink."

This is generally true, except where the toilet water has been contaminated by the presence of a koran.

[sweetliberty]

"I really don't know why it's considered polite to put the toilet seat down."

"Closed" is the default position...shampoo bottles, toothpaste caps, olive jar, kitchen cupboard, car doors, drawers, washer and dryer AND toilet seats!

[sweetliberty]

"just as easy to set them to the side and take them out with the bagged garbage."

Yeah; nothing like having a stack of garbage piled up next to the trash can.

[sweetliberty]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a "loo."

[Quix]

Wellllllllllll, it is another porcelain fixture! LOL.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

"How else is the poor dog going to get a drink?"

It is supposed to be healthy for you to drink your own urine from time to time - don't know what effect it might have on your dog... :)

[TheMom]

5. I walk around bare foot

That is not an annoying habit. For some of us it is a way of life.

[cyborg]

:-)

[sweetliberty]

Ping a ling.

[patton]

english name for toilette. Along with WC, for water closet, or WK, in German.

[TheMom]

Ya'll have toliets "and" towels ?

Truth be told - we only have one of each.

[Darksheare]

Wet towel can be used more effectively when doing the towel snap...

[patton]

I wear shoes at work, in restaraunts, and not otherwise. LOL.

[patton]

Ooops - and in Church.

[icu2]

Real men don't sit down to pee. Something terrible would probably happen

[TheMom]

HA!!

I don't work or go to restaurants for that very reason.