And now it's time for: Things You Hide From Your Family...

[Phentex]

When my kids were little, I hid things like good scissors so that they were nice and sharp when I needed them. I hid my good cookie scoop. I hid the Super Glue.

They are grown but to this day I still hide glue and electrical tape. I don't need those things very often but when I do, I want them. And it seems if I DON'T hide them, they are taken and gone when I need them.

You?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I used to have to hide rubber bands

because one of my cats would eat them. He passed away recently (RIP, Jeoffry) but I still hide rubber bands.

[Phentex]

8. I hope he didn't open drawers!

you'll always think of him when you see a rubber band

[Tanuki]

9. Jeoffry, as in Jubilate Agno?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

33. Exactly that. For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For I am possessed of a cat surpassing in beauty.

[soothsayer]

2. I left my job oct. 23, 2018 -- got a buyout

My family still has no idea as I pretended to go to work every day until the pandemic, which now has me “working from home.”

[Phentex]

4. really?

I was not expecting this

[soothsayer]

6. It is the absolute truth!

[underpants]

7. That's amazing.

[soothsayer]

10. I've surprised even myself!

My former coworkers check in from time to time to see whether I’m still “living the lie.”

[Skittles]

29. not the word I would use

[Sanity Claws]

14. Why?

It must be hard to keep up a pretense but especially hard to do so for 1.5 years.
Isn't it?

[soothsayer]

20. Avoiding the way my mom and sister would carry on if they knew

...is worth the stress of carrying the secret.

They’d freak out and freak me out.

After the first year it got a bit easier.

The pandemic has helped a lot.

[Sanity Claws]

21. I understand difficult family

Perhaps I should say I hide myself from my family. We lost contact years ago.

[soothsayer]

22. Well i live with 'em, so....

[SharonClark]

63. Fascinating!

This sounds like a possible story for This American Life or Moth Radio. I would love to hear a story like that if it’s not too painful to tell.

[soothsayer]

64. It's not the slightest bit painful. Stupid maybe, funny definitely, but not painful

[Marthe48]

36. I am so impressed!

otoh your family must be quite a challenge :/

[soothsayer]

37. Ha! They're fine. It's just easier... and feels kind of naughty

[cwydro]

44. So basically you're lying to them all the time, right?

Do you "pretend" to work from home?

[soothsayer]

45. Yes and yes

[cwydro]

46. Good lord.

I hope you’re joking.

[soothsayer]

47. I am not

[fleur-de-lisa]

48. This is the most intriguing thread I've seen on DU in a while.

I have long had a fantasy in which I just don't show up to work one day. I don't officially resign or tell any of my coworkers anything, just simply disappear and then never respond to phone calls, texts, emails, or knocks on my door at my house.

Of course I would have to empty my office very slowly, and bring all personal items home, over a period of time, so as to not arouse suspicion.

[soothsayer]

49. Yes, I had to sneak things home over the course of 10 months

Which made it a tad easier.

[fleur-de-lisa]

50. You are my hero!

[soothsayer]

51. Ha! I'm a mess

But I do get a kick out of it

[SharonClark]

65. A friend of mine did that and when her co-workers

went to her home to check on her they found she’d unsuccessfully attempted suicide.

Not a good thing to do to those who care about you.

[cwydro]

52. Geez, I'm sorry, That seems terribly sad.

I hope it all works out in the end.

[soothsayer]

53. Not sad on my end

Everything’s humming along

[cwydro]

55. Well, that's good.

I took it as you live with two domineering people who would make your life hell if you told the truth.

Family can be difficult, and it just struck me as tragic. Glad it's all good.

[soothsayer]

56. Oh, well yeah. Not domineering as much as worriers

And it’s really easy for me to get sucked into their doom and gloom. They’re ignorance is my bliss.

They needn’t worry, but they would.

It’s just easier for all of us.

[The Magistrate]

3. That I Have Anything To Hide, Ma'am

The best way is to be so open about so much that what one wishes concealed is not even suspected to exist....

But I may have said too much.

[Phentex]

5. ...

[Freddie]

11. Things I leave at my daughter's house and never get back

I watch the grandkids (10, 6 and 2) all day. Phone chargers and food containers (the cheap faux Tupperware kind) find their way into her collection permanently.
When my kids were little, and now my grandkids, you have to hide Band-Aids. If they have access to them, the teeniest scrape will get a Band-Aid (or several) and then when you actually need one they’re gone.

[Phentex]

12. My boys took a nice stock pot outside to use for dirt...

when they were little. I mean, I couldn't hide everything from them. I think I hid band aids and permanent markers.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. I'd hide cookies and candy.

And I didn't even have to hide them all that well. If I simply put them in the cupboard next to the one they were usually in, the kids never searched.

[Phentex]

17. that's funny...

but yeah I can see how some refuse to search for things if they can't find them in the usual spot. Our fridge worked the same way.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. I know, it was funny. Made my life easy.

My sister had kids the same age. She'd go to the grocery store after they'd gone to bed, and when they got up the next morning they'd come into the kitchen and immediately find the cookies and candy, even if she put them in a non standard place.

[RainCaster]

15. Batteries

We finally stopped hiding them when our son went off to college.

[Phentex]

16. let me guess: game controllers?

I felt like they ate batteries when they lived at home. I never hid them but I would stop buying them until *I* needed them, hee hee

[RainCaster]

18. Yup

[Wawannabe]

43. Why we finally got our first rechargeables!

Man those things went through batteries. After that. If the boy didn’t charge em tdb

[handmade34]

23. that's my problem...

I never hid anything

[Phentex]

24. Mine was I also hid things from myself!

one day I discovered I had 6 or 7 pairs of scissors

[handmade34]

25. oh my...

my partner always asks as I search... "did you put it your special place?"

[Kali]

26. good scissors, certain food treats

tape, random sodas, a small container of the fake dry creamer I like, a set of decent bathroom towels (for emergency guest arrivals)

used to have to hide booze but I am the only drinker left in the house, and I hardly ever indulge (maybe need somebody to swipe some beers before they eat through the cans LOL)

I am sure there are more things but I don't remember them, or where I put them

[Phentex]

27. OH!

I forgot about the good hand towels, ha ha!

Lately, I just buy new ones when the "good" ones get icky. And no guests now so they are nice and clean.

For good bath towels, I turn the icky ones into dog towels and get new nice ones for people.

I grew up with horrible bath towels and such in my child home life so I can't do it in my adult life. I've got a lot of hangups!

[Kali]

28. oh I do that with hand towels too

I went a little nuts the last few years buying towels and bathroom rugs, always have a set of new ones hidden away.

my peeve lately is contour rugs for the base of the toilet. I hate them but have to have them because the floor is really funky right there. but they are so crappy now, and the shape is wrong for older toilets - and the side laps aren't long enough!

[shenmue]

30. Chocolate

My Dad always steals it.

[Phentex]

58. understandable...

all candy should stay out of sight.

[3catwoman3]

31. Cookies that I don't want my husband to devour...

...before I get even 1.

[PennyK]

32. Well, I am a wig wearer

My thin hair became really thin when it grew back after chemo, so I continued buying and wearing wigs. Hubby thinks I have around five...but it's more like 15 or 20! Many are similar styles, so I don't think he realizes. He would think it's a ridiculous waste of money, but they do wear out over time and it's nice having a back-up.
Let me add that he spends plenty of $$$ on art books and adding to his stamp collection.

[Lars39]

34. I've thought of doing that!

Hoping my hair will grow back in a bit after going off Tamoxifen, but who knows.
Do you care for them yourself? Any favorite brands?

[PennyK]

61. I'll suggest an online shop

Cysterwigs.com is run by a smart and funny woman named Heather Hershey. She is very honest about the merchandise and will not carry something she thinks is flawed. As far as brands, I like Jon Renau and Estetica. There are others just as nice, but I have a larger-than-average head, and these brands are most comfortable for me.
The wigs I buy are synthetic and easy to care for ( wash, rinse, spray on conditioner, and let dry...the style is baked in). Human-hair wigs, apart from the ethical issues, are tough to take care of and very expensive.
I do hope your hair comes back. It's no fun looking like my dad!

[Lars39]

62. Thank you so much for the info,PennyK!

That’s good to know about the style staying put. For some reason I thought even the synthetic wigs were hard to maintain. Anyway, thanks a lot for the website, etc.

[Duppers]

41. What Lars said...

"Any favorite brands?"

I toy with the idea of buying a wig.

[1plus1equals1]

35. Junk Food Junkie

I hide all junk food from my Son-in-law; when he shows up he starts scavenging. I remember going on a trip, buying done gourmet candy and hiding it in a chest in the bedroom.

[Marthe48]

38. My husband hid the remote

from an exchange student we hosted. My husband was used to having it and there was a lot of competition between the two to keep it in hand. Interesting 6 months.

[jmowreader]

40. I and my siblings hid the existence of our friends from our mother

For some reason, she hated that any of us had friends...so, if she found out that we liked anyone, she would attack those people for any perceived flaw. None of us ever knew why. This went back to grade school. We figured this shit out when I was in first grade in Thayne, Wyoming, when she managed to make enemies of every single person in town.

[Wawannabe]

42. Scotch tape

Started hiding roll cuz my kid loved to make things and fix things with scotch tape and I would never have any. After a few years of “Son, where’s the tape?, I finally wised up.

[Phentex]

59. tape and glue...

those are exactly the kinds of things you want when you need them! I also hid permanent markers for sanity

[Leith]

54. Not a doggone thing

Disclaimer: my husband reads and posts on this board.

[Phentex]

57. I don't think I've posted here about the buckets...

my husband does not post here but enough people know about his bucket thievery to make him identifiable. I don't hide them and never hid them but I ended up buying more buckets than one house should ever need. (At one point, he and my sons decided they needed to fill them with books and lift them like weights.) ?

[Totally Tunsie]

67. LOL - your last sentence reminded me of a fun Clancy Brothers song:

[Doug.Goodall]

60. I hide my guns.

Not really, I hate guns.

[Niagara]

66. Items that I've hidden.

When my kids were little, it was the kitchen shears. They're sharp and I didn't want the kids to get a hold of them and hurt themselves or give themselves haircuts. During making dinner one evening, I left the shears on the kitchen counter. I walked away for 5 minutes to do something else, came back to find a clump of hair on the kitchen floor and my daughter walking around with a chunk of missing hair above her eye. 5 minutes, that's all it took for her to cut her hair.



Several years ago, my SO's youngest son moved in with us. He was 18 years old at the time and he treated our home like it was his own personal frat house and helped himself to many of my things. One of the items that he decided to help himself to was my chocolate bars. I took an empty Silk almond milk container, rinsed it out, dried it, cut the back of it out with an exacto knife and hid my chocolate bars in the empty Silk container and placed it in the refrigerator. Nobody helped themselves to my chocolate bars after that.


SO purchased a nice kitchen knife set for me one year for Mother's Day and I hid it. He kept asking why my Mother's Day gift wasn't out on the kitchen counter and I told him when his adult kids stop throwing away flatware in the trash that I will get the kitchen knife set out. That knife set didn't come out of it's hiding place until we had an empty nest. Yes, there were a few time that I found our flatware in the trash.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

68. I'm hiding a very nice fountain pen.

It'll hopefully stay hidden until someone's birthday. Then it will be revealed.