What kind of stuff does your elderly parents do that makes you ask them why?

I always asked why my dad would save random boxes/ pieces of scrap wood. As I'm older now, I get it because I do it all of the time

Grandma used to wash and reuse Ziploc bags, and she was no where near poor. I never understood why she put the effort into that.

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puts plastic utensils in the dish washer

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Are you not suppose to do this?

She washes plastic yogurt containers out and stores food in them.
Open her fridge, and you'd think she had 50 containers of yogurt in there.

I’m not elderly and I do that LOL
we save plastic containers with lids and jars with lids, and use them again every day

that ain’t quirky that’s just not being wasteful.
glass jars with metal lids will last damn near forever. Single use of them is a disgrace

I do that.

Answer every phone call

My dad will need a new lawn mower, but then decide most new lawn mowers are over priced.

So he’ll buy the cheapest one possible and then spend hours and money trying to keep it functioning. Then when it finally stops working very good, but still runs, he’ll buy a second shitty lawnmower and continue the process.

At its worst moment, he has had five shitty lawnmowers in his garage, and rotates between whichever one he can get to run.

All to avoid the one time expense of a good lawnmower that is “overpriced.”

You can pretty much switch out lawnmower for any appliance or machine in the house and it’s the same situation.

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Answer every phone call

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Also click on every link in a text or email that will 100% end up in your bank account being breached.

I'm pretty sure the PNC people loathe my Dad when he walks in the door.

My grandmother grew up without indoor plumbing and had to use an outhouse as a kid. Swore to herself, she would never use a newspaper or rip out pages from an old catalog again and kept a small warehouse of toilet and paper towels in about every closet of her house. She would have made it through COVID like a boss.