<

This weekend, we'll be entertaining more parents, the ones belonging to B. I haven't talked about them much because 1) I've only seen them once since I started my blog and 2)If you can't say anything nice ...

I can sum up my relationship with them with one concise sentence: I just don't get them! We're cut from completely different bolts of fabric. We have nothing in common except for B., and that only goes so far.

They're very quiet, plain, no-nonsense people. And I'm a loud-mouthed, obnoxious moron. They spend a lot of time giving me funny looks. I spend a lot of time banging my head on the floor and wimpering. It makes for some long visits on the rare occasions when we see them.

Because I'm feeling lazy, but also in preparation for this weekend's visit, I'm going to share with you some past encounters I've had with my inlaws. These tales illustrate not only how odd they are, but just how bad of a daughter-in-law I am. Enjoy.

When they visited us...

1. At least they didn’t show up two hours early, like they normally do. They were only 30 minutes early this time. Good thing, because if they’d been standing on my front porch at 8:30 this morning, they would have stood there until I was good and ready to let them in (which means they’d still be standing out there).

Brian and I haven’t seen his parents in eight months. They haven’t set foot in our home in over a year. I expected them to divvy out hugs when they walked in the door.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen.

No, they couldn’t hug us because they had something much more exciting in store. Something wild and wonderful and a little bit dangerous…

No, that’s not it.

What they actually had for us, was trash.

Two Bart Simpson toys they’d found in their yard, hermetically sealed in a Ziploc sandwich bag.

They were just so damn excited; they had to dig the Barts out of their bag before they were all the way in the house.

“When your friends with kids visit, they’ll have something to play with.”

Yep. Trash.

2. After lunch, we went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. My favorite parts were when B. and I were able to wander away from his parents. It was difficult, though. Seems they were under the impression that the Botanical Gardens is actually a wild, untamed forest with unthinkable dangers lurking at every fork in the path. That must be why we had to have a discussion at each fork about which direction to go.

When we arrived at the gardens and faced the first fork, my mother-in-law, panicked, said, “Do we have a plan? What’s the plan?”

The plan is to leisurely wander along the paths and see some damn plants. Is that enough of a plan for you?

Apparently not.

3. If I ever hear my mother-in-law say the words “erogenous zone” ever again, I swear to God I will get my pinking shears and cut her tongue out myself.

4. I spent a year and a half in culinary school.

I am a culinary professional. People pay me to give them advice on food and beverages.

Some of them even pay me to feed them.

I’ve visited almost every winery in the state of Missouri over the past four years.

I’ve drunk enough wine in my adult life to kill a 3000-pound rhino (and I don’t even know if rhinos get that big – I’m probably just an exaggerating drunk.).

Did you know that my father-in-law knows more about wine than me?

He does.

He knows that no wine grapes grow in Missouri.

Absolutely none.

Tomorrow I’m going to send him to Augusta, Hermann, St. James, Rocheport, Hartsburg, Lone Jack and Lee’s Summit, so he can alert all those vineyard owners to this little-known fact and they can stop wasting their time farming imaginary grapes.

5. My mother-in-law has made a list of CDs she’d like for Christmas.

I stopped reading it after I got to the tenth Neil Diamond one.

Ten Neil Diamond CDs? What’s the point? Aren’t they all the same? How many copies of “Forever in Blue Jeans” does one woman need?

Don’t answer that, Kara.

B.'s middle name is Neil. I don't think this is a coincidence. I really don't.

7. Farting.

I am so sick of hearing farting.

My father-in-law doesn’t even try to hide it.

Nor does he laugh and draw attention to it.

He just sits there on a wooden chair and lets ‘er rip.

Doesn’t even let it stop his droning.

8. I learned something else from my father-in-law today.

I didn’t know that all the salvage yards were owned by “The Jews” until he told me.

How lucky I am to be privy to such enlightenment.

When we visited them ...

1. My MIL has made a new decorative addition to our room. A 4’ x 5’ block of cork has been attached to the wall above the bed. On the cork, pinned with red thumbtacks (to match the curtains and bedspread) are our wedding pictures. No frames, just thumb-tacked, expensive, professional wedding photos, including those of my grandparents and parents. No way am I ever going to have sex in that bed again. Not with Granny starring down from under that thumb-tack. Beside the photos are my first three issues of the magazine that employs me, dangling from single thumb tacks.

For some reason, this shrine creeped the hell out of me.

2. When you haven’t seen your parents in six months, where does the conversation go? I seriously want to know this. Because in the first hour we spent with my in-laws, they talked about gambling. I know that when I haven’t seen loved ones in half a year, the very first thing I want to do is tell the delicate intricacies of every single slot machine I’ve ever played.

I used to think that playing the slots was the most boring thing in the world. I was wrong. It’s much, much worse to spend an hour listening to someone tell you about playing the slots.

3. In the middle of Thanksgiving afternoon, B. and I slipped off to our room to have a little nap. Seriously, that was our intent, and we did doze for about thirty minutes.

Remember how I said there was no way I’d be able to ever have sex under that thumb-tacked picture of Granny? Well … by many definitions (including Bill Clinton’s), we didn’t have sex under Granny’s picture. We stayed clothed. Mostly. We did do a few things that would probably send Granny straight into the intensive care unit, though.

I guess this is a good time to tell you about one of my MIL’s bad habits. When she wants to enter a room, she knocks twice as she’s opening the door.

I think we might have broken her of that habit.

You’d think that the mother of two boys would have learned a long time ago to never, ever barge into one of her sons’ closed bedroom doors. I’m considering this a long-over due lesson that I needed to give her.

Did I learn a lesson about locking doors? Oh, hell yeah!

4. At breakfast the next day, I heard the most frightening thing I’ve ever heard in my life. While we were eating, one of my MIL's elderly friends came into the restaurant. She was seated at a table about 20 feet from us, so I waved at her. My MIL said, “Oh, she can’t see you. Her vision is so bad, and she has no depth perception or peripheral vision.”

Five minutes later, my FIL started talking about some recent car trouble this friend had been experiencing. Uh, excuse me? Car trouble? The woman can’t see a large redheaded woman frantically waving at her 20 feet across a well-lit restaurant in broad daylight. The only car trouble I can imagine would involve this woman getting behind the wheel.

5. We spent two evenings playing Mah-Jong in my in-laws, and I was reminded why, several years ago, I promised myself I’d never play games with my MIL again. She’s a sore loser. And a sore winner. And so rules-obsessed that you can’t crack a smile unless it says so in the rule book. Nonetheless, I like Mah-Jong, so it wasn’t too bad … until the second night.

The more we played, the more points I gained, and the further behind MIL fell, and the crankier she got. She would hover over the discarded tiles so she could snatch them before anyone else could see them. She would interrupt the game and spend chunks of time dissecting rules when they didn’t go her way. And then she got down-right mean.

During the game on the first night - my first time playing Mah-Jong, I misunderstood one of the rules, which caused some confusion. No big deal, really On the second night, as her crankiness was cresting, we found ourselves in a similar situation. As I made my move she said, under her breath, “Well, here comes more confusion,” and sighed really hard.

In my best Missourah twang I loudly said, “I may be jus’ a dumb ol’ hillbilly, but I think I got them rules down-pat now!” Made my play, won the round, and moved on.

By the end of the game, I was ahead of everyone by several hundred points. She was in last place. It’s funny how being a sore loser/winner is contagious, though. After the game I had an overwhelming urge to do the Bob n’ Weave in her face and yell, “Yeah, buddy! I kicked your ass at Mah-Jong and did filthy things with your son under your roof! Choke on it!”

But I didn’t. I don't say a lot of things during these visits. I just keep my mouth shut and let the bile build, only to spew it on my unsuspecting friends afterwards.

Consider yourself warned.