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Once the dogs passed out from their concussions, I said, "Well, um, sorry."

"Well ... do you mind if we come down and not see you?"

Here's where the urge to tell her that nothing would please me more became so overwhelming that I had to administer the first self-induced head trauma of the spring '06 in-law visit.

"No. Fine. Good. Yeah. Sure. Here. Talk to your son."

Obviously, this was shaping up to be a fine visit from the get-go.

There has been one improvement. You see, my in-laws don't know how to tell time. Well, actually, they probably understand the concept and practice, but they have something against it. "We'll be there sometime after 10 AM" usually means, "We'll be on your doorstep at 7:38 AM, and will be perplexed when we find you in your pajamas. Why don't you act more happy to see us?" This time, B. talked them into using this frightening, contempt-worthy instrument called a telephone, so they might alert us to their arrival. And it worked! They called at a time that B. told them was acceptable - 8:40 AM - thus insuring that the one photo they take of me during their visit isn't one in which I'm in my pajamas, braless, with Medusa hair. No, the one photo of me from this visit involves me venting my rage on some unfortunate carrots with a 12" chef knife.

Anyway, back to why I'm an idiot. B. reminded me last night that his parents were under the impression that I was going to be busy all weekend, and he didn't say anything to correct this, giving me an out if I needed it. If they became too much, all I had to do was say, "So sorry, but I'm late. See ya!" and flee! I could flee at my own will! My husband is the best! Tell me again - when is Steak and BJ Day, because we are gonna have ourselves a celebration this year!

So why is it that, when my MIL walked in and asked, "So, what are you doing today?" I stupidly answered, "Oh, I don't know. B.'s the one making the plans."

She looked at me, confused, and said, "I thought you had plans today."

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Considering that she seemed rather disappointed that I no longer had imaginary plans, I figured it was just as well that I hang around them, my delightful personality making their visit bright and lovely. And by "delightful personality", I mean "constant scowling presence".

I've decided I'm going to play a new little game everytime I see my in-laws. Whenever they talk in wistful tones about B.'s younger brother, I'm doing a shot. This insures that, in a typical two-day visit, I'll have a sackful of hatemail from my liver halfway through the second day.

B.'s brother is a physicist, almost two years younger than B. He moved to Europe - first Germany, then Portugal, and soon to Austria - on our one-month wedding anniversary. I love my BIL, primarily because he choses to live on another continent. Believe me, it's better for everyone this way.

This is the guy who showed up in the middle of my first date with B., sat not five feet from me, staring at me without saying a word for over half an hour while his scary girlfriend tried to force-feed me spinach lasagna. "You should eat it! It was made by real Italians!" As creepy as they were both acting, I wouldn't have been surprised if the lasagna had been made from real Italians. Needless to say, that first impression stuck.

My MIL, she cannot shut up about her youngest son, not even in the presence of her none-too-shabby eldest son. "Do you remember how M. would rub the back of your head after you'd get your hair cut?" she sighed at my FIL today, apropos of nothing.

"Do you remember when M. was four and he told us he wanted to be a palentologist when he grew up? Later he said he wanted to be a scientist. He didn't want to limit himself."

On and on and on it went. I'm sorry I didn't come up with my game idea sooner. If I had, by lunchtime today I would have been staring at my burrito, slack-jawed, possibly drooling, and uttering one of my all-time favorite sentences: "Duuuuuuuuuuuuude. I have no idea what I'm eating!"

It's all well and good that she's ever the proud and loving mother to M. I can understand that completely. But Jesus. Don't prattle on about the fabulousness of one child, sharing all the tales of his childhood precociousness when you've got another son sitting right there! You know, the son who's not an ego maniac. The one who's brilliant and successful in his own right, but has struggled his entire life to feel like he's good, worthy and smart. The son who worked for motherfucking NASA, for shit sake. Maybe it would do him some good to hear how smart and cute he was when he was little. Or to hear stories about him that don't embarrass him, because those are the only stories she ever tells. Over and over, every visit, the stories that make B. blush and make me sad that she refuses to show the same pride in him as she does M.

I'd like to think that, perhaps, when she's around M. (which isn't often; he rarely comes stateside and they've never went to visit him), that she regales him with stories of B.'s greatness and knocks him down with his own embarrassing stories. But I've seen them together, and I know that's not the case. It makes me want to punch her in the gut. Not that it would do any good, not with that damn fanny pack she wears all the time.

This makes me feel better: back in 1990, my family was vacationing in Niagara Falls. I was 17, and none-too-thrilled that my mom had jumped on the fanny pack bandwagon. Granted, that wasn't the most embarrassing thing Mom ever wore on vacation. That honor goes to the condor shit hat she wore in New Mexico three years prior.

We were having dinner at Pizza Hut and while my mom was at the salad bar a couple of young fellows walked by her and she overheard one of them saying, "What the hell is that thing? A cyst?" To which we all - my mother included - laughed so hard that we probably burst any real cysts residing in any of our bodies.

I can't imagine my MIL laughing like that if someone refered to her fanny pack as a cyst. Still, every time I see that fanny pack I hear the words, "What the hell is that? A cyst?", and I thank my lucky stars that I come from a family whose collective sense of humor is much larger than its sense of shame.

Otherwise, the day was fine. Clara Jane, as I've said before, makes a great buffer. We always have something to talk about. I also kept myself busy making dinner and knitting while we "visited", which is really just sitting around while my FIL tells us how the world is, was, and should be. Obviously, partaking in a hobby during these interludes is wise. I finished the second boobie scarf. The auction will hopefully start Monday, so get those bidding fingers fired up.

I do have to say, one thing in particular cracks me up about the boobie scarves. When I've shown them to women, they always have to look for a second before they realize it's boobies. Men, though, they know. I was on the opposite side of the room from my FIL with the scarf piled in my lap. He stopped talking - a miracle in and of itself - and said, "What is that? It looks like boobs!"

Settled down there, Cowboy.