My Mother-In-Law drives My Wife crazy sometimes. Lots of times, actually, if I were to be more accurate. She lives about 300 miles away and she is alone, except for her dog, a half-Labrador, half-Chow whom she feeds Little Debbie snacks and Lucky Charms and chocolate cake because “I eat it and he wants some, too.”
Yes, and if she smoked cigarettes he'd want that, too, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to give it to him. But, I digress.
She will call several times each day. If we don’t answer she’ll leave a very long and detailed message about her day.
“Hey! Guess who? Today I went to the store and I was looking for some shoes and then I found a pair but they were too expensive so I asked the saleslady can I bring my dog in here and she said she had large intestines and an irritable bowel and then I couldn’t find a place to park so I replaced the windows upstairs and now he digs holes in the gardenias and all my neighbors are turning into black people so I called her sister and she won’t pick up but I know she’s home and “ BEEP – REMAINING RECORDING TIME: 3 SECONDS.
When My Wife does answer these calls all she does is sit and listen to the Mouth-of-the-South talk for 3 hours about the very same crap she just left in her many messages on our answering machine. If My Wife attempts to speak she gets interrupted. She never gets to say anything. This frustrates her to death and when she gets off the phone she’ll start doing it to me, talking like mad about how much it annoys her that her mother won’t ever listen. If I try to speak a single word she accuses me of “always interrupting” her. This expression of rage and frustration, I believe, is meant to be directed at her mother, but she never says it to her mother. And I’m certainly not going to since no one on her side of the family listens to a damn thing I say anyway, whereas when My Wife's brother speaks it is surely the Gospel and must be true even if it isn't.
Whenever the Mother-In-Law plans to come visit us we have the same argument with her every single time:
“I need to bring my little doggie.”
“Mom, you can’t bring the dog. We have cats and there is a huge drain under the fence where the dog will get out.”
“That doesn’t matter. I’m going to bring him inside the house anyway. He's going to sleep in your bed with me.”
“Mom, the dog cannot come inside the house and he sure as hell can't sleep in our bed. We have white carpet and he gets muddy prints in every single person’s house you have ever taken him to. Remember when he went inside your ex-boyfriend’s house and ruined his carpet?”
“He won’t make any prints on your carpet. And I’ll clean them up. It won’t be a problem. He's going to sleep with me in your bed. I need my wittle doggie. He’s my wittle biddy baby.” (She gets younger and younger as the conversation goes along, until she’s finally about 2 years old, which sounds really strange when combined with her nasal, New York, Fran Drescher accent.)
Each year the argument happens again, as if we never discussed this before and she has no idea that bringing her furniture eating, please-let-me-out, let's-wrestle-in-the-yard, Labrador might pose any sort of imposition upon us. At one point I had to call her myself, while My Wife was outside and unaware of my actions, and tell her that there are these things called "kennels" where a person might leave their dog or cat, as we have done when visiting her, to be cared for by a professional. Apparently this call helped somewhat.
When we go to visit the Mother-In-Law she talks and talks and then takes My Wife shopping at every store and mall anywhere near Atlanta. My Wife, by the way, hates to shop. After a long, long day of shopping we are all forced to watch "E.R." on television and then whatever else is on the "Lifetime Network."
So, what has all this to do with the Mother-In-Law meeting her match?
Recently my Brother-In-Law found himself a wife. He has been in the Navy nuclear program for a number of years and was getting rather lonely, as sometimes happens when a highly intelligent teenage Atlanta, Georgia boy is taken advantage of by Navy recruiters and dumped on a naval base in New York for a few years. After meeting some of the women in and around the New York area where he was stationed, he decided that a life of celibacy was probably a better choice and focused on racing cars and drinking beer with the guys. Later, the Navy picked him up and dropped him in Groton, Connecticut. The women in Groton were no more impressive to him than the ones in New York, and so he did not date anyone, at all, ever.
At some point the Brother-In-Law met a friend or cousin or sister of a shipmate (I can’t remember how she relates) and ended up dating her for a month or two before asking her to marry him. She’s from deep south Georgia and nothing like anyone in New York or Connecticut (she’s not a lesbian, wears underwear, doesn't wear a crewcut or flattop, and doesn’t dress like Buster Brown.) In fact, if you picture a 20-year-old woman from the stereotypical South, not including Florida and not including anyone ever to appear in any issue of Playboy, you’re probably thinking of her – dyed blonde hair, a little heavy, big grin, always talking. Overall, she’s a pretty nice person, which contrasts her greatly with the young single females my Brother-In-Law met in the cold, cold Northeast and thus she caught his attention.
Last night, the Mother-In-Law called to complain to My Wife about the Daughter-In-Law.
“She calls me up and just talks my head off right from the start. I can’t get a word in edgewise. And she talks about NOTHING. All she wants to do is shop. She says she’s coming over tomorrow, and get this, she is BRINGING HER DOG. Can you believe that?! She’s bringing her damned dog to my house! I tried to tell her that I don’t think that is a very good idea, but she just won’t listen. My dog is going to be so upset at having another dog in the house … blah blah blah.”
Now, if I have explained his properly then you should be thinking about now, “she sounds like she’s exactly the same as the mother-in-law.”
If you are thinking this then I did my job and you are RIGHT ON THE MONEY. The new Daughter-In-Law is exactly like the Mother-In-Law and it is driving the Mother-In-Law crazy. And yet, as the Mother-In-Law is in the process of complaining about all of this to My Wife it never even crosses her mind that all of the things which have so greatly upset her are the very same things that she does to all of us. My Wife even held out hope briefly that Her Mother would see this apparently obvious fact and change her ways, but the hope died quickly as the complaining went on and on for hours, without ever allowing My Wife to get a word in edgewise.
Ah, but what fantastic entertainment it provides for me! Few things are quite so enjoyable to witness as someone meeting and being annoyed by their identical twin.
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