My inlaws are killing me. They really are. Not even here 48 hours and I'm already seeing red.
How hard is it to ask that two people can come for a visit for two weeks and behave themselves? Really?
For 12 years I've been their daughter-in-law and for the first seven years I did my best to treat them like I treat my parents. Every time they came to visit I stayed up late to clean the apartment, made menus for meals, tried to buy foods they liked. Every day off from work was spent taking them shopping or going places with them. Every day when I left work in Chinatown I would make sure to buy them a copy of the Chinese language newspaper to read, even if it meant I had to come out of the subway station again to get a paper because I'd forgotten. I borrowed Chinese soap opera tapes for them to watch on TV. Every birthday and Christmas I made sure to send them presents. I always made sure Dave remembered to call his parents on their anniversary and Chinese New Year to wish them happy. One month they came and I spent the entire month shlepping them around from doctors' offices to bloodwork to x-ray to mammogram--every day off that I had that month. I went to the pharmacy to pick up their meds for them every month and shipped the pills to them in China. When Alex was born, I even took pictures of them with Alex and sent them framed pictures of them with their grandson. Whenever they stepped in the house, I always raced to bring them a cup of hot tea, I brought hot towels for them when they had a headache. I really don't know what more I could have done as a daughter-in-law to make them feel welcomed.
And what did I get in return?
Let's see: Every visit they made, THEY announced when they were coming without ever asking us if it was a good time for us. They stayed as long as they wanted without ever checking to see if we might have plans. Visits lasted from one week to TWO AND A HALF MONTHS. My mother-in-law was constantly interfering with how I ran the kitchen, complaining about me being wasteful, even one day REARRANGING EVERY SHELF IN MY KITCHEN. My father-in-law, who by the way, never ever bothered to spontaneously say "Hello", "Goodbye" or "Thank you" for ANYTHING, even for the EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS I GAVE THEM FOR THEIR 40th ANNIVERSARY, one day decided to invite his friend over for dinner without even bothering to ask me if it was okay with me. I was sitting less than five feet away from him when he got on the phone to call his friend, and he couldn't even be bothered to say, "Hey, Nai Mei, is it okay if I ask my friend over for dinner?" At Christmas time, they mail checks addressed to David, with the memo "Merry Christmas Alex and Kaitlyn" without bothering to acknowledge me in any way, shape or form. When I was sick to my stomach with morning sickness, we were one hotel room away from them in Tokyo for my brother-in-law's wedding and they never once bothered to stop by and ask me if I was okay. Oh, and they never contributed a cent to my wedding, even though by Chinese tradition, it's the groom's side that's supposed to pay for everything. My mother footed the entire bill. But when Kaitlyn came, they made this huge fuss about how it's Chinese tradition to name the baby after the man's side of the family. Really? When it comes to paying money you forget tradition, but when it comes to naming the baby, we should all remember now? And when I balked they went and told Dave that they believed my evil mother was to blame. My evil mother. The same woman who told me year after year to let it go, and be nice to them they had the gall to call evil. And my MIL even had the gall to say it directly to ME.
Now they're here because FIL had something wrong with his prostate biopsy and Dave wants him to get checked out in Sloan Kettering. Fine, but his mother barely walks in the door before she's out in my garden, picking my beans and telling the nanny to pickle them and saying she wants to make scrambled eggs and tomatoes for dinner. Hello? What happened to the fact that it's MY kitchen and I hired the nanny? What about what I want to eat? This woman comes in here and tells the nanny to save the leftovers for her son, IN FRONT OF ME. I swear if I don't have a major blow-out with that evil cow before this visit is over it'll take a miracle. So what if this is her son's home? That doesn't give her the right to supercede my orders or to be ordering the nanny around when I'm not here. It's my home too, and I'm the mistress of this house. The nanny makes what she makes on MY orders. I was never one to pull rank or to give people a hard time, and normally I tell the nanny to make whatever is convenient, and here this evil cow is stepping in acting like she's some fucking queen.
Why is it that when there's an earthquake, a tsunami, or some plane crash that it never involves these people? Is there such a thing as justice in the world?
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