I’m sorry – please indulge me. All I can blog about right now is how much I fucking hate my mother-in-law. I know, I know…hate is a strong word. I shouldn’t hate her; I should strongly dislike her, right? I’m past that now, she took me past the strongly dislike point last evening round about 9:13 p.m. CST.
As we sat watching Husband’s favorite show, Hell’s Kitchen, she made a comment that cut me to the bone. It wasn’t directed at me, but at my husband. I’m sure Husband took it with a grain of salt, as he has learned to do, but it flabbergasted me to hear a mother speak to her son like that. Tonight’s episode featured the aspiring chefs’ mothers (it figures – the man upstairs must strongly dislike me…). As it always is on these competition reality shows, the contestants are under tremendous pressures and emotional stress. When the mothers were brought out, sentiments were shared and tears were shed. In a particularly touching moment, the lone guy on the show embraced his mother and said, “I love you, Mom.” His Mom responded with “I love you, too, Son. Keep following your dream.” He said “Pray for me.” She said, “I always do.”
When the show went to commercial, mother-in-law says to Husband “You see, some sons still love their mothers after they grow up.” Husband just rolled his eyes and said, “I am not going to dignify that comment with an answer.” She said nothing. After a few minutes, he said, “You know Mom, at least I didn’t grow up to be a immoral bastard of a lawyer or something. ” She continued, “Well, at least if you were a lawyer, you’d be filthy rich.”
Stupid. Fucking. Cow. I guess the fact that her son is a success in his chosen field and his six-figure salary doesn’t bring her enough pride. She’s pissed that he didn’t become what she wanted him to be and she’s pissed that we haven’t taken over all of her financial responsibilities since her gravy train Husband’s father died. She’s never supported anything my husband has ever done, because it wasn’t what she wanted him to do. I am sure the words “Just keep following your dream, Son” have, and never will, escape her mealy mouth. I strongly doubt she’s ever prayed for anything or anyone other than her sorry self. And the only time she tells him she loves him is in passing, only when he’s on her good side, which is never anymore since he’s married to me, a business executive in his chosen profession, and lives out of state.
I’ve had it with this. My tongue literally and physically hurts from biting it. In the last three days we’ve been here, we’ve had to endure her passive-aggressive guilt trips, her woe-is-me/I-just-don’t-know-what-I’m doing-to-do/Nobody-loves-me bullshit, and her endless mean-spirited comments. May I present to the Court….
Exhibit (A) – We arrived here last Thursday. By Husband’s choice, we were going to stay about 4 days because that’s about all he can stand of her. We made it clear to her when we arrived that we were leaving on Wednesday morning. When people ask us how long we are staying, she interjects “Until Friday, because my own son hasn’t bothered to come visit me in eight months.” She brought it up today at Lowe’s and when Husband said “Mom, give it a rest. We’re leaving on Wednesday morning,” she literally put her bottom lip out, set it to quiver and big crocodile tears dropped from her beady little eyes. A 57-year-old woman, crying and pouting in a public place. Jesus Fucking Christ.
Let me say for the record that while in Tampa for two years, she never came to visit us. Even when she and her sister-in-law went on a cruise that left out of and returned to Tampa, she did not visit us. We offered to come to the cruise terminal and pick her up, take her to lunch and then on the airport for her return flight and she declined. We lived in Macon for two years – she visited us once. This was before Husband’s father died, so she had plenty of money and plenty of time. She still has plenty of miles that she, for some reason, refuses to use. But she’s been to Ohio to see her sister-in-law and her brood about five times in the last eight months. Go figure.
Exhibit (B) – While reading the Sunday paper yesterday, she again read the job ads and read aloud any jobs that sounded good for Husband and I. She proceeded to read the real estate section and tell us about the houses for sale in the area that are “so much cheaper than in Atlanta. It’s just so much easier to make a living here.” This after Husband has repeatedly told her that we are Not. Moving. Back. Ever. Apparently, she even goes online looking for good jobs for Husband in the area! Yet she says she doesn’t know how to look for a job for herself. WTF?!?!
Exhibit (C) – She likes to make fun of the fact that I’m from Georgia. She takes any tidbit of redneck news, recites it to me, and says things like “Oh, I bet that happened in Joor-juh.” and “Is that how they do things in Jooor-juh?” in the worst “Southern” accent ever. She made it a point to tell me last night, on three separate occasions, just how annoying fellow Georgians Holly Hunter, Paula Deen and Christina from HGTV’s Design Star are – how their accents are like “nails on a chalkboard” and how she can’t stand that “fake sugary sweetness of those Southerners.” For the record, Paula Deen is the least “fake” person on the planet, ok? Trust me on that.
Now before y’all say “Oh c’mon, she’s just having a little fun with you.” No, she’s not. She says it with a contempt and meanness like I’ve never seen. And she does it because I make fun of (and not in a mean-spirited way) Midwestern accents – like how they say “pap” for “pop” and “Oh my Gad” instead of “Oh my God.” How they all sound like pirates whenever there’s an “R” involved. Think Rachael Ray and Hillary Clinton. You see, her beloved sister-in-law and her brood live in Ohio and, thus, have horrendous Cleveland accents. Hello, anyone ever watch “The Drew Carey Show”? That entire show made fun of Clevelanders – in a fun way. But I can’t go there.
Exhibit (D) – She’s not a drama queen, she’s the High Priestess. Everything – and I mean everything – is a drama. And most of the drama is performed in the hopes to get some sort of attention, whether we say “Oh, poor you” or we just do for her whatever she is having so much trouble doing. When she tries to get up out of her chair and crumbles to her knees, crying out in pain because she weighs like 300 pounds now. When she is cleaning off the top of the refrigerator for the first time in two years and is moans “Oh, God, I can’t breathe. I’m going to throw up. I need some air!” in the hopes that one of us will get up and do it for her. When she leaves two voicemails and actually pages my husband while we are in a movie just to tell us not to let the neighbor’s dog out (they’re on vacation) when we got home because their daughter is over there and we might scare her and she wouldn’t want us to scare her, poor thing (um, thanks, lady – I think we would have figured that out when we saw the lights on and a car in the driveway).
She’s nuts. I rest my case.
