The dreaded Monster-In-Law

The other day it came to light that one of my mother’s-in-law was reading my blog.

I know what you are thinking, “Multiple mothers-in-law? How did you manage to get more than one woman to marry you? Why haven’t you been arrested?”

This is not the utopian fantasy of multiple wives to serve my every whim and want. It is one of the outcomes of the changing nature of the family. Marriage, divorce, remarriage, re-divorce, drunken indiscretions have all combined to create a new family structure. In my case, it has resulted in two mothers-in-law, and I now know that at least one of them has been reading this blog. Now I have to watch what I say.

I did a bit of research about the concept of the mother-in-law. There appears to be only 10 clean jokes about them. There are lots of other jokes but they aren’t nice. The clean jokes aren’t funny.

Most of the axioms, aphorisms and proverbs about mothers-in-law are not nice, except maybe the biblical ones, but it is hard to tell if those are about mothers-in-law or sin. Surprisingly mothers-in-law are not universally respected. I don’t understand why. About the only ones who didn’t have anything bad to say about mothers-in-law were Adam and Oscar Wilde. Neither of my mothers-in-law seems overtly evil.

In fact they can be quite nice. One mother-in-law is always grateful when I carry her bags to her car after one of her stays with us. I guess the question is: What son-in-law wouldn’t assist his mother-in-law with getting her baggage to the curb?

The phenomenon of the mother-in-law is closely associated with interference. That means my mothers-in-law should be interfering with my family. I know, from my research, that this can be an insidious process that makes itself known within weeks of the wedding. While I haven’t seen anything like this in the four years of our marriage I know what to look for now.

One of the other hallmarks of the typical mother-in-law is the ‘imposition’. We all know the types of impositions. Invitations to dinner! Babysitting TroubleMaker so we can go out! Help with household chores when they visit! The list is endless! Okay, so it is not a great list, still, you get the idea!

Through all of this trial and turmoil I have learned that the grandchild is the great equalizer. He is no longer just my son. He will be my pawn. I can ransom his time with his grandparents, my mothers-in-law, for what ever I desire; a new car, a new motorhome, even a roof for the house (just to show I am not completely selfish). And as soon as I can get him and his mother, my wife, in line with my scheme to combat the mother-in-law problem we will start to see positive results. Someday they will come around to my way of thinking

So while it may look to the casual observer that I am pretty lucky to have the mothers-in-law I do have, I also know looks can be deceiving. I am just not sure how that applies to this case. Remember, you can’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.

A life’s legacy

I recently had the opportunity to consider what I might do if I won the lottery; I was awake, staring at a computer screen and trying to work. What would I do if I had been able to match all the numbers and win $13,000,000.00? Sure there are all the usual promises, making sure my son has funding for his education (to show I am family minded), buying a new but modest car (to show I can enjoy my riches without flaunting it), and giving to charity (to show I am generous of spirit).

So now that I have shown the world what I would like it to think of me, how would I really like to spend the money? I don’t want to blow all of it of course because I do genuinely want to take care of myself, but I would like to use some of it to indulge some of my desires.

This is about thinking inside the box, deep inside the box where the dark resides. This is about indulging that part of you placated by eating buckets of ice cream, giving the finger to old men in Buicks, and wishing the neighbour’s cat would cross the road in front of your car just as you take your eyes off the road.

This is about revenge. Not the hiring a hit man kind of revenge. Too many problems to deal with, like prosecution. This needs to come from where we live, to answer what has scarred us for life. This involves money. Do you really want to give your money away to people who don’t deserve it? People you don’t like? Relatives?

Does your brother really need a hand out of a couple million of your dollars? If by his thirties he can’t figure out how birth control works then maybe he should be forced to understand how maintenance enforcement can improve his life.

Does your sister-in-law think that drinking cheap red wine and playing on-line poker all day really constitutes life experience? Let her fund her lifestyle from her winnings.

And what about that girl you loved in high school? You know the one; you almost asked her out but instead she went to the dance with that long haired creep with the cool car. What would you like to do to her life?

If you dig deeply into your life, into your past, you can come up with so many people who have earned your enmity. Dangle the money in front of friends and snatch it from their grasp. Flaunt your wealth in front of family members who have nothing. Why should they enjoy the fruits of your labours? Let them earn their own way in life. Pull themselves up by their own boot straps. That will teach them to wear flip-flops.

If we have learned anything from reality television, it is that money means nothing without fame or power. In the end isn’t power just the opportunity to control someone else’s life? Right?