This post is rated PG for language.
The angel on my shoulder whispered in my ear this morning that I need to get me some more gratitude for my bad attitude. I'll be working on that today. Working on trying to make sure the holiday doesn't stay on the wrong foot.
Meanwhile, this is where I'm at right now:
My parents arrived Saturday. And those cans of whoop ass in the pantry have been calling to me while humming Christmas carols ever since.
Upon arrival:
Immediately start ordering people around about tending to the cat's food and water.
Convert living room end table into a Cat Throne by taking large fluffy, dark red couch pillow and placing it on top. The cat likes this because she can see out the window. Never mind that it looks ridiculous and that the pillow, which humans might otherwise use, gets covered in stubborn cat hair.*
Fuck with the twitchy venetian blinds on the patio doors ... because it's unacceptable for the cat to have her view obstructed by pesky horizontal lines.
When I mention over dinner that we need to buy a Christmas tree tomorrow, declare, not for the first time, that we should buy a fake one instead of the one we like to buy from the local garden center. When I say that I don't care for fake trees (which is what we had while I was growing up) -- a fact you are aware of because we have this conversation every fucking year -- lecture me about how they make really nice fake ones now. Persist until I have to snap at you for being such a pain in the ass about a matter of opinion. As in: Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.
And never mind that telling adults what to do in their own home is, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Rude? Absurd? Maybe the French have a better term for this behavior? I can't seem to nail it in English.
When I go upstairs to put the kids to bed, heckle my very diplomatic, long-suffering mate** while he does the dishes with the following nonsense:
Scold DH that we have too many grapefruits in the house.
DH is on a kick to eat healthier and when he stopped at the store on the way home one night this week to buy milk, he grabbed a bag of red grapefruit because we seem to be having a run on it lately. He did not realize I'd already bought some.
What would my dad do if he couldn't find something to talk down to us about? You are right. If it wasn't the grapefruit, it would be something else. Over buying grapefruit! Don't we know there are children dying of scurvy in Antarctica?! Reckless and irresponsible, I tell you.
When the Toddler, who snoozed through dinner after skipping his nap while we were all cleaning for my parents' arrival, wakes up and wobbles downstairs for his dinner ... and he ends up covered in tomato sauce -- DH knew enough to strip him to his diaper before serving -- order DH to give the boy a bath immediately. Follow DH upstairs to the changing table and repeat the order. Never mind that the toddler had a long bath just three hours earlier while I was scrubbing the guest/kids' bathroom/multitasking. And that this very kind of tomatoey mess is the reason they invented wet wipes. And never mind that my father has never even changed a diaper in his life (I am an only child) yet feels he is entitled and qualified to tell an experienced, hands-on father of three that he is being irresponsible for not bathing his son after his very late spaghetti dinner. Ne. Ver. Mind.
I mean really, who let the two of us loose in the world without supervision? Who let us reproduce?!
Notice that the dryer is running. It's maybe 8pm? Maybe? Declare that the dryer should not be running at this time of night with the authority of the Pope declaring that homosexuals will never enter heaven (don't get me started).
In retrospect, we have to wonder if this has something to do with the fact that the cat's bowl and litter box are in the laundry room and Godforbid we should disturb the cat.
Are you fucking kidding me? Did he just try to tell my husband when we can and cannot dry our clothes? Have I mentioned that it wasn't even our clothes, it was the bathroom rugs from the guest bathroom ... which I washed to make the room nice for them?
You should also know that the light in the laundry room must remain on at all times while my parents are in residence. So the cat doesn't have to use the litter box in the dark. Yes, I know. Wait for it ...
Um ... cats are nocturnal; they can see in the dark. My seven year old could explain this to you in detail from watching The Discovery Channel. Is it just me, or does leaving a light on for the cat seem ... stupid? I know. I am such a bitch.
Never mind that the laundry room bulb is really inconvenient to change, especially if you are vertically challenged like me and your mate works insane hours and isn't really down with the home keeping. Never mind that when it suits him, my father will also lecture us about leaving appliances plugged in unnecessarily. And he will do things like ... unplug my curling iron if he passes by the bathroom just before I go to use it. And not realizing that it's unplugged, I will go turn it on, presuming it's going to heat up. And then I will get a lecture from The Man about keeping him waiting when everyone else is ready to leave, but alas, I am still waiting to fix my rebellious hair (after fully dressing four human beings including myself).
Never mind that he will go out of his way -- with a LADDER -- to swap the light bulb in our garage for one of those dingy, environmentally friendly, spiral bulbs. Nothing against those bulbs or the environment, they just don't work for us in the cramped garage, where bright lighting can be essential for ... not killing yourself.
The light in the laundry room must be left on. Because ... the cat might trip?
Oh. And lets talk some more about venetian blinds. The ones in the downstairs bathroom that face our creepy neighbor's house. They must remain open at all times. If I close them, he will shut them. And then back and forth we go all visit long. Like we're spelling out F-U-C-K-Y-O-U in slow motion morse code. Not a big deal. I may eventually learn to enjoy waving at Mr. Creepy while he's lurking by his garage having a smoke each time I sit down to ... you know.
Breathe. Breathe.
And OMG. There must be two boxes full of facial tissue in every room at all times. Because what do you do if you have an orifice that urgently needs clearing? (Dont' get me started about my mother and her orifice cleanliness issues, unless of course you didn't want to eat today anyway). And NAPKINS. Not having napkins (using wet wipes and paper towels instead) is, I quote, UNCIVILIZED.
Environmentally friendly? My parents have single-handedly deforested Brazil with all the Kleenex they consume. But baby, these are The Rules. Kleenex and napkins. Get with the program. Or else.
After the first night of warms ups, we started to really get cooking yesterday. Puffs of smoke came from my ears and the little cartoon bull in the bubble over my head began to claw ominously at the ground.
While I was out taking the kids to the photographer for a quickie holiday card, DH remained home for football. Which is like chumming the ocean around your pet seal.
He had to endure, for the 6ooth time, the lecture from my father about how we need to replace all of our televisions with statee-of-the-art, flat screen digital TV's. And he proclaims this with all the authority and seriousness of the fire marshal ordering us to replace faulty wiring. He is obsessed with our out-of-date televisions. Never mind that of all the things we need to spend money on (like college tuition times three and retirement, just to name a few), things that are not broken, things that function perfectly well, will never make the top ten list in our budget (we have cable, the reception is flawless).
Maybe the cat is offended by low def? I don't know. I cannot explain this.
Last night, Dad cranked the flat screen rhetoric up a notch while DH was trying to watch his favorite team get their butts handed to them.
I'd warned my mother that we were not receptive to discussions about replacing TV's. So when she heard my father start in on DH, she barked at him to mind his business. I am certain that she conveyed my warning to him, which, in retrospect, I see was all the more incentive to poke DH about it again.*** He also seems to have concluded that IIIII am the obstacle to flat screened progress (I am not. DH and I are on the same page about the UNimportance of televised perfection).
When my mother squawked at him to back off, my father proceeded to ask my husband if he wears the pants in our house.
It is at this point that the last of my considerable sense of humor drains from my toes. Because the subtext of all this pettiness begins to choke me. And all my childhood buttons are lit up like the tree in the next room will be on Christmas Eve.
After the game, DH and I scooted out to Lowe's to pick up the gift my mother ordered for my dad. We were unsuccessful because the damn football ran til 8PM (the subject of a different rant), but we stopped at Walmart and picked up some milk and a few Christmas gifts since we were in the neighborhood.
When we returned to the house, my father snapped at DH when he saw the milk. Because HE had ALREADY bought milk when he went out and made an emergency Kleenex run this afternoon (I swear we had some spare boxes of tissue in the linen closet if he had only just asked. I just didn't realize they could exhaust our existing supply in less than 24 hours. My bad). I'd been gone all day and didn't know my dad had purchased milk without being asked (how would I?).
The fur flew.
Seriously? Snapping at us for buying milk in our own house? Is this something to fight about? My kids go through a lot of milk in one week. And we will be cooking holiday meals this week. And it's bloody freezing outside, so extra gallons can be stored in the garage. So chances are, no harm has been done. But even if some is wasted? Do you have to be impatient and ugly about an honest mistake? WTF?
I was reaching my breaking point. Unlike DH, I will defend myself. And my father equates that with disrespect. If you hear a loud explosion between now and the end of the holidays from this direction, you will think of me.
I poured myself a Coke (bad, bad habit). The Toddler climbed up to the table and helped himself.
My mother walked into the kitchen and started carping about the caffeine keeping him awake so close to bedtime. The Coke was caffeine free. (Caffeine is another thing that is against The Rules). When I pointed this out, she changed up her finger wagging target to the fact that he would pee in his newly changed (by her) diaper. Um. We have more diapers? He's thirsty, but my God, don't let him have a drink because he might have a pee. (And no, we don't let him drink Coke all the time. It's just not verboten, reasoning explained here.) Anarchy!
I thought my head was going to pop.
Normally I would just count to ten and let it go. Instead I called her Contrary Mary (something she always called me as a child) and I pointed out that she seemed to need to have something to wag her finger about. To which she sighed smugly, "I am such a baaaaad grandmother."
She's something.
In the play book of bad parenting and bad relationships, this is all pretty tame. I know. So now I am going to go and find my lost sense of humor ... before someone really gets hurt. We are going to see Santa this afternoon. Maybe I can ask him for a little transfusion? ;-) One with an olive in it.
*"... the pillow, which humans might otherwise use, gets covered in stubborn cat hair." Have I mentioned that DH is allergic? Mentioned the time after they left that he ended up in the ER with a seriously swollen face after an incident involving said pillow and a toddler's finger in his eye? It's fine with us that they bring the cat. She used to be ours (she preferred a child free home). But it's not okay to use her as a blunt instrument of torture. JMO.
**"heckle my very diplomatic, long-suffering mate" DH's mother raised him to believe that healthy boundaries do not apply to your parents. So the likelihood of my husband actually telling my dad to go to hell when he deserves to hear it are almost nil. My father seems to relish this soft spot.
***It would be interesting to see what would happen if DH just told my dad to fuck off about the televisions. Because that's what this kind of nonsense calls for. But unfortunately this will never happen. And I am increasingly disgusted with my father's taste for taking advantage of my husband's patience. Although, I should probably just let DH return the patience favor, because there isn't enough patience in the world for the way his mother treats me.
I have a simple prayer. Something about being ever so much better than a sharp stick in the eye to our own children once they are grown. Oh. Yes. And that we live that long.
Go Ask Aunt Becky
2 hours ago
