Thank you for your visit today. I know it was not your fault that when you arrived this morning I was still in my pyjamas. I assumed we would be waiting for you for hours and was not rushing to get dressed. It did enhance what was to be an unbelievably tedious encounter though, didn’t it?

I would just like to say that I was especially impressed by all of your eye rolling and muttering at our description of the dishwasher’s problems. It is sometimes hard for us moronic plebs to avoid irritating the highly talented and gifted, such as yourself. We do try though and to this end, believe it or not, we had checked for a kinked hose ourselves.

It was very sweet that you pulled out the dishwasher filter and scrubbed away at it. I have never felt so festy as I did when you pronounced that it was merely a blocked filter that was preventing our dishwasher from running AT ALL. You managed to get the blasted thing to run, I was forced to concede that it did appear to now be working. You explained, as if speaking to a very small child, that we must clean the dishwasher filter every time we use it and repeatedly told us that you could not stress that enough. We get it, we’re filthy. Oh the shame.

I suggested that you could wait and see if it stopped part way through the cycle, just as it has been when we have managed to get it to run. I felt cowed by your insistence that it was our lazy, periodic filter cleaning that was to blame. No one would behave like that much of a smartarse unless they were sure about it, right?

That’s why, Little Wankywank Wankerson, I was particularly livid when, about six minutes after you left our house, the dishwasher stopped mid-cycle, repeating it’s performance of the last four days. I was thrilled.

The filter is now clean and surprise, the dishwasher still does not work. Let’s hope tomorrow’s visit is more productive, shall we?

From

Stupid Housewife

P.S. I will be ready, the dishwasher is now so shiny you can not look at it directly.

P.P.S. I forgot to thank you for you phone call this afternoon. I loved that you were able to question what I meant by “the dishwasher is not working”. You can’t make it untrue just by refusing to believe me. I have not sabotaged your work, wilfully clogging up the filter just so I could see you again. Trust me, you were just wrong.

***THIS WILL BE A RANT, FEEL FREE TO STOP READING NOW***

Imagine you had a mother-in- law. Imagine you had a mother-in-law and she was a bit of a giant biyatch. Not in an all-around, “I’m just a crazy bitch” way but in more of a “I’m going to specifically target you because you stole my son and I have a weird obsession with him and also I am a narcissist” way. Imagine she was a loving and devoted grandmother, who really only had the best intentions but was sometimes a bit misguided in her grandmotherlyness.

That pretty much sums up MILFH. Also, there may be a touch of “I’m manipulative and domineering” thrown in there somewhere as well. So, she’s basically a total nightmare but she loves her grandkids and we keep seeing her to a minimum and it all goes okay along as we don’t hit any bumps in the road.

We hit a bump.

She called to talk to Beefcake about something or other a few days ago. They discussed his birthday, a family dinner scheduled for tonight and Christmas presents among other things. Yes, she had already organised Pudding’s Christmas gift, could she have some ideas for Rhubarb, Poss and Grub. Beefcake gave her some ideas for the other children and then inquired what exactly had been organised for Pudding.

A real drive-in electric car.

An extravagant toy for which we have no room. A toy, which he will love, but never be able to use because there is nowhere for him to drive it. Something completely impractical and just inappropriate for our 3yo. I know it was probably well-intentioned and it is probably a nice gift and grandparents are supposed to spoil their grandkids but it’s just not okay for us right now.

Beefcake kept silent and discussed it with me after he got off the phone. We decided that he would speak to her on his birthday so that it would be taken care of for the family dinner tonight and there would be no chance of any tension. Beefcake was predicting that she would be fine with it. I predicted a complete meltdown.

Guess who was being more realistic?

She went nutso. How dare he suggest that it was innappropriate. She would never dream of commenting on a gift someone had bought for her. She could have just given it to Pudding and then we would have had to have it. Beefcake tried pointing out that it would be rather annoying to receive a gift like that without being told and that she really should have asked us before she bought it. It didn’t go down well. Apparently we are unreasonable. I firmly believe we are not and, since this is not the first time she has bought a Christmas gift for one of our children that we couldn’t fit into our house, we felt it was time we said something.

She’s just so upset, she may have to arrange to have a special talk with him about how she’s been feeling lately. He’s just not attentive to her. He never spends time with his brother and sister. On and on and on. She started going wildly off-topic at this point, about his lack of involvement with family, his unfathomable intention NOT to spend his birthday with her etc, etc.

She’s lost the plot. How many men in their thirties, with four kids, does she think spend their birthday with their MUM. I mean, I’m sure lots of people get together with family on or around their birthday but I don’t think it’s reasonable to be outraged that he would spend his time with just us. WE ARE HIS FAMILY!!!

Wow, this is turning into quite the rant. Poor old Beefcake. He’s holding up well. This may be due to the fact that he couldn’t give a fuck but I feel for him. So, we have this dinner tonight. Last we heard, no venue had been finalised. She hasn’t called us. We’re assuming she’ll be “too upset” to have us come. Should we call and find out where it is and try to attend or just keep to ourselves?

My personal feeling is that we’re damned either way.

***END RANT***