2004-09-14 - 2:06 a.m.

return of the persecutors

...which is to say... my inlaws are coming to visit again.

They live outside the US, and come to this country once a year for five or six weeks, to visit my husband, and his brother and his family. They usually spend most of the time with his brother and come to see us twice, for four or five days at a stretch. This is going to be a short trip, about a month, so they said they'd probably only come to see us once this time.

They have been in the US for about five days now. They never come to visit us the first weekend they're here - they're too tired. When they got here and began to think about when they'd come to see us, I reminded my husband I'd be out of town this coming weekend, and then either the next weekend or the one after that. I told him if that conflicted with their plans and if HE would like me to be here for HIM when they come and visit, that I would adjust that next trip between the last weekend in September and the first weekend in October. This weekend's trip is non-negotiable (I don't make the tour schedule, ya know).

I also told him that they shouldn't try to plan their visit around me and pretend they are interested in seeing me, because I know they're not. He thinks I'm wrong about that. I'm really not. His father's feelings about me are the dictionary definition of ambivalence, and his mother just plain doesn't like me and thinks I'm rude. Which is fine with me because she's a psycho. But he did tell me to go ahead and make my plans however I wanted to, because they wouldn't make their own in time for me to decide - and no guarantee they won't change their minds too late for me to change to accommodate.

So yesterday he tells me, "they'll be here Thursday." So I said, "And you remember I'm leaving Friday, right?" Big sigh from him. No, he forgot, and he didn't tell them that. I told him again it didn't matter to me, and they certainly shouldn't change plans on my account.

This evening he tells me he talked to them and told them I'd be out of town beginning Friday. Apparently the result was that they thought it over, and decided they'll still come on Thursday, even though that means I'll only see them for a few hours - unless they'll still be here when I get back on Sunday night - which no one knows. And then they'll come back again before the end of their trip.

Just to see litle ole me? Gawsh!! Don't I feel all special!

I will lay you money right now... they are sitting there going, "YES! YES! She won't be there and we won't have to pretend to be civil!" The thing about "we'll come back again" is all so they'll *look* like they're just marvelous people who care about their family sooooooo much that they are willing to put their tired old bones through that long car ride twice, so they can spend time with their ungrateful bitch daughter-in-law who doesn't care enough about them or their son to postpone a frivolous trip to spend time with his parents. I promise you that as time ticks away toward the second visit, suddenly his mother will come down with some mysterious malaise that prohibits her coming out to see us again - or that something will come up and they'll have to stay with the grandchildren at the other son's house during the time they'd planned to come - or that they're banned for religious reasons from traveling on National Pancake Day. Something. And what a shame it will be that they didn't get to see more of me, but what can they do?

The above I'll give you 99% probability on right now.

50% probability on the following: they'll use the malaise/babysitting/pancakery to say, Oh - but since we can't come up there again, why don't the two of you come here and we can all be together? Which was what they originally wanted to happen, instead of them coming to visit us at all. To which my husband said no, for reasons which I won't detail but which are good reasons. And if you knew how much I dislike having them in my house, for me to agree with refusing to do something that would keep them out for another year, they'd have to be pretty good reasons.

I'll let you know what happens... because by then you'll all be bored again and looking for something new to read to kill a few minutes.

Today's favorite spam subject line:
It is known, that dogs eat horses! collapses

Well I would imagine so. Like the old lady who swallowed the fly.

my mood -

the mood of the whole world wide bleepin' web -