Torture

This past weekend we surprised my mother-in-law with a spa day during the day on Saturday and then dinner in the evening. That is a long ass day to spend with my in-laws. The reason for the surprise is that my mother-in-law turned 70 on May 28^th. My sister-in-law and niece came in from Illinois to surprise her as well. It was a very nice thought and gesture for my mother-in-law and I know she really enjoyed herself. Can’t you just sense that there is a “but” coming?

Let me give a shortened version of my husband’s family situation. You may want to take notes because it’s a little complicated. Soap operas are written about this stuff. In fact there was a little show called the Brady Bunch that it was loosely based off of. My father-in-law was married before and had two daughters from that marriage. His first wife passed away when the girls were really young. She had tuberculosis. My mother-in-law was also married before and had three daughters from that marriage. Her first husband was a Detroit cop and was hit and killed by a Detroit City bus while on pursuit of another vehicle. The girls were also very young, in fact the youngest was only about 5 months old. Both very tragic stories. My in-laws met, married and had my husband the following year. He is the youngest and the only boy with five (yes 5!) sisters.

I can only imagine what the house was like growing up. The oldest daughter from each of my in-laws are the same age and the next two from each are only a few months apart. When my husband was born, the oldest daughter was about 9 years old. So my in-laws had six children under the age of 9 when my husband was born. Can you even imagine? It explains some things in that family. I mean you have to be a little crazy to be able to handle all those kids, right?

My husband really only gets along with three of his sisters. The oldest from my mother-in-law and my husband do not speak to each other at all. I also do not speak to her. She is an A-1 bitch. And we are all certain that she has some mental disorder or something, possibly a little bipolar. We’re not sure, but she is super nice one minute and then just a total bitch the next. Most of the time she learns more towards total bitch. She didn’t even go to her own sister’s wedding two years ago. The wedding was on the other side of the state and it was her second marriage, but everyone else made the trip. Even the sister from Illinois made it. Funny enough, she came to our wedding and our wedding was in Charlevoix which is in the very northwest part of Michigan. The other sister, ironically the oldest from my father-in-law, we used to get along with. In fact, she’s the one that introduced Mr. Jeep and I. She used to be my favorite of the sisters. I still don’t know what happened, but she never really acknowledged when LC was born. She came to my baby shower and was her normal self. She sent a card the day after LC was born, but that was it. She never came to the house to see LC. She never called. She ignored us the next time we saw her. It was all very bizarre.

They all pretty much drive me crazy. They are very LOUD people. More so, two of the sisters that Mr. Jeep gets along with are very loud. The one regularly states that she is the smartest in the family. No joke. I have heard her say this on several occasions. Actually she says that she and the other loud one are the smartest in the family. And it’s the entire family, not just the immediate that they are above. Who the hell says this? She’s also the one that last Memorial Day when we were up north, emerges from the house in full on make-up and some outfit that looked like it came straight out of Orvis! We have no running water or electricity at the property up north. Everyone pretty much looks gross all weekend. That’s how it is, accept it. I could go on and on with the stories, but you probably get the idea. They are a couple of high maintenance chicks. I like to think that I am not.

So when the idea of spending pretty much the entire day with the five of them came up, I shuddered. Instantly I began thinking of ways to get out of the spa part of it. Finally I told myself that it was for my mother-in-law and not me and to suck it up and do it. So that’s what I did. All-in-all it went pretty well. The first appointments were supposed to be at 10 am and we were to get there before 10 am to surprise my MIL. My niece was bringing her to the spa. 10 am came and went and there was still no sign of the niece and MIL. Finally it was around 10:20 or so and the massage therapist that was going to be working with me asked if I wanted to get started or keep waiting. I felt horrible making her wait because this then meant that all of her appointments were now pushed back for the rest of the day. I finally told her let’s get started; I can always say hi after my massage. I ended up leaving around 2:30 pm and they were still there. Apparently they didn’t leave until almost 4 pm! Thank God I made an early exit.

We were supposed to be at the restaurant at 6:00 pm for dinner. Mr. Jeep, LC and I were actually early. I was very proud. Everyone else trickled in after that. We probably didn’t sit down to start ordering until 6:45. There were about 20 people total in our group. The restaurant had 1 waitress waiting on 20 people. They had us split up into two long tables and 1 waitress! WTF! We never left the restaurant until after 9:30. LC was crashing big time at the end. She kept saying “Momma, I’m so tired.” I felt really bad and I also wanted to leave. My brother-in-law came up to me to see how I was doing and so we had a little bit of a bitch session between the two of us.

It was one day/night and my MIL had a great time. That’s all that matters. And the saying “you can choose your spouse but not your in-laws” is oh so true in my case. They’re all headed to Frankenmuth (a German touristy town north of Detroit known for its chicken) together today. Mr. Jeep and I were not jumping on that train.