The Big Phone Game

I thought I had posted this one, but I don't see it anywhere.

It's about the big lie that JB got hubbie to believe.

Hubbie and I were fighting one night. He accused me of answering the phone when his parents called and pretended that I did not hear anyone. I just figured he was lying and said so. He said, "I have been right in the kitchen with you and you acted like you couldn't hear anyone. I would call them later when you were in the shower and they would say 'I see you got your phone fixed.'"

It was so ridiculous that I just called him a liar and dismissed it. Then I went into the shower. Then I realized what happened. Occasionally, I would answer the phone while fixing dinner and nobody would be there. I assumed it was a wrong number. It was only occasional, not often enough for me to realize it was a pattern.

After that, I put an end to it. If I got a call that nobody said anything, I'd hand hubbie the phone and say "whoever it is won't say anything to me." Since she wouldn't admit what she did, she hung up on him too. If he wasn't home and I got a call, I'd tell him when I got home "Call your parents. " He'd ask if they called, and I would say "Somebody called at 5pm and wouldn't talk to me." He'd get mad and wrinkle his face.

It culminated when the golden grandchild had her first child. Phone rang about 5:30 that day when he wasn't home yet. I told him as usual and he disputed me as usual. About an hour later they called and told him all about the baby. All the time he was talking, I was in the living room, yelling "mighty damn funny!!!" When he got off the phone he told me that they had been at the hospital and just gotten home.

After that incident, they started calling him on his cell. Most of the time.

Unwanted Visits

At least two come very much to mind

The first was in the summer, the year after we got married.

One summer weekend, hubbie and I were getting ready to go spend a day at the local lake.

Phone rings and I am the one who answers.

Its evil MIL JB
"What are you doing?"
Me: "Getting things ready to go to the lake for the weekend."
Evil JB: asks to speak to hubbie.
Hubbie gets off of the phone.
Hubbie tells me his Mom and his nieces are getting ready to leave to visit us for the weekend.

We already had plans, but they came anyway.

Who had to cook and clean for them?

Stupid newly wed.

About a year later, hubbie and I bought our house.
The first weekend after moving in, they had to come to see hubbie's new house. Not our new house, hubbie's new house.

We were not yet ready for weekend visitors. We were still getting things unpacked and setting up.


Hubbie took his father, Evil EJ into his basement workshop to get him to help move some things around. Evil JB, I was not going to have her messing up and losing our other stuff. So I was stuck entertaining her while hubbie and Evil EJ were doing man stuff in the basement.

EJ and JB took their kids to a KKK rally

Was talking about one thing then another with hubbie one day. A topic came up of some people who had been convicted many years ago.

Then the topic got to the fact that there had been a KKK ralley in the small town where my Mom used to live. Mom and I had been through there a couple hours before, not knowing what was going on. We saw lots of cops around and wondered what was going on, but kind of forgot about it until that night when we saw on the news that there had been a KKK march through the town.

I then mentioned that it was so sad that lots of little kids are indoctrinated into this.

When I told hubbie about this, he told me that he had been to a "cross burning" in the next county by the KKK when he was a little kid. I said "I bet you were scared." No, his parent had brought him and his sister to it. I was shocked and asked why. He said he thought that they just wanted to know, that everyone went. His Mom, JB and her hubbie EJ broght them because they wanted to go!!!!

His Dad, EJ was one of the biggest racists who I ever know. But I had no idea that he went that far. He said that EJ and JB were never in the KKK. I asked him if he knew anybody who was and he said that he didn't know of anyone.

But it was not exactly common knowledge and not something that everyone wanted to go to. I kind of think I know when it was. My Grandma and Great-Aunt lived about 20 miles from the EJ and JB. I remember them being scared because the "Ku Klux" was around. I remember them looking out the windows and keeping the doors locked. I was a little kid then, so Hubbie would have been too.

Now this was about 30 years ago and true it was "a different time." Still, I cannot imagine that my parents would have ever taken me to anything like that, no matter what their political views would have been. I had been trying to put the EJ and JB nightmare behind me since they are now both dead. I used to feel guilty for not thinking that they have gone to heaven, but the other way. This has added a whole new level of possible disillusionment to my thinking. Not sure if it's disillusionment or validation. Something in between. I knew that they were lazy white trash and racist. I just did not realize to this level. I am glad that hubbie grew past all of that.

Memories of Interrupted Christmas's

I will post about a couple Christmas's past here. I don't remember the exact dates of these, but I think that they were around 2000.

Before I realized that I never had to see MIL-JB and her almost as evil FIL-EJ again, tradition was that I we went to the ILs for Christmas Eve, left and spent the night at my Mom's, spent Christmas morning at my sister's then came home after lunch to have our Christmas together at home.

OK so one year, we got home and after we got home, we got a freezing rain. The phone rang in the middle of the night. It was FIL-EJ saying that MIL-JB was puking and could not stop so he was calling an ambulance. OK, so an adult is puking on Christmas night. This is a 300+ pound adult woman who thinks that you diet by eating vegetables, so she slices vegtables and deep fries them. So hubbie gets up and takes the three hour drive to meet them at the ER. Then goes to clean up the puke from the bathroom and bedroom before they come home, then he stayed there a few more days. In the Nasty House posting, I detail how unsanitary the place was, so it is possible that it was food poisoning, which I feel is probably what eventually killed both of them. But part of me says that they were PO'd that hubbie was at home with me and not with them at the holidays.

The following year was even more strange. It was a couple days after Christmas -- between Christmas and New Years. Hubbie was out hiking (not me, I'm not a hiker, so I was hanging around home). He got a cell phone call from his Mother. She said that Evil FIL EJ was throwing up and wouldn't go to the hospital. His sister was out of town and EJ did not know how to get in touch with her. So hubbie cuts his hike short and the two of us drive the three hours down there. FIL seems OK by the time we get there, but hubbie want him to go get checked out. Evil JB kept saying how she did not know how to get in touch with sister-in-law who happened to be spending her Christmas time with her husband's family. So I ask what the name of the person who she is staying with is. She tells me. So I get my cell phone out and call my Dad to look up the phone number on the Internet. Suddenly, Evil JB realizes that her (adult) grandson in town probably knows the number because he always knows where his mother is. Of course, the daughter in law cannot get the credit for finding the number, can she. So she calls her grandson and gets the number and calls sister in law. Somehow, I do not find any of this to be conincidence -- that she calls her son into town saying that FIL is sick on the exact day that her daughter is out of town with her husband's family. The fact that she cannot get in touch with her daughter until I almost get her in touch with her, some 7 or 8 hours after she initially called her son to town.

And there have been other incidents, too. These were two years in a row and stick out the most.

A Visit from JB's Brother In Law

Many years ago, one of JB's husband EJ's brothers was in out town. They were going on a plane trip somewhere early in the morning, so they were spending the night at an airport hotel. They called to tell them that they were going to be in town, so he said we'd go out and get dinner together somewhere. The entitled ones always call on hubbie for things.... I sort of thought they were hoping for the offer of a free bedroom. He didn't pick up on it, and I didn't volunteer the info.

They come over to go out. Hubbie at the time was doing service work and "on-call" 24/7. He got called A LOT and of course, as soon as they got there, his pager went off. He went and answered and it turned out that he had to go out on an out of town call. His aunt turned around and looked at me and said "S----, you don't have to take us out. You can just cook something for us here."

To his credit, before my chin could hit the floor, hubbie said that we had time to go to Taco Bell before he left.

Remember in one of my previous posts, I told about how his Mom's sister came to town and expected my hubbie to drop everything and spend a Saturday helping her find an apartment in the area. (He knew as little about apartments in the area as anybody else. All he knew was some of the major roads when they got directions.)

The whole family were a bunch of entitled leeches.

The Time JB Gave Me the Finger

I was once visiting JB and her hubbie EJ with with my hubbie. This would have to be before 2002 as I quit seeing them in 2002. I said something that she didn't like. I do not remember what it was, but it was not something that I expected to be taken in any bad kind of way.

She turned around and gave me the finger!

Sad thing is.... that is not out of character for something she would do. I had seen her do this to others -- esp her hubbie EJ (but I never saw her do it to my hubbie, her beloved son.)

I posted this to the support group and the following are some responses that I got:

• What a classy lady your MIL always sounds..............
  
  
• If my mil did that,i would have whipped out my cell fone and taken a photo or vid and shown it to my dh.Or i would have given her the finger back.But knowing me i would have commented about how low class she is for giving someone the finger for no reason and walked away.
  
  
• NM has done this to me. Usually when drunk but also when sober when she was in a particularly jealous and vindictive mood.
  
  
• Well that was mature.
  
  
• klassy.
  
  
• She's a lady, alright.
  
  
• Lovely woman.

JB's Sisters -- They did it on purpose

This one is about JB's sisters. This is a strange story that just re-occurred to me.

MIL's sister#1 had gotten a temporary job in an adjoining city to us. She had asked hubbie to help her find an apartment to stay in while here. She was coming to town on a particular day. Hubbie never heard anything else from her -- confirmation, when/where, etc until midmorning that Saturday, so he did not set his whole day aside for them. So mid-morning that Saturday, hubbie and I were on the counter-service restaurant to meet a friend for brunch.

While we were on the way there, MIL's sister #2 called hubbie's cell. He invited his dufus Aunts to meet us at the restaurant. We had already ordered and paid when they arrived, so he was at least off the hook for having to buy for them. (Everyone in his family, not just JB and her evil hubbie considered my hubbie to be rich and expected him to pay for things.)

Not long after they got there, one of the sisters poured her coffee into my lap. It soaked my clothes, but fortunately did not burn me. (Very fortunate as I usually ice to the coffee at this place to make it drinkable.) So I had to go home to get out of the wet clothes. Wearing soaked blue jeans is not fun.

This happened many years ago and I now realize that this was probably done on purpose to get rid of me -- to get my hubbie to themselves.

So I drove home and DH rode with them to look at apartments. (I took DH's car, so he had to ride with him. I was not about to get the friend to take me home -- she's a dangerous driver, but that's not really related to this story.)



Then later, they all came back to our house. When they got here, the two sisters started going all over the ground floor or the house, looking and peeking into every room. Just like MIL and SIL used to do. This was bad enough, then Sister #2 (not the one looking for an apartment) looked into the spare bedroom and said "This is where I stayed when I was here."
I DO NOT RECALL HER EVER EVEN BEING AT MY HOUSE BEFORE, MUCH LESS SPENDING THE NIGHT. So if she had been, I was out of town. This is not the kind of thing that I would forget. I quizzed DH about it. He claimed to now know what she was talking about.

DH would not have lied about it to cover his tracks. Even if I had gotten mad about it, he would not have gotten defensive about being able to have whoever over he wants, but it did not get to that point. So either she was lying or he does not remember. HE's kind of goofy and does forget things like that sometime. I'll often say "remember when...." and he does not. Yes, I worry that it could be a problem, but that's another thing as well.

Still, it's creepy that JB's sister claims to have spent the night in my house and neither me nor hubbie remembers anything about it. There is no way she would have gotten access without us knowing. If JB ever had a key, I did not know it and there was no evidence. I don't think JB did. Hubbie is funny about keys, no matter how well he knows somebody. He might forget something having someone over but I COULD NOT IF I WANTED TO.

Just her claim wierds me out. Even more than having JB in my house since the aunt is almost a total stranger to me.

I now know she spilled the coffee to get rid of me. But why did she claim that she slept in my house? That was just strange.