Breast Cancer (not)

I don't remember what year this was, but it was before evil EJ passed away.

There are two parts to this. The first was another "phone game". Hubbie and I had been out somewhere. I don't remember where. The phone was ringing off the hook when we got home.

It was Evil EJ, the Father in Law. Hubbie got off the phone. First he said "Mama has cancer." Then he accused me of already knowing about it and not telling him.

Several days later -- maybe a couple weeks, Sister in Law calls the house. Hubbie was gone somewhere -- out of town maybe, I don't remember. She called to tell that Evil JB's surgery was over. The place was "very tiny" and not cancer.


The rest of her life, she claimed that she "has breast cancer." She didn't even say she was a breast cancer survivor.

She bought candles in honor of herself in Relay for Life. Wore pink breast cancer shirts. Things like that.

It made me angry. Even more when seeing my next door neighbor get a mastectomy and go through chemo and radiation and be sick as a dog and lose her hair. Even more than that when a good friend of mine's wife died from breast cancer AFTER having a mastectomy because they didn't get it all (partially due to malpractice). And later when the women's Olympic basketball coach Kay Yow died from breast cancer, after she had kept her career going until the last possible minute, being put in the hospital for her final hospitalization after a road trip with her team.

Evil JB had no idea what suffering was. She dishonored those people and all other people who have had this disease. The only bright spot from this was that perhaps she got a few donations for causes made in her name.

Note: Having had a questionable mammogram result checked out myself and biopsied negative, I know the emotion and discomfort associated. Some worry, some discomfort, followed by relief. I have not had reason to share it with many people, it was almost a non-event. Many women have experienced the same thing.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

The scene -- at Sister-in-law's house, after GMIL had died.

Present: Me, Hubbie, Sister-in-law, and Sister-in-law's six year old granddaughter.

Sister in law and others were discussing whether or not MIL's house is haunted (didn't I tell you). MIL claimed that there was a light that would come on all by itself. Sister in law said it was probably a touch lamp and triggered by a bug or something.

Six year old said "Yea, probably a bug. Grammy had LOTS of bugs."

Please Drive me to School

I was with hubbie this morning and we were trading stories about the old "I used to have to walk to school bothways uphill barefoot in the snow". We were talking with a lady our age about how we did remember walking to school very young and how that wouldn't be done now.

DH told his version of it. I've been with him for 24 years and never heard this story before. He said that his Mother used to send him to the neighbor's houses to ask for a ride to school because his mother did not have gas or money to buy any.

She doth protest too much

Well, not exactly, but makes too big a deal about something to be telling the truth. This had to be one where evil-JB and her counterpart evil-EJ together were trying to discredit me. Though I didn't really think about it until later.

They usually visited for hubbie's birthday. This year, they did not, because hubbie had a confict, so a few weeks later, he wanted to go visit them.

They went on and on and on about the birthday card that they sent hubbie. About where they bought it, about when they sent it, about how they had to chase down the mail carrier to get it in the mail in time, about putting extra postage on it to make sure it arrived, you get the drift.

They also were complaining about their mail carrier. (Boils down to that they didn't like him because he wasn't white.)

Finally after about the 15th time they mentioned the card, hubbie said that he didn't receive one. Then when the mail came, Father in law, evil EJ made a big deal about going out to accuse the mail carrier of throwing it away instead of sending it off.

At that point, it had not kicked in what they were REALLY doing. I saw it as them going after the mail carrier because he wasn't white. I took what they said as the truth. I had no idea if hubbie had gotten a card or not until he said so in the conversation. So I popped up and mentioned how the mail on our end is also bad... that we always get mail in our box that isn't ours and the neighbors get ours, and that it was probably at one of the neighbor's houses. That was what it was in my mind at the time.

Then I realized. There was likely never any card. They kept bringing it back up to try to get me in trouble, just like they lied about me withholding phone calls in my "big phone game" post. They part about going after the wrong-race mail carrier was cover. If they weren't trying to make trouble, why did they keep on and keep on bringing up, like 100 times, until hubbie finally said he didn't get the card.

If they were normal people, I'd say that the truth was it got put in the wrong box on our end. However, given the pattern of other things that they did, I think that they were just trying to make trouble. It was probably as revenge for not getting to visit on hubbie's birthday. But hubbie was involved in something of his own that day, he was taking a class that he could only go to on that day or had to wait about three months for.

Something that I realized Years Later

You have to read the last post for this one to be in context: The Big Phone Game

A while after figuring out that the in-laws had been calling the house and hanging up when they didn't hear hubbie, a distant past memory surfaced.

Hubbie was working in Field Service. He had an office, but he wasn't usually there. He was usually on a call or just hanging around home instead. I called him one day when I thought he was at his office. This is in the days before voice mail, secretaries (that was what they were called back then) picked up and took messages if the person didn't answer.

This day he wasn't in and the secretary picked up. When she offered to take a message, I told her who I was and thanked her and said that I would just page him. She responded "well, why didn't you just hang up on me like you usually do?" At the time, I thought, WTF? I thought it was strange, but didn't think much more of it.

Now I realize. MIL hung up when she called the house and he didn't pick up. She was doing the same thing to his secretary!

I did know the secretary back then because I had worked at the company too, but now I don't remember who it was. I almost wish I could go back and tell her that it was evil JB hanging up on her and not me. It had to be, it fits!

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.