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.

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.

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.

"Star Cookies"

It was Christmas time and I had boxed up some homemade rolled Christmas sugar cookies for my sister's kids. For some reason, hubbie brought a couple into the house and gave them to the ILs.

The ones that he brought in happened to have been cut out as stars.

JB was going to a party and she had to bring something to. She said "DIL, make some of those 'star cookies' for me to bring."

No, I didn't have recipe with me, they were too much trouble, I don't cook in other people's kitchens, the dough needs to refrigerate.... Any other reasons in addition to the one in my head, "We don't like each other so why should I do that for you?"

Funny how something like that is fun to make for the right audience, but a chore for the wrong one.

I don't know that I could have done it if I had wanted to... but since I didn't want to, the rest did not matter.

JB/EJ's Sense of Entitlement

In one of my early posts and in my header, I wrote of MIL JB and FIL EJ believing that they were entitled to a portion of what their son has. The words "our son" and "have" are words I often heard.

This story is about just how far they felt entitlement -- it went beyond my own hubbie.

Their youngest granddaughter took a job at KFC after she dropped out of high school and got pregnant. She got a bonus award at work for pleasing the secret shopper. I don't remember the amount, but it was at most $100. This was before EJ died since I was there to hear the story and he died after I quit going there. When MIL told us about it she ended it with "You had better believe that she is going to keep that all for herself. Nobody else will see a dime of it." My thoughts -- why would anybody think anything different. It's her money isn't it? She has a baby to take care of doesn't she?

One of my birthdays

I posted this on the MIL board. I said it was my 30^th birthday, but actually, I think it was my 35^th.

My hubbie did invite everyone he knew over to our house for my 30th birthday. As I am pushing 50 in a couple years, that's a long time ago.

Guess who was first to show up and last to leave?

JB brought with her: 8 yo niece, an Aunt and a friend who I never met. When hubbie got the cake out, the friend said "I didn't know it was FIL-less's birthday, I just thought we were coming to see JB's SON's House."

JB seated herself at the head of the dining room table and took over the dining room as her personal party place all day. She got the phone at the table and started making phone calls and inviting all of her friends and relatives in the area over to our house to see her. Then offering them food and cake when they came over.

Oh, and she was on a diet, so she could not eat the food that hubbie had gotten. He had to go back out to Wendy's and get the particular type of Wendy's salad she wanted. Didn't keep her from pigging out on cake!

My family came as well. It was my birthday, but I was huddled in a corner of the kitchen with my family, eating standing up, while JB was having her own impromptu craptacular in honor of herself in the dining room/party room.

And my Mother is all about appearances. She in her usual fashion kept telling me to be nice, to be a good hostess, etc. But none of the people at the "other party", JB's personal party even knew me or cared that I was there. JB had the place, her son provided the food and phone and she was having fun.

I don't remember her bringing me a gift. That's ok. She always brought cr@p anyway, so it would have been something that I had to get rid of! I got rid of everything she ever gave me, because I did not want her energy or the reminders.

Stories of Various ones of Hubbie's Birthdays

She used his birthday as an excuse to get his attention and get things from him.

This is a post that I made on the support board about some of his birthdays:

She was in the hospital once on his birthday. Do we think it's a coincidence?

One year, I invited SIL for a visit so that DH and SIL could have some brother-sister bonding time. It turned in to a visit from the whole clan -- MIL, FIL, SIL, SIL's DH, SIL's three kids. I silently figured out where I would sleep everyone and bought food for eight people. Then MIL and two nieces showed -- I had cooked a dinner for ten and only had three of the expected six guests show up -- the ones missing were the ADULTS and an almost grown boy. I was so furious that I fed them leftovers the rest of the weekend and froze the rest of the food that I had bought. They stayed several days.

A few years later, I had made the mistake of inviting MIL and FIL over for lunch when DH's birthday happened to fall on a Saturday. I was very specific it was lunch and not a weekend. They complied with that part. She tried to trump me by bringing "the cake." I had already told her when I invited her that I had special ordered a theme cake that DH would like. DH called her that morning that she was coming. When he got off the phone, he said "you don't need to get a cake when you go to the store, M is bringing the cake." The cake was a surprise ordered from a friend who had a business making cakes. She dropped in and delivered the day before and it was well-hidden. I did not tell DH that MIL knew about the other cake. At the party, DH, trying to keep me from looking bad to mommy said "friend made me a cake too....", no mention of me. MIL's cake was a Bundt cake mix cooked in the microwave. Then she had the nerve to bring leftover of the friend's cake home and left the nasty one at our house!

After that year, the ILs started inviting themselves over for lunch the closest Saturday to DH's birthday every year. One year, they had SIL with them. MIL and SIL walked around the house looking at every knick-knack and everything picking it up examining it like they were on a shopping spree. I felt violated that time.

After that, I felt like I had to essentially "child-proof" when they were coming to visit. The next birthday, I put a lot of stuff on the bed in the spare room and locked the door. MIL opened the door with her fingernail I guess. I tried to laugh it off, saying "you're not supposed to be in here, this room hasn't been cleaned." She replied "That's OK, I just wanted to see what you have."

The following birthday, I put everything on the bed again, put a blanket over it and put a box in the room that was in the way of entering the room more than a couple feet -- (because there is a closet next to the door, it's almost like that room has a door-length, closet depth entry way into it. The box was just beyond that. That finally kept her out.

Two years after I cut MIL out of my life, and a year after FIL died, DH said that MIL and SIL wanted to come up on the weekend closest birthday. I told him that it was his birthday, his choice, but I wasn't going to be there. He frowned and said "Why can't they come visit?" I said "They can come visit. I won't be here." I did make plans for a place to be and places to hide the breakables and valuables -- this time under lock and key -- if they came over. But they did not. A visit from them was never mentioned again.

Best I can remember, there were no gifts brought to DH at any of those visits, other than the dry microwaved bundt cake. Oh, we were told we could keep the cake plate. I donated it to some group that was having a yard sale.

The Beginning

Most of the posts here will not be chronological. Many will be of the topics listed in the ideas section. Others will be stuff that I have shared over and over with the MIL support group I was involved in for the last ten or so years.

Hubbie's parents were both high school dropouts. FIL worked doing deliveries until he decided that he wanted to "own" his own store, so he ran a little store for a while.

Hubbie said that they didn't even have indoor plumbing for most of his childhood.

A person who knew Hubbie's family when Hubbie was young said that hubbie was there running the store on his own since he was "just a little thing."

When hubbie was finishing high school, he got recruited into the Air Force to learn Avionics. His parents did not like that. His father even said to him "Why do you want to do that when you can stay here and work at the store.

He went on to the Air Force. But he didn't get to stay long. Before his first term was up, the store was close to "going under". His Dad "wrote" a hardship letter to Hubbie's CO to get him an early release. (The letter was in a woman's handwriting, I have seen it.)

So hubbie left the Air Force and returned "home" to help with the store. He completed his obligation with some reserve duty. After his enlistment was over, he used his GI bill funds to get a technical school degree. (What's now community college). He was not able to find a good job in his home town so he once again moved away. To the city where we both now live which is about three hours away.

Less than six months later, the business went under again.

This time, hubbie went back and took out a consumer loan (high interest, Carter/Reagan error) to pay their way out of debt. As collateral for the loan, his father "sold" him the piece of property he had bought to put a second store on.

At this point, we are up to almost where I came into the picture.

His parents never worked after selling off the store and getting money from hubbie to pay the rest of their debts. His father actually said "I don't see why I should have to work if I can't work for myself as long as I have a rich son."

His son may have been rich by FIL's standards. He was a high school dropout in a family of high school dropouts living in a poor part of the state. But hubbie had a two year degree and moved to one of the areas where there are more PhD's per capita than most of the rest of the country. So he was pretty much average, or maybe a little below here.

Hubbie bought a mobile home to live in. Not a nice one, either. The smallest single wide they make. Cheapest appliances --fridge didn't even have a freezer, just a little ice compartment. Tub but no shower. No AC, no place for washer/dryer. 1 tiny bathroom and 2 tiny bedrooms. He had his clothes on metal shelves. He didn't have a car that would run, either. He got transferred to a job doing service work so he had a company vehicle and he used that for personal travel, too. He did not even have a TV in his trailer (not that it matters about the TV, but the car, AC, washer/dryer are a big deal.) No, he was not rich, but he was making enough money to be living better than that.

He gave his Mom signing privileges on his checkbook. He was paying a lot of their monthly bills. His Mom regularly called with needs and he would say "OK, two hundred dollars", which he meant for her to transfer to her part of the balance in his checking account. We are talking 1986 here, so that would be a lot more money in today's economy!

These demands continued the first five years of our marriage, and were pretty much the only point of contention (other than some housekeeping stuff) between us.

When we got engaged, FIL did tell hubbie "I am going to get a job so that you can have babies." He died 19 years later and that job never came about.