The MIL’s Visit or It looks like I picked the wrong week to…, by Russ

The movie “Airplane!” is one of my all time favorite movies. Never has a movie given me so many quotes for social situations. Normally, those situations are with other males who love the movie as much as I do. Ladies, it’s a guy thing. Well, one of those lines, running gags really, fit last week rather well. It was, “It looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking/drinking/sniffing glue/etc”.

Except in my case it was, “It looks like I picked the wrong week to upgrade my bourbon”.

You see, I love bourbon. Basil Hayden (BH) is my bourbon of choice. Normally I just go into the liquor store (ABC store/Red Dot store here in the south, so named for the big ABC and red dot above the store) and grab a bottle of BH and leave. Well, I had watched a program on the making of bourbon and BH was labeled a “beginner bourbon” by a couple of bartenders. Since I am a relative newbie to bourbon drinking I was curious what the next level up is. They suggested Van Winkle 10 or 12 year old bourbon. So in lieu of my usual BH I looked for Van Winkle. Well, it must be better, it cost 30% more. I rationalized that a) I need to celebrate the birth of my daughter and b) my mil was coming and I needed to seek solace where ever I could. Reason (a) good reason, reason (b) not good reason.

I had barely had the bottle open for two days and I noticed that nearly half the bottle was gone. Now I am not afraid to drink, but I don’t get sloshed when I have parental duties looming. Come to find out, the mil was taking a shot or three on the side. If she were helping herself to some Jack Daniels or Maker Mark, that is one thing, but this is a $45 bottle of bourbon. Damn it, not cool. You don’t drink someone else’s booze without asking them. At least she wasn’t topping it off with water. I guess that is a good thing about brown water, you can tell, visually, when it has been watered down.

Once the realization of how the bourbon bottle was empting so quickly, other annoyances became amplified. Like her need to talk, incessantly. I lead a very quiet life at home. Sure the house is filled with giggles and laughter when Mr. B is awake, but even he has the ability to play quietly from time to time. Not so with the mil. Anytime there was a lull in the activities, she needed to fill it with noise. This is to say attempts at conversation. Most of the time it was just play by play of what she or Mr. B or Miss L were doing or going to do or look like they want to do. Think of a combination of: Dickie V, John Madden, Bill Raftery, with just a hint of Pat Summerall (after he should have stopped calling games, just for flavor), ok, now only annoying.

To make matters worse, it rained nearly the entire time she was here. If it wasn’t raining, it had just finished raining and was really wet outside. I did get out to play golf one day with my parents (God bless them). To pass the time, I found myself making a list of the things that she was doing that annoyed me. It covered an entire page. I won’t list them all, but suffice it to say it probably did me more harm than good. I found myself looking for things to put on the list, thus increasing the anxiety level unnecessarily.

Anyway, since I mentioned the list, here is a small snippet and keep in mind these are not one time offenses:

Never changed a diaper after a nap (more than one occasion did the wife or I change a saturated/mega-dirty diaper after she brought him downstairs)

Pushing food in Mr. B’s face (every meal time she would try to force feed him, before we forbade her from doing it)

Leaving dirty tissues about the house (just nasty)

Cutesy names for Miss L and Mr. B (every once in a while, fine, but not needed every time you talk at them)

The only respite I had (on a regular basis) was my lunchtime and evening Call of Duty games. That drove everyone out of the room. I got some much needed quiet to boot.

That is not to say she didn’t have some redeeming qualities. She fielded Mr. B every morning, which allowed us an extra hour or two of sleep. She also replaced my bourbon, which was very nice of her (with BH, but it was the thought that counts).

I couldn't leave without a picture or two...