It’s blog share time – when we all switch blogs and post anonymously. Gives us a chance to air a grievance or two. The post I’ve put below was not written by me, though I feel compelled to promise you all that I would NEVER DO THIS. Enjoy! (PS the formatting is being lame, but I can’t get it to fix. Ignore the weirdness, enjoy the content!)
In-law stories? Oh, I’ve got a few. Rather than tell any of my stories about my mother-in-law – the ones that could curl your toes and straighten your hair – let me tell you about my more amusing cousins-in-law.
I was about three months shy of my wedding date (still time to run, in retrospect!) when I agreed to a full-family vacation with my husband – his immediate family, all his aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and etc. We rented two houses side-by-side on the coast and off we went.
Now, I do like many of my husband’s relatives. They are boisterous and funny and they all genuinely enjoy each other’s company. His grandmother is a kick, determinedly positive, smart, and engaging. She does tend to say things like, “I’m so glad you’re not fat anymore!,” though. I believe my husband’s family as a whole was exposed to radiation or fed some sort of magic radish, I don’t know what, that resulted in a complete lack of tact. Oh, the adventures.
But the cousins! It took a few days before I suddenly realized that the cousin with two children under the age of three never asked anyone to watch her children for her. She just left. Like the finger alongside the nose trick, the last adult left in the house found themselves responsible for the kids, without any conversation ever happening. One day I was getting coffee and my book, looked around and I was all alone. Just me and the kids, the girl who would shriek like an air raid siren if I laughed too loud and the boy with the runny pink-eyes. Everyone else had escaped, the parents were gone! Ack!
I became paranoid. Anyone else packing for the beach? OHMYGOD, just remembered that I was going for a run! Now! No time for shoes! One day I was sitting on the front porch reading and the sliding door opened, two adult hands placed the boy with pink eye in with me, and then the door slid closed. Oh no no no!! I was not about to be set up like that. I opened that damned door, set the kid on the other side, slid the door closed and ran like hell.
The rest of the vacation had me on edge – who knew when the next attack would take place? Was I safe to sleep? What if I came out of the bathroom and found myself caught? I was dodgier than a politician running from a paternity suit.
In the end, I still went through with the wedding despite having met my husband’s family (we’d already laid down the deposit for the hall, after all). But I remain on guard. Christmas and everyone else is going skiing? I am not afraid to invent an emergency with a friend or a sudden call from work – and then just go to a movie. Thanksgiving and I see the parents slipping out the back door? I will knock Grandma over and throw elbows at the aunts to get out the front in time. Survival of the fittest, Mad Max in the Thunderdome, at least up to the time someone actuallyasks for a sitter.
OH MY GOD! My in-laws do this TOO! I thought I was alone!!! When I get caught with the kids, I let them run wild and destroy the house. That’s what you get for leaving me with kids I didn’t know I was watching.
I could never describe this as humorously as you have though.
This is HILARIOUS! It would make me furious to suddenly be Child Care Provider without being asked, though.
Ha! That sounds painful, but hilarious! As long as you can successfully wiggle your way out of it. What kind of crazy parents are they, anyway?
Thanks for sharing this!!
What you need to do is develop a reputation as a child-hater and incompetent child care provider. I developed the first by not allowing children at our wedding (the horror! my SIL still is bitter) and the second by making a ruckus every time a niece or nephew needed a diaper change (oh, this is not a job for aunt NGS!). Now the parents are super anxious when I am left alone with their children. Muhahahaha.
This is hilarious! Not for you of course. But at least you learned to recognize it very quickly and have managed to escape.
Wow, what terrible parents. What happens if whomever is the last adult in the house with the kids doesn’t notice and leaves? Yikes.
I’m learning about blogs and enjoyed reading yours!
This is so hilarious. But only would be looking in from the outside. Fortunately, you’ve learned quickly and have figured out how to mostly avoid being the last man standign!
Ho.Ly. Crap. I’d be pissed. I love my own kids but I don’t like to baby-sit.