Monday, July 7, 2008

MIL Monday: The Sandwich Nazi

I have to say that my FIL is a saint. He cooks, cleans, does more than his fair of the chores. When he visits, once he gets in the swing of things he can always be counted on to pitch in.

When he and MIL visited shortly after LittleBird was born, he made the afternoon snack for himself and MIL every afternoon. Kind of like having afternoon tea, FIL would make coffee for MIL and fix sandwiches for the two of them.

One unforgettable afternoon, I was sitting on the sofa with LittleBird after having nursed her. FIL made sandwiches in the kitchen for the two of them. We were running low on sandwich meat, we had a little bit of ham and a little bit of either turkey or salami, I can't remember which.

MIL was sitting on the couch and FIL brough her the prerequisite cup of coffee. He went back to the kitchen, brought her sandwich on a plate, and laid it on the table in front of her.

She looked at it. She looked at him. And sneered I said I wanted the ham.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

I couldn't believe my ears.

I couldn't look at her. Thank god I had LittleBird snuggled on my chest because I needed something else to focus on.

FIL? He picked up her plate. He went back to the kitchen. He brought her the sandwich he had made for himself, and ate the one that he had made for her.

The upshot of this whole scenario? I couldn't wait for Hubbie to get home to tell him. When I relayed the story, I told him how happy I was. Because if this is how his mom treats his dad, then this was how Hubbie was raised to expect a wife to treat him. And that I could now expect him to fix me snacks and I could yell critiques at him from the sofa.

He told me to go fuck myself.

This was nearly four years ago. He and I still re-enact "THE SANDWICH" scenario. Sometimes he pulls it, sometimes I do. Either way we get a great laugh out of it.

8 comments:

RiverPoet said...

If I were the FIL, I would have shouted, "No sandwich for you! Come back ONE YEAR!"

If he were lucky, it would have worked. What a piece of work is your MIL! She kind of reminds me of the way mine used to be!

Peace - D

krysta said...

What a terror! I will never complain about my MIL again.

Anonymous said...

Good grief! She sounds like a tyrant. But .. hang on a moment. They're in your house, you've just had a baby, and he makes snacks and drinks for them, but doesn't make them for you???

There's something wrong with this picture! Or am I missing something?

Coal Miner's Granddaughter said...

Damn. Bitch better be glad she's not married to me because I would have thrown the sandwich and plate at her nose and told her and her bloody nose to get to the ER on her own.

Damn. I've got some pent-up emotions. Ish.

CPA Mom said...

oh. my. I had no idea I could treat my husband that way. I'm going to go home and try it tonight.

I bet I get "fuck off" too.

*sigh*

CPA Mom said...

and Jay is right...where was YOUR snack?! WTF?

Kelly said...

Man, that's intense. I suppose she gets away with it because he puts up with it. The problem with situations like theirs is they are three times more likely to have a Lifetime movie made about them because one day he's going to snap!

Gypsy said...

I often wonder about women like that. How they manage to get that kind of devotion. Maybe it's fear.