A week of refusing to turn the heat on even at night while they sleep has resulted in the MIL getting horribly sick. When she gets a common cold, it’s brutal on her due to her weakened immune system. She is bedridden and now the heater must be jacked up to 75 F day and night (since they never go out) and FIL must service and tend to her (which he already does, but now it’s what he normally does times 100).
This morning Hubby lectured her. He was kinda pissed. He berated her for her stupidity and lack of foresight. In trying to save a couple of dollars, now we have to spend a couple hundred. At one point FIL went off about some family friend who visited them for a week and always had the heater on and that month, their bill was $100. (Seriously? You’re complaining about that?) He just went on and on like it was the most loathsome thing for a house guest to do, use your heat. “They would leave the heat on.. all night!!” he cried, like this was a completely horrible thing to do.
Also, I hate myself for what I end up thinking with regard to the sharp educational gap between Hubby’s parents and us. The other day Hubby tried to explain fossil fuel to his dad and he guffawed so hard at the notion that it comes from organic matter. He believes it simply “comes out of the ground… like water… the earth has it, like water.”
I always thought FIL was a good gardener, but he’s not, not really. They talk about how certain things he grows will bear fruit while others die. He’s killing some of our trees and I had to report it to Hubby. It’s science. You have to read up on how some trees need phosphorous, others need whatever the hell they need; how to trim the branches– I’m not saying I know or that I am an expert, but at least I appreciate that it’s a science and needs to be researched if you want to do it right. FIL just goes on experiential knowledge– trial and error. He puts something near a tree or waters it a certain way, hacks off branches as he will, and then it dies. Boom. Knowledge. Don’t do the same again. That’s the only way he learns. WHY CAN’T YOU LOOK IT UP? OMIGOD WE HAVE THIS THING CALLED THE INTERNET NOW.
I think the most annoying thing right now is how MIL fishes for compliments when she cooks. After she presents dinner, she literally stares at each one of us to see what we eat and asks if it’s good. If she makes a squid dish and Hubby hasn’t touched a piece of squid for the first 5 minutes of dinner, she will call him out. “Why haven’t you eaten my squid yet? Do you not like it? Try the squid. It’s very good. Try it. Try it now.” [Her squid dish, as it is, is always overcooked, and not by a little, but by a lot. It’s always a lot overcooked. Christ. You cannot, cannot overcook squid. So we always have a ton of squid left over after every dinner because no one will eat that shit and then she insists that we pack it for our work lunches the next day and she won’t take no for an answer so Hubby and I both go to work with a Rubbermaid full of her shitty squid and both of us dump it out into our offices’ trash bins. It’s a horrible, horrible waste of food. I wonder if she realizes just how wasteful she actually is, all while priding herself in being spendthrift.]
It’s now habit. When we sit down for dinner, the first thing I do is in a very obvious, demonstrative way, take something from every plate and each time I pop a new item into my mouth, beam, nod, and declare, “Mmmmmm! This is so good!! This is perfect. Very well done.” Even when the squid tastes like shit. Because as Hubby and I have both learned, you should never, ever tell MIL that her food sucks, unless you want to spend the next five hours comforting her, wiping her tears, and telling her everyone loves her and appreciates her and we are so grateful for all that she has done for us…. you get the picture. So we just go on and on about how delicious everything is because that’s just easier.
Coping with the Chinese MIL 