my life, my pace

Don’t tell me the reason why you’re in town is that you want to visit and hang out with me and your brother when it’s not true. Because then I’m led to conclude that all you really wanted was a private room and bed in which to do the nasty with your concubine #5 since your crazy mom (in a rare moment of non-craziness) removed the locks from all the doors at home to prevent being a party to such activities. Ah, I knew that it wouldn’t be long before charismatic brother-in-law ended up on my shitlist too. I think by now we can conclude that if you’re in any way related to my husband, be it by blood or otherwise, you will end up on my shitlist. It’s not a matter of if, but rather a matter of when. Anyway, so charismatic brother-in-law brought concubine #5 (he has so many that I really don’t remember if she’s #5 or not, but I do know that she is the current favored one) into town claiming that she wanted to get to know us better. I was against this visit in the first place because the husband was supposed to spend this weekend studying for an impending midterm, but agreed against my better judgment after extracting a no-nasty-business-in-my-house promise from charismatic brother-in-law.

Well, first off, they arrive at some ungodly hour. Then we asked them if they had eaten and concubine #5 replied that she hadn’t. So I offered her three different food choices.

Me: Well, we have porkchops, stir fry noodles, or beef.

Concubine #5 [doesn't respond and looks away at charismatic brother-in-law]

Me [after scooping rice into a container to put away in order to give concubine #5 some time to respond]: So, what do you want to eat?

Concubine #5 [testily]: I don’t know.

At that point, I really wanted to shove some food in her face, but instead I just put the food away and went somewhere else. But, tell me, what kind of guest acts like that? What kind of guest who should be trying to ingratiate herself with the family acts like that? And she’s charismatic brother-in-law’s current favorite (even though she’s the ugliest of his batch of concubines; tell me, what’s with my husband’s family and ugly chicks?) because of her good manners. Riiiiiight. That must have been some kind of code for how good she is in bed. After that, I pretty much decided that I would make no effort whatsoever with her and that she would have to initiate any further interactions. You would think that seeing how boisterous she was with my sister-in-law, that she would have had no problem. But she did not even try.

Then the following day, we decided to take them out to lunch. Yes, that meant we paid. And we didn’t even get a “Thanks for lunch” out of either of them. Not only that, but even with my super extroverted husband around, the conversation went nowhere. My husband’s valiant attempts to make conversation were met with impenetrable resistance so we ended up eating in silence. Talk about awkward. It was bad. I rank it right up there with how awkward it was to eat with not-so-dear brother-in-law and his super-psycho-super-fugly girlfriend since you could cut through the silence with a knife then too. I thought that charismatic brother-in-law’s concubine #1 (his first and the prettiest of the lot) was hard to talk to, but damn was I wrong. Her quietness was no match for my husband’s extroversion and he easily got her to talk. We spent four-plus hours sitting outside of a deli with her and charismatic brother-in-law with none of the awkwardness that pervaded our mere 45-minute lunch with him and concubine #5.

I couldn’t get away fast enough (or was it them?) and looked forward to some nice not-having-them-around time since charismatic brother-in-law wanted to show her around town while my husband studied. Imagine how displeased I was when they returned home not 45 minutes after we parted ways. And then proceeded to hole themselves up in our guest room for the rest of the day as if they were at some sort of hotel. Suffice it to say, I had to try really hard to contain my relief when they finally left later that night.

So much for coming to hang out with us, huh? Trust me, I’m never allowing it again, so the moral of the story is: don’t tell me you’re visiting me when you’re just using me and my house as a safe haven away from your mom’s crazy intrusiveness. Unless you enjoy being on my shitlist, of course.