The Beast...

Everyone has to have an arch-nemesis right? Well, if you know me in real life, what I will reveal is not a shocker. My arch-nemesis is my boyfriend's mother. For lack of a better term, I call her mother in law (MIL) because her son is MINE, whether she likes it or not... married or not. -Pause to shake off the bad mojo-

So we had a sort of neutral peace established. She had learned that her son valued my thoughts and that I wasn't going to take her side in anything against him just for MIL brownie points. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of anyway?! What smart woman is going to side with her partner's mother OVER/AGAINST her partner?? Anywho, it was kind of a truce of sorts with the occasional jab thrown in on both sides. Mine were mostly defensive and, thankfully, I have FIL in my corner. Thank God or whatever's in charge for my boyfriend's father.

Then, all hell breaks loose. How? Why? You're never going to believe it and remember I'm mostly speculating on her part. If she was a reasonably intelligent woman, I'd sit down and hash it out with her... Not gonna happen. So, here goes.

First event in the big boom, Mike bought a house 30 minutes away from her, in the middle of nowhere, in the -OMG faces people- COUNTRY!! This woman has so many unintelligent thoughts and stereotypes about the country I could fill an entire page. I find this incredibly insulting because I've spent time living in the country, I love the country, and my DAD WAS BORN AND RAISED COUNTRY! The stories from his childhood have always fascinated me. Yes the country is a different world with different rules. I don't think one's better than the other, they're just different and I prefer the country ways. So, listening to all her little rants about country life that made no sense whatsoever just pissed me off.

Second event in the big boom, Mike told them he bought the house for US.... I missed his declaration and would have loved to hear it slip. I only found out about it recently because his sister told me. He did, however, tell me the story about telling his mom to forget her decorating ideas because WE would be decorating it and he liked the ideas that I have. Oops.... gasoline on the fire my love.

Now the final straw, the line cut into the sand, event.

The MIL Monster is slowing us down at the house all under the guise of "helping". Helping would be looking at the "to-do" list we came up with and helping cross things off. Not ADDING to the workload. My mom comes over (my dad too for that matter) and says, "What needs done?"  His mother... "I'm doing..."

No bullshitting. My mother and I spent 8 hours cleaning the old wood. I told Mike and his mother that it was done. She just HAD to polish the wood though. And what did she use?! The Old English that I approved (because despite her thoughts on the matter, I know how to clean)... No... she used this lemon OIL that's meant for BARE wood. Untreated wood.... this wood is not untreated. Instead it's left an oily shine over all the wood we worked so hard to clean and I had to listen to "It'll sink in... it'll sink in..."

Now, was I the one who asked her what the hell she was thinking. No, I made a mental note to wipe off all the wood before the carpets get cleaned or the harvest gets plowed so the dirt won't stick to the oil she added. Great, 8 hours of buffing... wooo...

Imagine my surprise when Mike asked her what the hell she was doing! Granted he and I had spoken on the subject in private and it had boiled down to "Are you going to trust your mother who owns all press-wood crap or the girl who grew up with a mom who liked antiques and real wood?". But, yes.. it was my darling boyfriend/life partner who probably saw the red spots in my eyes and stepped up to the plate. Being corrected by her darling son in front of his horrible girlfriend and then realizing he was siding with the aforementioned horrible girlfriend....

The woman has now lost her damn mind... and I had to put my foot down. When I mentioned that the kitchen cabinets were almost done, she mentioned oiling them up... And the kitchen is fairly new folks, it doesn't need oiled. When I took a non-scratch scrub pad to one of the cabinets, the woman almost jumped me. Not kidding, I almost slammed my elbow into her face she was so close. My defensive hackles were raised, I'm a believer in personal space and I've told her that many times. Next time I will bust her nose and I won't apologize...

Then she started talking about oiling the wood paneling walls and on and on and on. And then, Oh God ... the curtain issue was raised again. I'm not even kidding the woman looked me in the eye and said, "Now, hanging curtains is tricky, you have to measure just right and blah blah blah... Are you sure you know what you're doing?"  Well, I defended myself and then I left the room to continue scrubbing the kitchen. MY kitchen has to be clean, it's a bugging point for me. I can't cook in a dirty kitchen so I saw it as a personal project. (Did I mention the MIL has spiderwebs in her sink and mold in her coffeemaker?!) Then, Mike mentions the cobwebs along the baseboards of the cabinets... oh yes, I'll be spraying everything down with Home Defense bug spray... stay outside and eat the mosquitoes you stupid spiders. His mom's response, a dismissive wave of her hand and, "Oh, I have spiderwebs under my counters all the time... just part of life."

Excuse me?! My mother has NEVER had cobwebs or spiderwebs in the kitchen. And the occasional one to slip through met a horrible demise. I'm not kidding folks, the woman looked up at me (I was sitting on the counter cleaning a blind) and grinned, "Spiders are part of country life...." Bitch! She knows I HATE spiders. Of course I responded, "They are, OUTSIDE. A good cleaning and some preventive measures and there will be no spiders in MY kitchen."  Yeah, I fell into it. I couldn't control myself at this point.

Now, one point in my favor... Mike secretly finds it cute that I need rescued from spiders. Every woman should have something her man can rescue her from. It brings out that caveman protective instinct. In my case, I happen to not be faking. Spiders never scared me until that stupid zoology class when I learned how dangerous the fuckers are and that the most dangerous ones lurk in dark corners... -shivers- Enough about that. Mike thinks it's cute that I can change my car's oil but I run screaming from a spider... so I'm sure thinking about all the times he can rescue me didn't work in his mother's favor.

So, anyway, I'm up on the counter, starting on the blinds... she wanders off to discuss God knows what and I breathe a sigh of relief. I did mention she saw me start on the blinds right... So she wonders in "Well I have to leave before dark, it's dangerous driving at night out here (Puh-lease). Next time I come out I'll work on the blinds..." She looks up at me and acts injured. "Oh dear, didn't you hear me say I'd work on the blinds?"

Kudos for me, I bit my tongue and just shrugged and kept going... Then she mentioned oiling the cabinets again. I looked over my shoulder, made eye contact with my man, and shot daggers. "You've messed with our antique wood, stay the fuck away from my kitchen!" I screamed mentally and then tuned out.

Well, I guess what I missed was Mike's argument with MIL about the kitchen as he walked her out. I did hear him say "Weren't you leaving?" God, I love him! So he came back in and I was taking a break thinking about all the extra work I'd have to do to erase her mistakes and I hear, "I told her not to touch the kitchen. Like you said, this isn't that kind of wood, it doesn't need polish." I nod, "What about her claim it'll clean the wood too?" (Word of advice, polishes don't clean wood. That would be like saying you could just wax your car and the wax would make it clean...) He smiles and says, "I told her you and your mom already cleaned the cabinets and you did a great job."

So, now the line has been drawn. After that I proceeded to tell him I wasn't going to work on the house anymore. I'd still be going out there when I felt like it, but not with a rush to finish. When he asked why, I explained my concerns about working my butt off only to have to follow behind his mother and redo things. I told him I'd much rather just wait for her to do whatever and then clean up her mess. Rather than cleaning things TWICE... I also restated that everyone could seem to follow the "to do" list but her. If she really wanted to help, she'd be checking things off that list, not doing whatever the hell she pleased.

I knew I should keep my mouth shut, but I couldn't do it. She'd overstepped her boundaries with me and I had to put a foot down. I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life tip-toeing around her. I'm making my stand with her and I was making it clear to the poor guy in the middle WHY I'm making a stand. Obviously our discussion was longer than that... but miracle of miracles, he agreed with me on most of it.

So, dear beastly MIL... you want a war, bring it on. You're coming in under-gunned and outsmarted to be tangling with me. The only thing you'll accomplish is pushing your son away. I've yet to lose a psychological battle if you don't count the ones against my parents. But they taught me the art.  -does best Rambo impression- It's going to be epic, rumble at the farmhouse....

And, I'll keep my few avid fans updated with any interesting turns...