Most of y’all who are “blessed” with in-laws already (probably) know this…but if not, listen carefully: DO NOT spend more than three (3) consecutive days in the vicinity of your in-laws! Exceed this magic 72 hour threshold at your own risk! Do not be swayed by the “occasion” of your get-together either (or, worse, the assurances of your significant other that “this time it will be different“)…this limit applies to all co-habitations – Christmas, birthday, the pop-in – “IT DON’T MATTA!”
Now you may wonder how I have arrived at this magic number of 3-days/72-hours. Well, I tell ya…through a bit of careful observation/deduction and quite a bit more painful self-experimentation.
But perhaps this may be best illustrated via an example. Say, oh, let’s pull a random one out of the hat: Christmas 2009 with the DPeezy in-laws. Oh yeah…that’s a good one:
…before I forget…RULE #1: If at all possible (1000-mile/15-hour radius), DRIVE! Never underestimate the importance of having your very own getaway vehicle.
DAY 1:
- Overall mood: joyous.
- If you drove, you create immediate sympathy/caring since you create the urge in “them” to take care of you after such a long and “crazy” drive (750mi/11-hours, in this case) – right away, lunch is served and then you’re left to your own devices to gather some rest until dinner time.
- While you rest, your passenger(s) get to field all manner of annoying/small-talky questions as they update the locals on the ever-boring minutia of your everyday life. The fact that you get to skip this part is immense.
- Dinner time rings in some much needed libation time as well, which, when coupled with the joyous mood, leads to merriment and general good-will. A semi-competitive card game may follow, during which playful jibes are reciprocated gracefully.
DAY 2:
- Overall mood: sunny, especially once everybody gets over the fact that you didn’t wake up at 8am like the rest of the retirement community. “Nice of you to join us” contains only a hint of guilt-inducing resentment.
- You delay any ill-will by “splitting the herd,” while the women shop for last minute Christmas supplies, the men take in a lazy midday/afternoon of golf. Everybody meets back up for a nice evening of grilling on the patio – steaks & beer/wine/spirits for all! Eventually, you end up in front of the TV, watching random Christmas movies as you fall in-and-out of the food/drink-induced coma.
- On a side note, I love the fact that several other channels have now copied the TBS model of showing a certain Christmas movie 24 hours straight. So now you can catch A Christmas Story on TBS, Bad Santa on Comedy Central, and It’s a Wonderful Life on AMC – just to name the big ones.
DAY 3:
- Overall mood: nippy, with a chance of thunder/lighting
- The morning “Nice of you to join us” carries with it the full extra weight of years of failing to live up to parental expectations…of which “they” are reminded when you can’t even drag your ass out of bed at 8am to open Christmas presents. With every hint of nostalgia that then follows, the overwhelming message of “what happened to the little boy/girl that used to leave cookies out for Santa!?” gets ruefully conveyed.
- “Oh wow, thanks guys/Mom/Dad…we really needed another set of dishtowels from Kohl’s!”
- “NO WAY…a tube of Aquafresh AND some tooth brushes! omgomgomgomg! It’s just what we wanted! Because we obviously STILL don’t know how to take care of ourselves after all these years of living in a different state!”
- Needless to say, “the sauce” is hit hard, early, and often. As evening approaches, past affronts start to get hinted at, but are not yet dredged up to the surface. Some strained small-talk over the “fancy dinner” and an ultra-competitive card game later, everybody retires early to their own corner of the house.
DAY 4:
- Overall mood: dark & stormy
- The annual “when are you going to take all your shit out of our house!?” game begins. This year’s variation of the game included the one where you actually want something, but you can’t take it because it’s “part of the decoration” or because…well…because “I DON’T WANT YOU TO TAKE THIS…DON’T YOU WANT TO LEAVE SOMETHING TO REMIND ME OF YOU!!!?” Oh, so you want us to just take all the junk that we’ve told you several times that we don’t want and yet you’ve refused to throw out…but we can’t take the stuff that belongs to us and we actually want?!!?
- The evening’s “entertainment” consists of going out to dinner and a performance (because even “they” realize the futility of trying to stay in the house for this many consecutive days).
- But it’s not just any ol’ performance…oh no. It’s performance of the kind that you KNOW we don’t like and had you actually asked us if we’re even interested BEFORE you spent hundreds of dollars on the tickets, you wouldn’t have to guilt us with said cost every two minutes. Now, to be fair, as the youngest by far in the crowd, I’m sure we did a great favor to Mannheim Steamroller by expanding their “fan base” to the under-30 crowd.
- Throughout the day, multiple past transgressions are rehashed and re-argued/shouted/cried-over, truly bringing home the Christmas message of Peace, Hope, and Love.
- Fully utilizing the wonders of the getaway vehicle, we bolt out of there with just a few minutes to spare before midnight…
___________
Coming out of Christmas week, I find myself quite bullishly biased, almost to the tune of 3-to-1. To bring back a bit of balance, and to play that broken record from earlier this month once again, I’m looking at several puts for Monday:
- puts: BWLD (@42.24), CMG (@89.50), LAMR (@31.31), PNRA (@68.), PWR (@21.34), SBUX (@23.32), YGE (@16.)
- calls: XOM (@69.22)
Grandpa Fly used to say: “Fish and company spoil after 3 days.”
Grandpa Fly was a wise man.
Grandpa Fly no doubt invoked this saying as he dumped both cod and company into the deep, cold waters off Staten Island on day 4…
I was blessed with pretty cool ILs, but more than a couple of days in close company is tough.
However, know that the days tick down and, over time, looking back on a little holiday tension will seem a high quality problem. We lost my FIL not long ago and I am SO glad I didn’t crack wise on the occasions where it seemed momentarily justified. Bit thru my lip a couple of times, but a small price to pay to have Mrs. Anton remember how well her dad and I got along.
Off to pith a foreign tourist lest I get soft and sentimental during the holidays.
Fantastic story
Cheers, TA.
As they say in the movies, “based on a true story.” Except this one actually is.
Now that was funny!
Guessing you drove from san fran to phoenix?
As I recall it was Ben Franklin who originally coined the term, “Fish and visitors smell in three days.”
ohhhhh, Grandpa Fly was just a plagiarist.
Or…OR!!
Grandpa Fly = Ben Franklin!!!??
Taking profits in calls all day…selling out of BCRX, FCX, FXI, MUR in the morning (to make up for not being able to do so at the close on the 24th), NFLX in the afternoon.
Putting a bit of a smile on the end-of-year/end-of-month performance…
My in laws have been here for 5 days… Wife just called to report “nuclear meltdown” with mom over cooking breakfast. My wife’s a much better cook, and Mom’s insanely jealous of that fact (amongst other things). MIL goes into “insufferable bitch” mode whenever my wife cooks, so wifey let her have it. MIL threatened to get on a plane today, leaving FIL to drive back. FIL staying out of it as usual. Good thing I have a lot of work to do today. It’ll probably take me until at least 10PM.
Can’t we all just get along?
I hope everyone is having an enjoyable holiday period, in whatever form it takes.
We’ve got the problem on a slightly different level. We do Christmas at my in-laws, and have been doing so since we were married though this may be the last year. Even though FIL’s now retired and only living across town (instead of three hours away), it’s become such a nightmare to slog all the stuff — we now have four kids — that Santa will be alighting at our house next year, and henceforth.
We don’t have as much of the “get along” problem, although my wife always gets tense when she’s in proximity to her sisters for too long (did I mention, Christmas is also the time of year when all wife’s sisters come into town to share the holiday).
There are now ten grandchildren amongst the three in-law daughters (including Mrs. Jake), and all those kids are of the age when they need to be entertained when they come in from wherever. It’s simply exhausting. Today is the first day I’ve even glanced at the blog since Christmas, and I’ve even got work at the office to do that I’m neglecting on top of it all.
Just to give you an example… I just came back from a Christmas Hoops Tournament one of the older grandchildren was playing in… two hours away! Of course, everyone had to attend… en masse.
Add the dentist ordeal today and this may be my “Pneumonia Christmas” at long last….
__________