Yesterday the better-half said he planned on visiting his mother and I said I should put in an appearance as well since it had been awhile since I’d been over there or seen her. So, off we went. There was some sort of accident/slow down/something or other on the interstate and so we had to take the circuitous back way to her house. And it was really quite nice sitting for a good ten minutes watching a loaded down train creep through a crossing. The better-half remarked that when you try to do something nice for the MIL the universe conspires to screw you over. I replied with the old chestnut that no good deed goes unpunished. And, we waited for the train some more.
We got there and she’s having a fit which is something that happens because she doesn’t monitor her medication. And, by fit I mean she’s locked up, mumbly and displaying some serious parkinsonian attributes. One of the women that works for her was there with her two children. The TV was blaring Cory in the House and I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to remember who the actor is who plays the president. He was on SeaQuest.
The house looked like a junk mail bomb went off. Don’t even get me started on the state of the guest bathroom. I’m not really sure what the two hired people do when they are with the MIL. The MIL’s sisters complained about a young woman who worked there for several years and the young woman’s inability to clean–the young woman has left to attend college. I never thought she did a bad job and the house was always reasonably put together. It is now officially a shitstorm over there.
We spent several hours taking care of bills and throwing out junk mail. We had to take two trash bags out to the super can. As I walked through her pantry/laundry room/entry to the garage, I noticed an oldish looking can of evaporated milk. You know how you can tell a can is old? I could tell that just by walking by and when I looked at the date it expired 3 years ago. I quietly put that in the trash. Then on another trip to the garage I found another can that was 2 years past expiration. I really would like some alone time in the pantry.
The MIL has all her mental faculties so taking control of her life is out of the question, even though one of her sisters has suggested the better-half do that. He feels that as long as his mother can make decisions she should make them. I’m sure the sister who suggested that would love to have one of her kids take away her checkbook just because they disagree with how she spends money. And, that sister is just as bad as the MIL, only she has more cash to spend so the quality of the junk she buys is better, but that’s about the only difference. There’s evidently a predisposition in that family to consume, consume, consume.
On the way home from the MIL’s, we stopped by the ABC store and the clerk had to chat us up about the scotch we selected. We’re not big scotch drinkers but we do buy it occasionally, especially when there’s a chill in the air. He wanted to caution us about the peatiness of the scotch and blah, blah, blah, think you can handle it, blah, blah, blah. I just shrugged and gave the better-half a “o good lord” look. Thankfully another customer showed up so the clerk had to hand over the receipt and let us go. The scotch? Jura. It has hardly any peat in it. If you take a sip you can tell that and if you read the literature on it you’d know that. So, yet another person yammering on about something they know nothing about.
Thank goodness you saw those cans. I think a bit of alone time in that pantry may be a good idea.
Yeah, kind of scary isn’t it? In a sad, sick way, I think we’ll have to come up with a betting pool to guess the oldest expiration date.