First, an update on life. I left my job in March and have been home since. My son, Jojo, will enter preschool this month and I will be hunting for a new job. More on that later, maybe.
Our whole clan came over to visit my in-laws, who live close to New York City, last month. Then, due to some special circumstances, I remained with the children while Mr. Mouse Potato went back to China for work.
Ask any woman who is married to an Asian man--chances are, she'll have a plethora of mother-in-law (MIL) horror stories to tell. In fact, we Asian women (and probably women in general) bond over miseries inflicted by our in-laws. I am lucky that my MIL isn't horrible; if anything, I, being a control freak who often wants things exactly my way, probably cause her more grief than the other way around. In fact, sometimes I think the girl can use a bit of combativeness in this dog-eat-dog world of ours. Example to follow.
My in-laws have a decent sized house where every corner is filled with things they may or may not have needed since, oh I don't know, before the dinosaurs died. The first week we were here I found some kind of ointment in the fridge with an expiration date of 7/14/1988. Well, at least they were conscientious about preserving the freshness of it for the past 20 years. Every time we come to visit, I'd find the same things in the fridge. I don't mean that they buy the same things over and over, I mean that they are quite literally the same bags of frozen edamame or pork chops as we saw during previous visits. What has been more baffling is that sometimes I'd notice that they'd accumulate new bags in addition to the old. It's like they are trying to collect old foods in their fridge! Both of my in-laws hold ph.D.s in hard sciences so it's not like they aren't logical, and they aren't that old yet. Then, one day, I went shopping with them, and found the answer to the mystery.
My father-in-law gets together with his family every weekend to eat Asian food and then to shop at the Asian mart. Last Friday was a typical clan meeting. As I was strolling in Asian mart with my in-laws for bargains, my father-in-law's sister came over with an armful of pork chops and frozen bags of edamame, saying that they were on sale and that she got both for her and for us. My MIL said, "oh good, ok ok" as she took them over, but then I pulled her over and informed her that we still have plenty of both in the fridge. She replied, "oh yeah that's right!", and I assumed that she'll probably forego more of the same stuff. But later, at the check-out line, I saw that both pork and edamame remained in the cart. MIL couldn't really take them out simply because her sister-in-law had gotten them for her. That's when realized why they seem to accumulate more of the same stuff they never seem to actually consume. They also love Costco, which really isn't a good thing for people who already love to accumulate stuff.
In other bits of weirdness, I saw something called Visagra at the said Asian mart, and with the racy picture on the box, it had presumably the same function as the infamous blue pills. Its tagline read "Lasts 180 hours!" I almost fainted! Who would want a 180-hour erection? How many women (and perhaps men) would you have to line-up to take advantage of such longevity?
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This is all really funny! My MIL also saves everything, even my husband's old high chair. She wanted B to ride in his uncles old carseat, that was over 20 years old and only had a three point harness. I said no way, and bought a Britax just for her car.
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