Harnessing the healing power of snark
My Father-In-Law: “You know how optimists say the glass is half empty, and pessimists say the glass is half full?”
My Husband: “Yeah.”
My Father-In-Law: “Do you know what engineers say?”
My Husband: “They say that the glass is too big.”
My Father-In-Law: “Exactly. The glass is twice as big as it needs to be.”
“Tell us something about your in-laws (funny, memories, etc.). If you don’t have any in-laws, pick a relative like siblings, parents, etc.”
I have the perfect story for this question, which you can read here in this post from last August. It is called, “Do You Think My In-Laws Are Trying To Tell Me Something?”
Here’s why I ask. My husband just called them because he just remembered that it was his dad’s birthday 2 days ago and we did not call or send a card and now we are totally on their *&%# list.
So he came out into my office after he got off the phone and he was wearing the face you’d expect on someone who has discovered that, even if you’ve been married for 10 years, and are a responsible, hard-working, law-abiding, home-owning grownup, you are never to old to be in big trouble with your parents.
Then he said, “My parents have a new pet.” So I thought that maybe he was looking down because their dog, Riley, had died.
But no. Riley is just fine. It was that he was responsible for breaking to me the news that, “They have adopted a snake.” (Snakes only being, to my mind, The Most Terrifying Things In Existence.)
Apparently they had some people working on their lawn, and these people brought them outside to show them the snake they’d found.
“We need to get rid of this snake,” said the lawn people. What an excellent response.
Other appropriate responses:
“Bring me the flame thrower!”
or, “Why the *%$@ don’t we have a flame thrower?!”
My father-in-law’s response? “Wait. Let me look that snake up on the Internet.”
Long story short, the snake is now living in a special snake spot in their backyard, almost directly touching the outside of the room that my husband and I stay in when we go to visit my in-laws. And I just can’t help wondering, is there a message in that for me?
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Here’s why I ask. My husband just called them because he just remembered that it was his dad’s birthday 2 days ago, and we did not call or send a card, and now we are totally on their *&%# list.
So he came out into my office after he got off the phone and he was wearing the face you’d expect on someone who has discovered that, even if you’ve been married for 10 years, and are a responsible, hard-working, law-abiding, home-owning grownup, you are never to old to be in big trouble with your parents.
Then he said, “My parents have a new pet.” So I thought that maybe he was looking down because their dog, Riley, had died.
But no. Riley is just fine. Instead, it was that he was responsible for breaking to me the news that, “They have adopted a snake.” (Snakes only being, to my mind, The Most Terrifying Things In Existence.)
Apparently they had some people working on their lawn, and these people brought them outside to show them the snake they’d found.
“We need to get rid of this snake,” said the lawn people. What an excellent response.
Other appropriate responses:
“Bring me the flame thrower!”
or, “Why the *%$@ don’t we have a flame thrower?!”
My father-in-law’s response? “Wait. Let me look that snake up on the Internet.”
Long story short, the snake is now living in a special snake spot in their backyard, almost directly touching the outside of the room that my husband and I stay in when we go to visit my in-laws. And I just can’t help wondering, is there a message in that for me?
We’re pretty excited here in blog land because this is our very first post that we’ve ever done from a remote location, and not sitting at home in our office. But despite my new feelings of technological mastery I clearly have some more work to do before I reach the levels at which my husband and father-in-law are currently residing.
Here is the conversation that my mother-in-law and I were having on the way home from dinner:
My MIL: “See how they’ve decorated all the lamp posts in town with those white lights.”
Me: “That’s really pretty. Remember when they used to have those really big multicolored lights? I really miss those.”
Here is the conversation that was taking place between my husband and my father-in-law in the backseat.
My husband: “Tonight after the movie we need to get started on that black belt level Sudoku puzzle.”
My FIL: “What we really need is a copier so we have enough sheets to try out different possibilities.”
My husband: “We could generate a spread sheet in Excel to do that for us.”
My FIL: “I bet we could even create it so that it checked to make sure that all of our totals were correct.”
My husband: “What is the total?”
My FIL: “What’s 9 factorial? Is that it?”
My husband: “No! 9 factorial is huge!”
My FIL: “Oh, you’re right. What was I thinking?!”
(Snorts and chortling laughter as they realize their mathematical gaffe.)
Clearly, I cannot start drinking eggnog soon enough.
