I Love Her, But She's Gonna Drive Me Crazy

Yes, if you've been reading this blog you probably know who I'm talking about. MIL. She has a couple of quirks that drive me insane. (I heard that...yeah, don't we all?...shaddup.) First, I want to know why some things don't bother us until someone else points them out, then it's so obvious that you wonder why you didn't see it yourself? A prize to the person who can explain that phenomenon to me!

She stares at her feet. Uh-huh. Her feet. Why? Who knows. She'll stand there talking to you, and she starts shifting from foot to foot, and will actually stop talking, bend over and stare at her feet. Is she looking at her shoes? Is she trying to figure out why she's standing at all? Is she afraid to make eye contact. No, that one's out. It's just a quirk. What's bad is, after you've watched her do it for a long time, you start doing it, too. Monkey see, monkey do.

She says "so" a lot. It's a filler in the conversation. She dangles it at the end of every sentence. So... She used to say, "so it goes" all the time, but I guess she decided to shorten it. Yes, I find myself doing this now, too. Sooooo.....

Finally, she has this little thing she does we'll call kareoke. (sp?) It isn't the kareoke you all know and love where the words to a song come up on a screen while the music flows through the room and you sing along into a microphone - either to public embarrassment or future stardom or something in-between. No, what she does is mouthing the words the television is saying (we aren't talking Rocky Horror Picture Show) or moving her mouth as if to translate what you are saying to her species' language. (Geez, people! Just kidding!).

Depending on how much caffeine she has had, this can be rather entertaining. What amazes me is how she can keep up! It's as though she's reading and moving her lips, but what she's reading are the speech bubbles coming out of you or the actors' mouths! You start watching her, and pretty soon you've forgotten what you are saying and are just watching her mouth to see what you are going to say next! (This works much better if you are watching her talking to someone else...then it isn't as embarrassing when you forget what you were saying.)

I know I've said a lot of things about MIL here, and I'm sure you all realize I DO love the woman. She's just...uh...challenging. That's okay. I'm gonna drive people nuts when I get to be 75, too... (shaddup, already! I do NOT! Uh, uh...no I don't! What's that you're saying? Talk slower, I can't keep up...)