by Vicki Phipps

Created on: June 05, 2009

Sometimes just one house guest becomes a pest that leaves you in a mess of stress, especially when they won't go home. Don't they know that after three days, a house guest starts to smell and whatever manners they had go bad? It's as if they own your home and they won't leave you alone.

My ex-mother in law was the worst, and she had the tendency to blast into my bedroom at 6:00 am, just to say, "Hey, are you going to sleep all day?" It made me insane, but I'm grateful today to say that since she's an ex-in law, I no longer need to let go of control when it comes to my own home. She's just a distant memory, but what I do recall made me a great mother in law. When I visit with my kids, no one has to put me in my place at all. I mind my own business as if I was just another house guest, and even though I gave birth to them and sacrificed half my life for their benefit, again and again, I won't lay a guilt trip on them, like my ex mother in law did.

She'd be rude and even crude when she sat in my living room passing gas, and in fact, when she wanted to watch a soap opera on TV, she'd hide the remote control from me. I, on the other hand, will agree to watch cartoons all freaking day, if need be. Then again, I remember when my ex-mother in law used to scrub my tup as if the President of the United States might drop by at any time, while I never assume my daughter in law never cleans her tub at all. It's even true that as soon as I get myself unstuck, I even lift my son's toilet seat back up, while my mother in law would rant, rave and scream, "Help me please! I've fallen and I can't get up." She was a drama queen, while I remain as patient as a saint even when my kids had kids and began to treat me like a nit wit. Why do grown adult kids believe that, in fact, a mother in law was never a mother at all? To them anyone other than them is a nit wit who has no clue how to feed or bath a baby.

I raised three human beings, for heaven's sake, but I never cry and whine when they refuse to heed my wise advice, like my ex mother in law did when I was her son's wife. Beyond that fact, by day three, she'd then begin to pout about the way she'd been ignored all day. "Why does my son leave every room I walk into?" She'd ask me this as if I knew how to tell her the truth, which is that she drove both he and I insane and by day five, we'd both lost our minds. Still, since the divorce, I found mine again, of course, and that's why I don't pout or shout when I visit my kids. In fact, I'm as quiet as a mouse when I sneak through the house late at night, scrambling in the dark just to find food..

You see, my kids are just so busy that sometimes they forget to feed me when I'm visiting. They simply chew on fast food all day and throw left overs away, but make no mistake about it. I'd starve to death before I'd make a death threat, like my ex mother in law did when dinner was five minutes late. You'd not believe the heart attacks she'd fake while she'd claim that if she didn't eat by a certain time, her blood sugar would go so low that she just might pass out. "OKAY, WHATEVER YOU SAY," I'd shout, and that's when once again, she'd begin to pout. I never did figure her out.

Not me. I'd never do such a thing, and in fact, when I think I might have a heart attack or pass out, I keep it to myself and I never pout or bother anyone else. No one will ever accuse me of being a "pest guest," and even if I live to be 103, no one can make me live with my kids ever again. It's hard enough just visiting them.

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