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During this past Christmas, my live-in boyfriend, Ian's mother (who lives alone in Lake Forest, CA) decided to visit us for a week. I was a little hesitant at first because she is a very difficult woman to handle. Everything needs to go her way or she pouts and sulks like a little child. But I couldn't tell the man I love that he couldn't invite his mother over for Christmas, so I agreed. It was a disaster. From the beginning of the trip, she complained about EVERYTHING. Her flight was canceled and the airline didn't personally call her, so she complained. It didn't matter that she ended up getting a slightly earlier flight, or that airlines NEVER call anyone about these matters. How could they? They have thousands and thousands of passengers they would need to call if that were the case, but that didn't matter to her. She needed that personal call from the airline apologizing and notifying her of the change. At least a call just for her because she's better than any of the other passengers. I worked several hours preparing a Christmas dinner almost everyone loved, except it wasn't good enough for her. Not only did she not like it, but she voiced to her son who was right in front of me, "When is our Christmas dinner going to be? It's not a Christmas dinner unless we go to a really expensive restaurant". I knew from that first night that this was going to be one of the longest weeks of 2007.

I didn't have to deal with her during the weekdays during her visit because I preferred to go to work but she made sure she was rude to me when I came back. She acts like she really likes me when Ian is around but the minute he leaves the room she would start to ignore me. I would ask her questions and she wouldn't reply. I would ask it a little louder thinking she didn't hear me the first time and she would turn her head towards me, give me a dirty look, and turn back to the T.V. without an answer. I didn't want to tell my boyfriend about his mom at first. Then came the weekend. Ian really wanted me to spend some quality time with Shawn (his mother) so the three of us spent the whole weekend together. We decided to go out to a nice breakfast Saturday morning so we would be up for the long day of site-seeing and even a simple breakfast didn't go well. She refused to eat because they didn't have the 'right kind of hash browns' and she took her anger out on the waiter by being rude to him. I was embarrassed to be eating with her. I was embarrassed

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