After mercilessly bullying me about my possessions, the in-laws went to unload their vans. What’s this? They had taken it upon themselves to bring with them every single thing Mr. P had asked to store over at their place. Useless shit that was fitting perfectly well inside their cavernous empty nest. Things like the record collection Mr. P had inherited from his dead grandfather- ooooh, Lawrence Welk! Perry Como! The collected works of Pat Boone! Shit he was too polite to just throw away! Shit we don’t have the necessary storage cabinets for! Shit we will never, ever listen to! Not even to be ironic! They even brought over Mr. P’s childhood furniture- his twin bed, complete with Mom-in-Law’s choice of pukey, frilly, country bed-in-a-bag comforter set and a pair of the poly-cement-whatever FIRM pillows we have to suffer with when we stay over at their house. Seriously, they MADE the BED. In MY guest room. In MY house. Who does that?! But the worst part is that they tried to put that ugly abomination in what is soon to be my art studio/exercise room (as soon as I get my drafting desk and easels and such out of storage). Mom-in-law was all, “Where are you going to work out in here? (gesturing towards different, tiny, insufficient sections of floor) You could do it here, or here. Where should we put this bed?” And I’m all, “you don’t know my life, bitch! Put the bed in your ass!” Seriously, I am not about to try and explain the intimate goings-on of MY personal space to someone who is trying to monopolize my new home. It’s Mr. P’s fucking ugly baby furniture, and it’s going in HIS spare room, not mine. I don’t care how cramped it is in his space, it’s his problem for pack-ratting oversized yet under-functional children’s furniture as an adult and for not standing up to his overbearing momsbeast, who obvi wants to carry around his testes in a silk bag. So yeah, the Bed of Emasculation is in his room.
Anyway, the tension in the house was beginning to boil over, and sometimes things happen that just make you laugh: I had found a few of my feather pillows (the ones we actually intend to have guests sleep on because they’re softer than the granite ones MIL brought) squashed in a bag with some spare towels. So, I unpacked them and laid them out on the stupid twin bed to air out & hopefully puff back up before I stick them in the nearby linen closet. A few minutes later, MIL comes screeeeching down the stairs, “Panda!? Do you not want these pillows?! The pillows that we brought, are you not going to use them?!” (Mind you, she was not asking a simple question. It was a fit of overbearing, accusatory panic.) See, the thing is, no, we will not force anyone to sleep on OrthoBrick pillows. We will not use them. But I can’t tell her that. Because when anyone refuses anything the MIL offers, she mopes. If she even suspects that you don’t need or don’t want or simply don’t like her painfully ugly cast-offs, she rains soul-sucking mope upon your house. Simply airing out my extra pillows was enough to break her heart. This level of overreaction cannot be taken seriously. I had to laugh.
Mr. P’s mom is one of those people. Those people who just don’t understand that their decorating taste is not everyone else’s. Like, a cursory glance at the family Panda’s furniture and accessories will not only educate you as to our taste, but will practically bludgeon you over the head with “MID-CENTURY MODERN STYLE.” Nothing esoteric or hard-to-grasp about it. It’s as easy to decipher as a New York Post headline. Really. However, MIL doesn’t get that her fussy, LL Bean-y, depressed country schoolmarm aesthetic just won’t fit in among all of my streamlined Eames-esque pieces. In fact, it will look like utter ass. They gave us an LL Bean card table once. It’s got fat, chunky turned legs. Turned legs!!! On a table! In my house! I was like, “Thaaaaanks? I guess I’ll put it in the barn, along with that extra glut of checked vinyl tablecloths and hand-whittled chicken statuettes I’ve been splurging on lately????” Yeah. MIL even came over with a Costco flyer in hand advertising two black leather club chairs for $600, and impressed upon us that we should really think about taking them up on such a good deal. I was like, “Who do you think I am, Earnest fucking Hemingway? Do I look like a tasteless, cigar-smoking, Hungry-Man eating bachelor who once majored in finance?” Black leather club chairs are not something a woman buys for her home. They are something a woman rescues the man she is dating from. They are like the male version of Cathy comics and Lean Cuisines. I thought everyone knew that. Curious. More curious still, is the fact American Gothic MIL and my mom aligned forces to try and derail my decorating plans. See, my mom’s style is kind of what it would look like if someone today opened a Baroque/Rococo-themed bordello… in Tuscany. And I mean that in the best way possible. I’m not one of those people that thinks their taste is better than everyone else’s. It’s not (it’s just better than my MIL’s. Sorry, but it is. That Mayberry shit makes me puke). I actually like my mom’s taste, I appreciate it, but I can’t live with it. Normally she’s cool with our differences, too, but this weekend was all about asserting the maternal dominance over me. Like, for a minute there, I half expected them both to start humping me, as that’s how roles are established in the animal world.
I’m not exaggerating. It really was that bad. I think my feelings about what went on this weekend are best summed up by the living room debacle. By the time we were putting together the living room, all of the other carnage was over, so I was actually around to try & supervise the design. I tried at first to arrange my room the way it most made sense to me, but the two-headed Cerebrus tore it all apart and derided my ideas to my face while directing their scuttling minions to move my shit all around. I could do nothing but stand there, mouth open, aghast at the audacity of it all. And the shittiest part is that the furniture configuration they arrived at is probably one that I would have done myself, if I wasn’t completely frazzled and mentally broken from all of the abuse I had endured for 2 days. Way to steal my thunder, there, bitches! Now I can’t appreciate my living room because it just reminds me of being trampled on despite my best efforts and I will one day soon scrap the current configuration out of pure spite. Just like everything else in the house. The room looks like defeat. It’s the house version of getting your head dunked in the toilet by the bullies and having to wear a head of wet, swirlied hair for the rest of the school day. But the worst part is the sheer rudeness and lack of consideration for me. What went on this weekend flies in the face of everything I was ever taught, by my mother, about how to behave in someone else’s home. The hassle of moving that my family spared me is honestly nothing compared to the intrusion, ridicule, and stress I was put through. So, if anyone ever offers to help me move again, it’s gonna be, “thanks, but no thanks” all the way.
Not to get all Teen Witch on you guys, but I fully challenge you to “Top That” re: moving nightmares/bad mom decorating. Hit me with your best shot. Anyway, I just hope my tale of woe made somebody laugh.
March 4, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I could understand asking Mr. P if he wants his stored stuff, but bringing it over unannounced, when you’re already dealing with the stress of moving your other shit? Not cool at all. Damn.
March 4, 2009 at 2:27 pm
You poor thing! My MIL is always trying to bring over the hubs’ childhood stuff and I finally snapped and told her (politely as I could) that he did not want it and that she could donate it or throw it away but we were not driving down there to take it and if she brought it up to us, it wouldn’t make it into the house before we gave it to Goodwill.
March 4, 2009 at 2:51 pm
that is some bullshit, dude. you’re making me glad that mr. k’s momma is too crazy to ever bring any of his old shit over – she keeps all that shit for herself, she prolly lays it all out on the floor every night and pets it.
just as well, he has enough crap that I would love to toss. as it is, I just put anything unsightly in the garage. oh he might bring it back in the house, but I keep taking it back out and eventually, we have a new learned behavior. see? easy!
March 4, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Damn. I have to laugh about your MIL running down the stairs wailing about her pillows, too. Just….wow.
I’ve got nothing near topping this. My mom deposits random decorating shit she doesn’t want anymore in my place, but is OK if I get rid of it. She just doesn’t want to have to do the throwing-away herself.
My grandmother does always try to give me horrible, sequin-festooned sweaters and skirt suits that are 8 sizes too large, though. If I ever protest these gifts on the basis of size, she’ll raise her eyebrows at me and say, “I thought it would fit; you’re bigger than your cousins,” or her new favorite, “You won’t be that size forever.” Like I’m gonna hang onto a yellow polyester skirt-suit for forty years in the hopes that someday I’ll “grow into” it.
March 4, 2009 at 6:27 pm
No, I can’t top that story. But I hope in the very near future you tell the Moms to FUCK OFF, ’cause I think the blunt ugliness of the message is the only thing that will put them in their place. You didn’t deserve this shit, it was your first house together as the Married Pandas.
March 4, 2009 at 7:21 pm
I am sorry you had to go through that. My MIL brings a box o’ crap to our home everytime she visits. A chipped Pinocchio statue, fake crystal candelstick holder (complete with half burned candles), she even gives my children McDonalds toys from the 1980’s. My theory is they are trying to unload the shit they don’t want on us. Maybe you can just slowly remove items from the house so they won’t notice they’re missing. Cheers to you and your new home though!
March 4, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Oh, god. In my head, you stood in the front yard and screamed “I AM A GROWN-ASS PANDAAAAAAA!”, but that’s mostly for my own enjoyment.
I find that moms have these insatiable needs to Be In Charge right at those moments in life when you’re taking a big I’m In Charge, Thanks step of your own. Moving out/ getting married/ buying a house/ having kids… these tend to bring out the marking-territory behaviors. It’s some compulsion to prove that they are still the one with the answers and that you are still a wee child. It drives me batty.
My own, admittedly less traumatic moving-with-mom story: years ago, I moved the bulk of my stuff into a new apartment sans help. The parents showed up later that afternoon with the bed and dresser and couch, and the actual moving of furniture up stairs was no problem… until my mother decided that I and a friend were completely incapable of putting together the bedframe. She stood in the doorway, wringing her hands, and saying over and over again “Girls! Just wait for Dad to do that, okay? Girls! I’m sure your Dad can do that… why don’t you leave that alone for now…”
We were having no trouble assembling said bedframe. It’s amazing what A BOOK OF INSTRUCTIONS AND SOME TOOLS can to do make such a task relatively easy, Mom. I had to occupy her elsewhere to get her to leave the doorway, so I handed her a sponge and told her the kitchen needed a solid scrubbing. Thankfully, her OCD kicked in and she spent the next 40 minutes spraying bleach into crannies.
March 5, 2009 at 12:36 am
wow. just wow is all I have to say. I’m going to hug Mommy Lush next time I see her extra tight for not being a crazy-ass.
another way to save your sanity? hire movers. I know I know expensive, but trust me worth.every.penny. The combined swiftness of move and not worrying about my Dad trying to do to much and hurting himself was worth it.
March 5, 2009 at 12:53 am
Damn.
So are you clutching a bottle of bourbon and rocking back and forth in a fetal position?
My in laws live far away and they visit about once a year. It isn’t too bad but they have this habit of arriving and immediately telling us what we are doing wrong (with our living room configuration, how we put the dishes in the dishwasher) and I can’t just say, “eff off asshats. Stay in a hotel if you like.” (because My Mother raised me to be gracious) Instead I rummage through the medicine cabinet and see what interesting pills I can find. Soma isn’t much as a painkiller but it does take the edge off for a few hours. So when my in laws are re-arranging my house, telling me that I put my dishes in the wrong places and so on -I can just smile. It is only for a week.
Lady you are brave for not killing anyone.
March 5, 2009 at 1:02 am
Bed of Emasculation: ahahahaha!!!
March 8, 2009 at 3:18 pm
That gave me an LOL too. Possibly my favorite bit.
Panda, I think your mom and I have similar taste, because “Baroque/Rococo-themed bordello… in Tuscany” sounds pretty sweet to me. Maybe I just like slutty fringed lampshades and black satin.
March 5, 2009 at 11:14 am
This is what I like about my completely dysfunctional relationship with my mother. I can tell her to go fuck herself without any guilt at all when she starts working my last nerve. And then I can lock her out of my life for a couple of months.
March 5, 2009 at 3:40 pm
This is why I never ask friends or family to help move. My mother has a “special” aesthetic that is far different than mine, plus she is always wanting to DIY it, which makes it worse. Paying for movers is worth WAY more than having to deal with this kind of thing. It seems expensive at first, but it was so worth the money to not have to deal with anyone else. Consequently, I also feel free to say no to helping others move :)
March 6, 2009 at 8:30 am
I have never realized, til this moment, how fortunate I am in both mother and MIL departments! Neither have ever done anything remotely like this, or critiqued placement of dishes, etc. Now, my MIL is an awesome decorator, her homes are always beautiful, and she tends to get tired of things and change it up. And she will ask if I want something. But she never ever just brings it with her. And when I say, No Thank You, it’s all good. I just can’t imagine ever walking into my (someday grown) daughters homes and pulling this kind of crap.
March 6, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I can just hear you saying this shit, and it is killing me! I love you, Panda, and I’m sorry you had to deal with this shit. Additionally, I believe that our MILs are somehow related, because this:
“Because when anyone refuses anything the MIL offers, she mopes. If she even suspects that you don’t need or don’t want or simply don’t like her painfully ugly cast-offs, she rains soul-sucking mope upon your house”
and this:
“MIL even came over with a Costco flyer in hand advertising two black leather club chairs for $600, and impressed upon us that we should really think about taking them up on such a good deal”
could be STRAIGHT FROM MY LIFE. Does she paint pictures and make collages for you, too???? If so, I will shit my pants.
March 6, 2009 at 5:00 pm
is that a promise? you can use my anal pension plan if you like, it might help.