Mother's Day debacle continued

You know how hard it is to blog with a three year old crawling under your feet (and I mean a three year old child)?

Anyway ...

So, the scene so far is the MIL, SIL, and niece drove up from Baltimore MD in a car that was not meant to go further than ten miles, the car dies jsut a mile from my home, and now the decision has been made that they are to spend the night and go home on Mother's Day a la Geo's truck.

I continue.

Since the decision of spending the night was cemented, the newest dilemma arose - they had no clean clothes. So it was to the mall we went.

For almost 5 hours. Five long boring excruciating hours.

I can tolerate a mall for up to approxiamtely 2 hours max, then I have to leave.

Folks, we didn't leave the mall until darn near 8:00PM. We had no dinner other than mall food snacking. The Dinks needed to get home and get her bath and bed. Everything was coming slowly undone.

And I was getting one of my infamous headaches.

Then came Geo and his bright idea of "Hey, let's go out to our fave Italian restaurant and get a bite to eat." I argued that it was late and we shouldn't go to a restaurant. He didn't acknowledge the fault in his plan until about twenty minutes later (the mall was over thirty minutes away from our home). He calls me via mobile (he took his truck and I drove my car due to the number of people in the group) to say we'll just get cheesesteaks at a local sub shop. "Okay", I say. "We'll order and take them home, right?" He replies, "Nah, I thought we'd eat there." I argued but again, he just didn't see the pending disaster.

He was tired. He had no sleep all day and was going on being awake for over 24 hours. Dinks was also tired. And she was rammy as hell.

Do you see where this is going?

The scene was in the sub shop. We had his niece with, "I hate subs. I'm not hungry. I want mashed potatoes." Dinks was being cranky 'cause she was exhausted. Geo was getting bitchier and bitchier from lack of sleep. My tolerance level was bottoming out. His sister was fretting over the possibility of having to buy a new car after 13 years. And his mom was ... well, she was fine.

The second storm hit.

The two opposing forces that created the storm were Geo and Dinks.

Dinks was running hither and yon, not listening to the barking commands of "sit down" from her daddy. Regular readers know the child never listens. With the swiftness of a ninja, Geo swatted the Dinks butt. Then, in the booth that we were in, where she was being extra rammy, he got right in her face and scared the daylights out of her with his low growl screaming and grabbing of her shoulders. Dinks was now tired and terrified. I was pissed off. Geo had blown his gasket. He left with the Dinks to head back to his truck. The SIL saw my concern and asked if she should go out there. Figuring either Dinks or Geo was going to kill the other, I said "yes". Five minutes late, Geo comes in with SIL and Dinks. All seemed okay until I aksed him to sit down. "NO! I might hurt someone if I do!" he yells and storms out.

Needless to say, my food and Geo's food were both wrapped to go. His family seemed okay with everything and kept eating. I guess they didn't want to interfere.

We get home. Geo never apologises and neither did I. We just acted like nothing happened. I think we both needed to let off steam.

We also kicked a bottle of wine.

All this with the MIL, SIL, niece, and Dinks getting ready for sleep.

Before I went to bed, I thought, "Well, at least we'll just be dropping off his family at a Delaware rest area along I-95. I'm sure that's where SIL will tell her husband to get us. Tops on the road one hour and we'll be home in another hour. Two and half hours max. Not so bad."

Stupid Maidink.

Final chapter tomorrow. If I don't get this kid in the Barbie Princess outfit out from underneath my feet, I'm-a gonna keelhaul her.

mothers day, in laws, family