I ask the question, "Am I crazy or is it them?" with the "them" being whoever has made me scratch my head and wonder that particular day. But if I'm going to be completely honest, most of the time, the scratches on my head come from things my in-laws have done. I have been married to my husband (let's call him Herbie) for 28 years and I still haven't figured out his family.
I met Herbie in college. We were friends for a year and a half, with him interested in being more than just friends. He wasn't subtle. He chased me like a dog chasing a pork chop. I finally let him catch me. That's something you should know about Herbie--when he wants something, and you tell him no, he just nods his head, "Uh-huh, Uh-huh," and then asks you again an hour later as though you'd never had a conversation about it. Then an hour later, he brings it up again and then again until he wears you out and he gets his way. His persistence was flattering when he was trying to get me to go out with him. After twenty-eight years of him using this technique to get everything from my piece of cheesecake to his choice of what home we are going to buy, flattering isn't the word that comes to mind anymore.
I finally gave in and we'd been dating for about a month when he invited me to attend his sister's wedding. Gulp. Meeting the family so soon? I said okay and we made plans to travel to his hometown for the big event. I would be staying at his parents house for the whole weekend. I was understandably nervous, but I'm a friendly person and usually get along well with people, so I figured I could handle it. I was wrong.
You should also know that Herbie is from a big Irish Catholic family. He has two brothers and SEVEN sisters. That's right. SEVEN. He is the youngest of the boys and has three older sisters and four younger ones. Herbie's father (let's call him Phil for FIL-father-in-law) started his own business with just a truck, some tools and a partner and made it into a thriving construction company. He's definitely the patriarch of the family and his word is law to them. They consult him on everything from what tires to buy to what names to give their children. My mother-in-law (we'll call her Milly for MIL) is the guy behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz. She is more subtle in her power, but she would have The Cowardly Lion running for the door in a heartbeat.
I arrived at Herbie's parents' house in the middle of the pre-wedding chaos. Everyone was friendly and full of questions, since I was the first girl Herbie had ever brought home. It was a little overwhelming, but I handled it. There was this little ritual they do before every wedding where they each take a bite out of a banana for the video camera and say, "Go bananas!" Perhaps I should have taken this as a red flag, but I just thought, "Okay, we all have family traditions that seem odd to outsiders." The wedding was lovely, Herbie looked handsome in his tux, and it was on to the reception.
Since Herbie didn't tell them until the last minute that he was bringing a guest, they had to squeeze me in. I thought I would be at a table with the other family members' dates, but they put me at a table with nine senior citizens. Okay, no problem, I valued the wisdom and experience of those who had lived sixty years longer than me. I'd just taken my seat and was about to introduce myself when Phil (who I had exchanged about two sentences with so far) walked up and said with a perfectly straight face, "Be sure you are nice to this girl. Herbie was driving home from college for the wedding and he saw her hitchhiking on the side of the road. He felt so bad for her that he picked her up and brought her to our house. She didn't have any clothes except the ones on her back, so my daughters gave her something of theirs to wear. We invited her to come to the wedding because she hasn't had a good meal in days." And then he walked away.
Mouth hanging open, I looked into nine wrinkled but very sympathetic faces. I started to say, "He's just kidding," but before I could, they were piling their dinner rolls onto my plate, some already buttered. Again, I tried to explain that it wasn't true, but either they had hearing issues or they thought I was too embarrassed to admit to being a down-and-out hitchhiker, because they kept shushing me and the one closest to me was patting my arm. I tried to get Herbie's attention, so he could help me convince them that the story was false, but he was sitting at the head table and busy with his usher duties. I made it through dinner, refusing all the offers of food from their plates. As soon as dinner was over, I headed straight for Herbie and told him what had happened. We went to my table to explain, but there was no one there. They had all dispersed throughout the room for mingling. They all went home believing they had spent the evening dining with a hitchhiker. I found several wrinkled dollar bills under my place card.
At breakfast the next morning, Phil shared the story with the rest of the family, revealing that he had told other wedding guests the same thing over the course of the reception, pointing me out on the dance floor. Everyone thought it was hilarious, laughing so hard they were wiping tears from their eyes. They all asked a lot of questions about the reaction of the people at my table and when I told them that these sweet senior citizens believed the story and gave me their rolls and money, they laughed even harder. And yet they were sincerely puzzled as to why Herbie didn't bring girls home more often. Go figure.
I can take a joke and I don't mind being the butt of a joke. I make fun of myself all the time. But when it's your first time meeting your boyfriend's family and they spend more time laughing at you than getting to know you, it's a little odd.
Now I know what you're thinking--if it was so bad, why did you marry the guy, knowing that this would be your family for life? Well, I had to make a choice--give up the man I was in love with because I couldn't deal with his family or spend my life with the man I love and try to fit in. I chose the man, but I can't say there haven't been plenty of times over the years that I've questioned that choice, usually on the ride home from his parents' house.
I wonder if when those senior citizens from my table came to Herbie and my wedding two years later, they were surprised to see Herbie marrying the hitchhiker.
P.S. My doctor called yesterday to apologize for leaving me in the examining room. He started out by saying he was sitting there with his tail between his legs. He thanked me for being such a good sport about it and I replied that I was just relieved to hear that he hadn't left intentionally when he saw I was the patient in the room. His staff gave him a hard time about it when he arrived the next morning and he said he was blushing most of the day. It was the only time it had happened in the eight years he's been with the practice and of course, it happened to me. No surprise there. He told me not to bring any money to my next appointment (which is this Wednesday) but since I only pay a five dollar co-pay anyway, that would mean the hour I spent waiting was only worth five dollars. That's not even minimum wage, so I'm thinking to even things up, I'm going to have to bring the sign for the door and see if I can bring that blush back again.
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