No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Sheesh . . . talk about drama. I've had more drama in my life in the last couple of months than I have in the last 10 years or, maybe it just feels like it.

So, after 8.5 weeks of us taking care of my mother-in-law, the whole episode is over and it went out with a BANG. My MIL had a little coin purse that held her health cards, ID and a little bit of cash and . . . my husband lost it. We looked everywhere but, just can't find it. Sooo, we contacted the SIL who normally takes care of her and let her know the situation because . . . without ID, it was going to be tough to get MIL on a plane on Saturday.

She was pretty upset and really, really overreacted. She flew out here the next day (Sunday) to "get my mom!" and when she got here was just distraught. We talked about the situation and came up with a couple of ideas/solutions -- the most obvious would have been, in my opinion, for her to wait until Monday, go to the DMV, get a copy of the ID and then fly out here to get her mom but, no . . . instead she flew off the handle and flew out here with no solutions, only anger -- and after we talked, she decided that she wanted to go with an idea of her husbands.

She was certain that her husband's idea would work and my husband asked her several times if she were sure and she said yes so, he assumed he didn't need to pursue his idea (I was staying out of it). Well, Monday came about and the idea they were pursuing didn't pan out. So, she stormed into the family room and asked my husband where he was on his idea. He told her that he hadn't done anything with it because she had told him, repeatedly, that she was sure that their idea would work and they were going with that.

At that point she just went berserk. She started screaming and yelling at him and just freaking out. She was calling him all sorts of names and screaming at him that he caused the problem by losing the coin purse and that because he had caused it she thinks he should have been doing whatever it took to fix the situation, etc., and then she started pushing him and telling him to hit her so that she could have him arrested (it was very strange). He, of course, kept telling her that he wouldn't hit her and that she needed to calm down. But the exchange was so heated that it totally freaked me out because I really thought she was going to start throwing punches and totally get physical.

She finally stopped telling him to hit her and switched to saying that she hated his guts and wanted him to die. She said that she wished: 1) that he would die and die soon; 2) that he would suffer horribly before he died; and  3) that he would die right then so she could get the enjoyment of watching it. She kept saying all of this repeatedly and telling me that if and when he did die I shouldn't tell her cuz she doesn't care except that she might want to know so she can get enjoyment out of it, etc.  Totally crazy stuff and even worse cuz . . . she's 47, it's not like she's a little kid who doesn't know any better. And, while all this was going on, MIL was trying to get them to stop and break up the situation and . . . oddly, she was COMPLETELY lucid. Amazingly so.

I, on the other hand, was just totally . . . I don't even know the word for it. I just was stunned, shocked, stressed, speechless, etc.  I basically just stood there watching all this with my mouth hanging open.

After SIL stormed off to her room, MIL came and sat next to me and said, "That was really unnecessary but, she's always been that way. She is who she is but, she shouldn't have been saying all that. It's not like we're in a hostile situation and we couldn't leave in a few days once we figured out a solution to all this." and I stared at her and wanted so bad to say, "Who are you and where have YOU been all this time!" because she was so sweet, lucid, etc.

SIL came out of her room later and asked if I thought she was wrong. I told her that they had both made assumptions -- she assumed my husband would continue to work on his idea even though she had told him their idea was definite and that they were going with it; he assumed that because they were going with their idea and so sure of it, he didn't need to work on his idea -- so they were both at fault in the initial problem. I also told her that I thought her reaction was a little over the top and that some of the things she was saying were pretty horrible and bizarre.

She didn't say anything. I came up with another possible solution to the no-ID-and-MIL-has to-get-on-a-plane problem and that I started working on that; meanwhile, her husband called the airlines to talk with them and they agreed to work with us and let her board the plane as long as we had certain documents (which we did).  So, SIL booked a 10:00 p.m. flight out for the two of them.

After calming down, my husband went down and talked with his mother and apologized for making her have to go through that and then tried to apologize to SIL (even though, in my opinion, she was really in the wrong). She wouldn't let him and told him to get out of her face. He tried a couple more times over the course of the next few hours and she finally came out and asked me to take them to the airport right then (8 hours before their flight) so that she wouldn't have to suffer through him trying to apologize anymore.

I took them to the airport and she was being cordial during the ride but when we got to the airport, became pretty bitchy to me. She got hysterical because I set up the wheelchair we had for MIL -- she wanted to use an airport wheelchair instead. I explained to her that it wasn't any big deal, that there was a very simple solution -- taking 10 seconds to collapse the wheelchair back down (which I did) -- and she grabbed it away from me and took it into the terminal, along with her luggage, to check in. I stayed at the car with MIL and waited and then . . . here she came with the wheelchair. She decided to use it after all. Whatever.

We got MIL into the chair and I said goodbye to her, gave her a kiss on the forehead and said goodbye to SIL. I went to hug her but she didn't want one and she turned to head into the terminal. I asked her to ping me when they got home so I knew they'd made it and she turned away and muttered, under her breath, "I ain't pinging shit". So, I said, "Have a nice flight." got in the car and drove home.

I was hoping that I had misheard her but, she never pinged me when they got home so . . . I guess I didn't.

So, the gist of this is that even though we have taken very good care of my MIL over the last 8.5 weeks (in my opinion), stressful as it was. Never complained, etc., all that will now be remembered of this episode (by his family) is the 3 days of crazy drama that was caused by the loss of the coinpurse. I'm not cutting my husband a break for losing it -- it was a bad thing, will be a hassle for them to get new cards, etc., but . . . was it really such an egregious mistake that it was worth all this?

Some days I am just really disgusted and dismayed by the human race.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Heading for the airport to drop off my sister-in-law and mother-in-law. Freaking DRAMATIC ending to this adventure. I'll have to blog about it when I get home but man . . . my sister-in-law has a screaming voice that is AMAZING in it's pitch and volume.

It will be lovely to have my home to myself this evening.