Hello, My Name Is…

I am noticing a distressing theme to this blog.  This is my third post, and also the third time I am talking about my mother-in-law.  Damn it,  she really is everywhere.

But she likes it that way.  I’m sure she does it on purpose, to inject just enough under-handed slight into a situation as to first, leave one speechless and then to second, cause one to awaken at 3am whispering venomous, imaginary comebacks that one rarely has the gall to utter in the daytime.  I’m sure I can sense her smiling in bed, pleased that her nefarious plan has worked.

Take last night, for instance.  I spent the usually sedate hours between 2 and 5am tossing and turning, plagued by a resentment I hadn’t realized mattered so much.  My mother-in-law never had a daughter and so spent the first two months of my engagement to her youngest son finally living out her fantasy.  She began buying me clothes and taking me to luncheons.  In my naivety, I miscalculated.  What I thought was a genuine interest in me was, in fact, a predator’s gaze.  I was in dangerous territory.

I got a taste of how dysfunctional things could get when she began talking about ”her” bridal shower.  While my guest list consisted of my mother, sisters, a few best friends and myself, I was instructed to purchase six (count em, SIX) hostess gifts.  I was puzzled.  Why on earth it took 6 women to organize a shower was beyond me.  Would there be giraffe rides?

In the end, it became clear why so many troops were required.  Any one of those women alone would have been crushed beneath the weight of the nametags.  Yes, nametags.  I’m going to let you sit with that for a moment. 

Right.  I’ve never met another woman who had to wear a sticker to her own shower identifying her as the betrothed.  Hello, my name is The Bride.  Won’t you admire this cute little flower drawn in red felt marker next to my name?  By the way, who the hell are you people?

And so, I spent a lovely afternoon getting drunk with sixty women I had never met before.  Sixty women from The Valley; sixty wives with diamonds; sixty sets of face-lifts in various states of disrepair.  The more champagne I had, the harder it was to tell between the pulled faces and suspiciously perky breasts.  It was like being in a room of identical, animatronic dolls, only worse because they actually talked.  In the end I suppose that the nametags were useful, though only to me.  (Note to Darwin:  It seems that once women achieve aesthetic uniformity, they are able to identify each other by scent.  This is a skill I have not yet honed.)

Months later, after The Wedding (another blog post… better pack a lunch for that one), I am thankful for the gifts and the graciousness of these strange women, none of whom I could pick out of a lineup.  I remember how my mother-in-law was lavished with the most attention that day; how she glowed and basked; how her friends strutted proudly around the garden tables, satisfied to have given her the best bridal shower a mother-in-law could ask for.

But I will have my revenge.  I planned it out last night somewhere around 4am.  My husband and I are trying for baby and I am waiting patiently, positively stalking the moment when we offer the news - that there will be NO baby shower, the nursery will be painted yellow, the baby will be sleeping next to me, and the pregnancy will NOT be televised.  I am anticipating what might pass as shock across her paralyzed brow.  And I will laugh.

Oh, I will laugh.