Exasperated

I have a confession.

When we were first married we used to watch the Jerry Springer show if there was nothing else on.  It was just too funny for words.  I mean who comes up with these show titles:  “The hickey came from the dog…I didn’t cheat!”,  “You slept with my stripper sister!”,  “My sister stole my gay boyfriend!”.   And of course it wasn’t a successful show until it broke out into a fight. 

It wasn’t long however until I realized I married into a Jerry Springer show.  A few years into our marriage two of H-er’s sisters that had been living together went their separate ways and refused to come to any family functions if the other was going to be there because “She stole my spoons!”. 

Or there was the Thanksgiving when one of H-er’s sisters literally jumped on him and started punching him while my mother-in-law screamed that she was going to call the police.  “You insulted my husband!”

Or another Thanksgiving when I was making something in the mixer and H-er stormed in and screamed at me to turn it off because it caused his internet upload to timeout and he lost all the data.  “Your cooking killed the internet!”
 

Or a Thanksgiving after that when I told the kids to pile all their blankets and pillows in the middle of the room with the suitcases so I could load them in the car, my sister-in-law accused me of trying to steal a pillow (my mother-in-law gave EVERYONE matching pillowcases) and screamed obscenities at me.  Everyone followed us out into the street yelling at us and as we drove away her daughter threw her 32oz slurpee at our windshield.   “She stole my pillow!”

Or recently when my father-in-law went into the hospital my sister-in-law withdrew $3000 in cash from his checking account and refused to explain where it was spent so H-er canceled the debit card.  She and her daughter then took to facebook and “outed” him in an effort to blackmail him into giving them more money.   They also called his mom and said that he refused to buy diapers for the kids and was trying to rob them of their inheritance at which point she got on the phone and began screaming at him about who was supposed to inherit what (note that she and my father-in-law have not been married or speaking for 33 years). “My dad’s not dead yet but he stole my inheritance!”

So when H-er called only 24 hours after my father-in-law’s death to tell me his mom and sister were already berating him about how his dad’s effects were to be divided, I groaned.   Please don’t let there be any fights at the funeral or at Thanksgiving the next week.  Let’s grow up people.  While you all did grow up in a trailer park you don’t have to be cliché.   

It was funny on the Jerry Springer show.  It’s not funny now.