Conundrum XI

By: Mia L. Hazlett
4/14/13

I sat at the table with my four closest friends.  We hadn’t met like this in the longest.  No kids.  No one’s house.  We were four adults at a nice restaurant sipping on wine and not having to share our plates with anyone.  We all had our own lives going at full speed, that we would try and play catch up, but usually one of us was missing.  Not tonight, we were all here.

Although I had made it through my storm and all of us had shared in our own obstacles, our friend Tasha was at the beginning of her hard times.  Her mother-in-law just moved in with her and her husband of almost 20 years, and their three kids.  It wasn’t that they didn’t have the room or means to support her, it was this woman had done everything to persuade her son to leave Tasha over the past 20 years.  Well as Tasha had always said, “less move in with us.”

The bond that holds this friendship together and that many don’t understand, we are all Christians. Not those fake church on Sunday, talk about everybody, we are perfect in Christ type of Christians.  We are the type of Christians that have Satan on one shoulder and an angel on the other.  Eighty percent of the time we live by the Word, but that other twenty percent, Lord help us all!

“I’m just caught between doing the Godly thing and saying fuck that bitch. She has made my life absolutely miserable for the past two decades and now when I am finally at the point in my career that I can telecommute three days a week, I gotta look at her ass.  C’mon now.”

“Trust me, I know what it is to have a mother-in-law from hell.  They suck.  We all know they suck.  But she’s losing it and it’s going to cost you more to put her in a home.  You know his brothers aren’t going to pitch in on the bill,” I chimed in.

“That’s what I’m sayin’.  I’m willing to pay more.  We can afford to pay for a place.  The only way we can pay, is if I’m working on those three days at home.  You know what I mean.  You know this woman thinks I only work 2 days a week and those other days I’m, ‘just spendin’ up her poor baby’s money.’”

“Well let’s look at this medically.  She’s in the early stages of dementia.  Maybe she’ll forget that she hates you and it will be like a new leaf with y’alls’ relationship,” Karla always knew how to add the comedy.

“I’ve thought about that.  But what if her hate for me has been so strong that I end up being the only one she remembers.  That is more my luck.”

We all laughed and made an ungodly toast for selective dementia.