Chevrolet
He like a rock in the sea unshaken stands his ground. ~ Virgil
Once a woman marries, the relationship with her mother seems to go one of two ways. Either they stay close or the daughter discovers that dear old mom drives her batshit. At the manor, the latter is in effect. As such, when my mother-in-law is in town, the wife generally turns into a bitch. Sometimes she even turns into a biatch.
Such was the case on a recent morning. Penelope was exhausted from an all-night breast feeding marathon. She was exhausted from dealing with her mother who was staying with us. To help out. Chiefly by loading the dishwasher as inefficiently as possible and running it 12 times per day.
As a result, Penelope was in bitch mode and threatening to go full biatch. As any human anywhere who has ever interacted with woman has experienced, the problem wasn’t with what she was saying, which I don’t remember, but tone. Presented claws and hisses are at times designed to draw in a fighter and remove culpability.
So I ignored her and forgot about it. Then I remembered when I got the text with the apology. I promptly forgot again. Honestly, I didn’t fault her for being pissy. Newborns and all-nighters and my mother-in-law, whom my wife gladly does not remind me of, are tough to deal with in tandem.
Had I gotten sucked in, though, I would have never gotten the apology. To paraphrase an old email from Alkibiades, be like a rock against which the waves her emotions crash. Be like Bob Seger.
She was exhausted from dealing with her mother who was staying with us. To help out.
Ain’t that the way.