The deadliest creature known to womankind...

The nature of many women, I have found, is to be inately afraid of the silliest things. We fear the icky, creepy little bugs that invade our homes and patios. I have seen women run for a tissue, JUST to gently grab the helpless insect and either flush it down the toilet, or release it outside. Ladies, please stop that. It is embarrassing. First of all, releasing it is just stupid. Do you think that it lost it's GPS system and won't find it's way back in? Then why do you pick it up, ever so gently, just to send it for a swirling ride from hell into out public sewer system that will surely end it's life? What is the WORLD did a helpless little ladybug do that warrants such an assault? Besides, the spider hiding under your bed will even the score for you, soon enough.

We fear snakes and small rodents. This is amazing. A woman will spend hours upon hours seeking out the best deal one can find on any purchase made for the home and family, but if she spies a rodent or a snake..BAM! She is on the phone faster than you can say, "CHARGE IT!". She will call one, and only one, animal control service and pay TOP DOLLAR to have this situation remedied. This same woman, who spends much of her time diligently protecting her family and searching child predator websites will allow a man sporting a mullet, one tooth, and a rusty trap, to enter her home and seek out all cracks and crevices within it JUST to remove one mouse.

Then, there is a knock at the door. Behind it lurks the deadliest creature known to womankind. Yet, she will open the door, smile, and say, "Oh hi, Mom. Come on in!" No, it isn't HER mother, it is the woman who gave birth to her significant other. Ladies, you are going to need a bigger tissue for THIS pest removal!

Now, I know that there are those of you out there that have a deliriously wonderful relationship with your mother-in-law, and to you, I say...shush. This is all about those of us who have endured years of emotional torment at the hands of a creature riddled with toxicity and venom.

Maybe some background is required here. I can help with that, as I am sure there are those who can relate on many levels to the tales I am about to share.

I was married at a fairly young age, I was twenty years old. I also had the privledge of marrying outside of my own culture and race. I married a Cantonese man whose family moved to The United States when he was only ten years old. You think that dealing with a woman who despises you is difficult? Try this one on for size, imagine that you do not speak the same language and have to rely on your husband for accurate translation. Yeah, exactly. I used to love the contorted, tortured expression on his face as he attempted to soften the blow that was just vommited all over me, via him. There was a culture and language barrier in place that made all of the usual dealings with in-laws even more of a challenge, I will admit that. However, when you scrape away all of the excuses and justifications for her behavior, you are left with a very simple and deadly creature...the meddling Mother-in-law.

When my future husband (also future EX husband) and I began dating, there were SO many warning signs that so many of us ignore. I remember meeting my future mother-in-law, and seeing that pursed mouth of hers, and thinking, "I am going to MAKE this woman like me." I didn't know how wrong I was. You see, my husband was her baby. He was the youngest of five children, and her pride and joy. The first time that we met, I was wearing a tank top, so my arms were fully exposed. She looked me up and down, grabbed my arm, and made a disgusted face. I am half Italian heritage. I have hair on my arms from my wrist to my elbow, as many women do. I never thought much of it, and refused to do anything about it, being as I already have enough body parts to scrape hair from. She said disgustedly, "Yuck! You a woman. You no have hair on the arm. Take off. You look like man." When I recovered from the shock and hurt of what she said, I wanted to say, "Your son doesn't seem to mind when he is lying next to me in bed, you bitch!" But, I didn't say that. Damn, i wish that I had. The years and moments to follow would only solidify in my mind that this woman was, indeed, the antichrist.

My Mother-in-law was good for calling "family meetings" to discuss whatever hair was up her ass that week. These were a real hoot. Basically, it was a bunch of babbling Chinese people, and me. I knew that if Uncle Johnny showed up, I was in some shit. He was the designated translator for the dumb white girl. This one particular meeting involved HER deciding that my husband and I should move. Oh, did I mention that the move would include moving in with THEM? It did. My father-in-law was in failing health, and she felt that it would be best for everyone if I became their nursemaid and slave. I disagreed. However, she did not go about this in the typical fashion. I sat through this entire dinner, held in a public venue, of course, and wondered what her angle was going to be. After we completed our meal and desserts, I was fully prepared to gather my two year old son, and return home. It was then that she decided to pull her rabbit from the hat. She asked Johnny to have me remain seated and pulled a jewelry box from her purse. Within that box was contained a 2 carat diamond solitaire. She placed it in her claw, I mean hand, and reached out to me with an expression of pure deviance. She asked Johnny to ask me if I liked the ring. I knew full well what this bitch was up to. I took the ring from Johnny, looked at it, and said, "It is a bit gaudy for my tastes, what do you want?" I then proceded to set the ring up on end and flick it back accross the table at her. It was the first of many times that I would lose my cool at the hand of such a manipulative creature. I had always been accused of being in their family for their money. Oh, you didn't know that they were wealthy? Oops, sorry about that. Let me back up a moment, and explain.

My mother and father-in-law brought their family here in the late eighties. They were seeking what all immigrants seek here, freedom and financial success. They were fairly poor, and had five children. They began washing dishes at her sister's restaurant to earn a paycheck. They worked long hours and their children were either worked as slaves, or severely neglected. A large part of the Chinese culture revolves around gambling. They are no exception. They would play Mah Jong for days straight, winning or losing thousands of dollars nightly. They frequented casinos and gaming resorts, all the while claiming poverty. They also played the Pennsylvania lottery. Here is where the story creates the monster that I came to know and loathe. My mother-in-law thought that she could "figure out" the lottery numbers before they hit. She did this daily. One particular day, she gave a list of numbers to her husband to play. He dutifully went to the local gas station to carry out the queen's orders. When he arrived, he realized that he had forgotten his reading glasses. The lottery tickets, in case you have never seen them, are VERY difficult to read and decipher if you have GOOD eyesight. There are little boxes by the numbers that you must fill in with pencil in order to choose the number. He could not see them. So, he counted the boxes over and filled in the block of what he THOUGHT was the right number. One problem arose. He was holding the card upside down. He had played all the wrong numbers, and to say that he heard about his mistake when he arrived home, would be an understatement. Fortunately, he was redeemed when a few days later, they were the recipients of 15.8 million dollars. You heard that right. 15.8 MILIION DOLLARS!

Now, one would think that this family would have all the opportunity that they had hoped for, correct? You would be wrong. Not ONE of their children experienced a college education. Not ONE of their children has remained married for more than 10 years. Not ONE of their children could stand alone without the financial support of their parents. You see, SHE wanted it that way. I remember once, her saying to me, "Have MORE kids. I have 5 kid. You, only 3! You need MORE. They care of you when they big." She remained in control of her children despite their yearning for freedom. They wanted her money, and she used it to it's fullest potential as a device to keep control.

She had one glitch in her plan. Me. I continually resisted her methods of control. I begged my husband to NOT take their money, and that we would get by on what we had. This was futile, he was addicted to it, and he loved his Mommy. This woman was the bane of my existance. She would often show up at our home unannounced and let herself in with the key that her son had provided to her. One particular incident will remain forever embedded in my memory. I was in the shower when her and her husband arrived. I came out of the shower and ran smack into my father-in-law standing in my bedroom, where SHE had told him to go. She suggested that I was lazy and sleeping and that he should wake me. Later, I found from my husband that she was upset with me for coming out of the shower wearing only a towel, and that she found it to be disrespectful of her husband. *blink* It was a crazy little world inside of her head, and GOD HELP YOU if you dared to enter it.

She would have moments of "kindness". Well, that was once she stopped spreading the rumor that my second son did not belong to my husband because he was "too white". What the hell am I? I swear that this woman saw me as some kind of breeding vessel that should bow down to her every need and request. Once, she was "kind" enough to allow me to keep my baby. Yeah, soak THAT one in for a minute. This same woman who demanded that I breed had once held a family meeting when I was pregnant with my first son and told me that I would ruin her son's life, and that I should have an abortion. Then she passed the salt.

All mother-in-laws have their tools for mass destruction, but this woman had the holy grail...the language barrier. They had lived here for twenty years, and yet, she was COMPLETELY incapable of getting an oil change without help from her son. Every single weekend was consumed with tasks to be carried out by us, on her behalf. She would call my husband, or just show up at the house, and whine endlessly about how she just can't seem to get the phrase, "oil change" out of her mouth. Amazingly enough, though, she never seemed to have trouble at the bank. Go figure. If I dared to schedule anything that would interfere with my husband completing his assigned tasks, god help me. I can also assure you, that if this woman had something to say to me, and there was NOT a translator handy, she found a way to say it.

My children were always a bone of contention in my dealings with the monster-in-law. She would do all of the typical things, like give them things to eat that they were not allowed to have. Oh, I don't mean candy. You will need further explanation, again. I breast fed my sons, and after she was kind enough to walk right up to me, grasp my breasts, and determine that I was not producing sufficient milk for them, she decided to supplement their diet. I would put my son down for a nap, and I had to watch her like a hawk when she would visit. She would enter his room, wake him, and feed him glucose water from a bottle. Yes ladies, she did. To say the least, this would turn me into a raging female tiger. This confrontation would, of course, be all my fault because she was just "trying to help". Listen lady, keep your hands off of my tits, AND off of my son, please! Is that really a difficult concept to grasp? Culture barrier, my ass. I don't see Asian women feeling up each other's milk laden breasts all that often. Ya know?

I could always count on her to medicate my children, as well. When I say medicate, I mean torture. My husband guilted me into visiting my in-laws in Hong Kong one summer when my first two children were very small. My oldest son was just over two, and my middle son was just one month old. We made the 24 hour flight to Hong Kong, at the queen of the damned's request. This would be the longest eight weeks of my life. You heard that right. I stayed there for eight weeks with the creature from the shit lagoon. Within hours of our arrival, she had begun her usual torture. My oldest son has eczema. I made the fatal error of attempting to shower. It is amazing that I sustained any human hygeine while dealing with this woman. She saw me taking a shower as the hen abandoning the nest, and leaving it open to the fox. I could hear my son screaming while I was bathing. I quickly jumped from the shower and grabbed a towel, (oh, she is going to be pissed again!) just to see her placing my son in a vat of black liquid that was pouring off steam. The wicked witch of the EAST was trying to make a Jonas stew or some shit. I grabbed my son and asked her what the hell she was doing. She tugged at him and said, "you not know what you doing. I fix him skin. This Chinese medicine. GO AWAY!" Oh My GOD, WOMAN! This takes meddling to a whole new level. She is trying to boil my son, and my husband is worried that I hurt her feelings? What the hell kind of parallel universe have I entered?

Ok, now listen to me. I know that you have all had to eat something awful that your mother-in-law cooked, but until you have been fed a black snake that she just killed with her bare hands and nailed to a tree in the front yard, I DO NOT want to hear about your mother-in-law's dry pork chops! Got it? The crazy bitch told me that it would help the pain in my knee. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But I can tell you this, the taste of black snake is WAY worse than the pain in my knee. I really thought that my brother-in-law was kidding when he told me that she was going to make me eat it. I also DO NOT like to look my meal in the eye. Is it not enough that I had to help you hold the chicken when you cut it's head off, and boiled the smelly feathers out? NOW I have to have it's head staring at me from my plate? Are you kidding me? Who eats a chicken's head, really? Jesus Christ, I had to deal with a Chinese Granny from the Beverly Hilbillies...and you think YOU have a shitty mother-in-law?

Ok, ok, I may have gotten a bit off track here. I have to focus. This woman made every event, family function, or get together into a game of wits. She was damn good at it too. I will now share the final move in her game of chess. She and her husband decided, many years back, to open another restaurant for their older son. They had already done this twice, and both times met as failure and financial loss. When they asked ME what I thought they should name it, I said, "Strike Three". Hey, I thought it was funny. She did not. Her oldest son was, and still is, a complete waste of perfectly good human organs. He is utterly useless and one of the laziest people I have ever known. So, opening a business for him to run is PROBABLY not a good idea. But, hey, that is their problem, right? Not quite. I made my husband promise to NOT get us involved in ANY WAY in the financial dealings of this restaurant and his family. We had already been there, and done that. He promised. I will make a VERY long story as short as possible here. We had another "family meeting" following the signing of the financial documents involving this restaurant. I found, to my dismay and complete shock, that my husband had been coerced into placing our home as collateral for the over one million dollars in loans required to start up another doomed business. We were not the only ones affected by this stunt. There were other innocent family members also manipulated into this disaster. I literally took leave of my senses. I told that woman exactly what I had thought of her, and her behavior for all those years. I felt WONDERFUL. Now, I had to get my home out of this mess. As it turns out, the entire real estate deal was a scam, and through diligent research, all that was lost was 20,000 dollars of the bitch's money.

Are you exhausted yet? I am. But that, folks, is not the end. This occurred just a few weeks before Christmas. Christmas eve, I had my family and friends here, at my home. My in-laws were to arrive at 6pm. At 7pm, my father-in-law shows up, alone. He informs my husband that my mother-in-law will not be making an appearance unless I drive to her mother's home, and make a public apology for direspecting her in front of the family. Holy shit! I thought to myself, certainly NO ONE will go for this, especially my husband. Well, that is not quite how it panned out. My two sister-in-laws took me into the upstairs bedroom and explain that if I do NOT go, she will win. They explained that the family would view me as guilty, and as a coward. I was stunned. I agreed to go, but I retained one thought. If my husband lets me walk out that door, this marriage is over. I walked out the door. I left my entire family and all of my friends on Christmas and drove to his grandmother's home. I walked in, and a hush fell over the house. His mother was seated at the dining room table. I sat next to her and asked for her forgiveness. My skin crawled as she placed her hand between my face and hers, displaying the mother's ring that I had bought her just a year before. She refused to look at me, or accept my apology. Ok, bitch. Game on.

I informed my husband that I wanted a divorce. He, of course, refused. We lived together for two more years following this event. I was a stay at home mom with no money, and faced a fight against millions of dollars. It was a steep uphill battle. In the course of that war, my credit was destroyed by the man who claimed to love me, and with the help of his mother. I discovered that the very home that I lived in was NOT purchased by my husband, as I had previously been told, but it was gifted to him by guess who. That's right, the mother. She gave him implicit instructions that I would NEVER own that house. He agreed, and he did so while we were married and "in love". Well, thanks to much hard work, creating a career from nothing, and sheer determination, the day that the PA family courts ordered my husband to hand over the title to my home was the day that I said, "Checkmate, bitch". I ate thousands of dollars in debt that he had run up against the house, survived devastated credit, paid thousands of dollars in legal fees and kept food on the table for three young boys.

I look back on that part of my life now, and I wonder....

Could I have just taken her out with a tissue, and flushed her down the toilet?

Where the hell is the mullet guy with the rusty trap when you really need him?

Well, the tissue was my determination to do what was right for my sons, the toilet was the reality that their lottery payments are now over, and they are as broke as the day they came here.

The mullet guy with the trap? That is her own greed and hatred locked away in her cold, dead heart. She made the rusty trap, and now she lives in it...with all five of her children. By the way, do you think that they take care of her now?

Would you?