I am a Snob, Part 1 of 2

Every married girl (or guy) is supposed to hate their in-laws, right? Well, I don't hate mine...BUT...I have to purge myself of this week's events because...well...it's just TOO horrible to be borne alone! Okay. Tuesday night the phone rings at about eleven-something and I answer it and it is LT's mother. (I should mention, before proceeding with this story, that LT's mother is not FROM America...and landed in a small town sort of by accident and not by her own choosing.) She commences telling me that her air conditioning is out and the repairman needs a coil and can't get one immediately and so it will be several days before she has A/C again. So I am sitting there waiting for her to tell me that she wants to come stay with us until she has air again (thinking "oh shit where will we put her...we have no guest room" etc....but NO!) so can we come down (Wednesday) around 5:00? What? Turns out LT made plans for a late Mother's Day sort of thing and did not tell me about it (figuring he would just go alone). Well, in the end we ALL went, and LT's brother (and his wife and two kids) also joined us and we went to eat at the ONE restaurant in [this small town]. (I should interject, at this point, that since brother-in-law has recently purchased a huge, gas-hogging SUV-type vehicle that allegedly "seats seven" we -- that is, all EIGHT OF US -- are coerced into riding together in the one vehicle, listening to Elvis along the way, with brother-in-law trying to force us all into a reverent silence to the great "E" and sister-in-law going on about how she absolutely CANNOT believe that LT has NOT SEEN the new library (despite the fact that we CLEARLY do not live in this hick town and avoid it if AT ALL reasonably possible.) But back to the restaurant...I have gotten used to the non-existence of any other "restaurants" (and I use the term loosely), as well as the fact that it is run by a has-been former Go-Go dancer (they still HAVE those???) who only believes that corn and green beans should be served on Sundays (the rest of the week it's brown beans, hominy, or some other horrific canned quasi-food item that is frightening to the broccoli-eating world). So we are eating when (horror of horrors) my mother-in-law says to LT "I have something I want you to listen to" then turns to OTHER daughter-in-law and says "did you bring those CD's?" WARNING, WARNING! Danger! Red Flags! OHGODPLEASENOTTHATCOMEDIANAGAIN! She proceeds to go on about how LT simply MUST listen to the new CD's and that this guy is SO funny...I said "what guy is this" and YES...it's the same comedian she made us endure the last time we visited. Perhaps "endure" is not a strong enough word. I am telling you, it was torture... painful, unconstitutional, violating-my-civil-rights kind of torture. His name is Rodney Carrington and he is so not funny that it's STILL not funny. AND he says "weiner" instead of "penis." Come on! You have one...learn the word! I try to semi-politely yet in a firm way interject that the guy is REPULSIVE and should not be breathing the air on our planet and that we really DON'T want to listen to him EVER, EVER again, but she'll have none of it. I pull LT aside and beg him to reason with her, but it's Mother's Day (sort of...belated...in a way) so he feels the guilty son duties of humoring Mum. (to be continued...)