In Front Of Your In-Laws

Since I got engaged, my mother has become even funnier. Before now, the whole family admitted that she could not get any funnier, but this engagement has been the stone upon which she has honed her funny skills. For one, she relates everything I do to my in-laws and why she does that, I have not the foggiest idea.

One time, we were both in her room. I was painting her toenails for her and she was reading her bible. I felt a rumbling in my tummy, and in clenching my tummy, I let out a fart. She looked at me from above her spectacles and closed her bible; wedging her index finger in between the pages she was reading. She nodded and said, ‘Wow! So this is what you want to go and do in  front of your in-laws?’. I laughed and said, ‘Ahahn! How can I do that? I could not control this one that’s why.’  She laughed out loud and said, ‘Hmmm…. a woman that cannot control her fart cannot control the diarrhea of life’ 

Oh.. I forgot to mention; my mother also spontaneously comes up with the weirdest quotable quotes.

Like another time when I forgot to give our guests water after I had served then food. She went called me into the living room where they sat and she introduced me as: My daughter who is so eager to quickly go to her husband’s house that she forgot to drop water for you.  Then after the guests had laughed, she said, ‘Just be going and don’t go and do this one in front of your in-laws. If you don’t know, you better know that he who forgets water, forgets life‘ 

Then, one other time, she watched me as I hurried for work. I had over slept the night before and was trying to get on the road before the madness and traffic would start. She kept saying ‘hmm’  and exhaling hard. Then when I could not take it any longer, I asked her what was wrong. She said, ‘Ah…nothing o. Are you minding me? I’m just thinking.’ For a moment, I was scared as I asked her what happened? Then she tsked and said, ‘There will be nights busier than last night when you marry. Do you want to, because of life, stop living? I wonder what the in-laws will have to say about that.

I was perplexed.

Yet, another time, she promised to let my in-laws know about me that ‘the only interpretation of hard-work she knows is that work is hard’. And yet another time, she had casually told me, ‘In-Laws are only always right when they are on the right side of the road and even then, it’s wrong to follow their steps’

I have tire.

No, seriously, my mother bought me tires as my engagement present. According to her, ‘Let these tires remind you of what marriage is; it is rolling together with someone; somersaulting over your head continuously and refusing to run mad. It is being compatible enough to avoid awkward accidents; just like the road and the tire are compatible. It is getting old together – the way the tire would wear and tear as much as the road breaks and wears as well. It is being strong enough to address the bumps and obvious portholes or faults in the other person; not fearing that you will be hurt. And it is also being smart not to get yourself buried in another’s faults but to constantly yearn for the road ahead; knowing, believing and agreeing that there’s a smoother and more glorious destination you both are headed to.’

I haff tire!