Extortionists always welcome here

If you haven't already picked up on earlier references in old posts of mine, my in-laws and I have a less than stellar relationship.

It can sometimes strain things because I know they must have some redeeming qualities in that they raised the man that I married, and therefore surely they can't be that bad.

Well, guess what? They can be.

I guess I need to give a little background here. When Monkey Man was less than six months old, he came down with his first case of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease and was sick for almost 10 days. Since I was almost out of sick and vacation time at that point, we asked my in-laws to come and babysit him for the day. Now, keep in mind that my father-in-law (who I will now refer to as FIL and mother-in-law will be MIL) is a raging alcoholic who is also obese, has high blood pressure, smokes like a chimney, and is one of those people that every year my dear, sweet husband looks at me and says, "This will probably be Dad's last Christmas..." to which I reply, "Dear, sweet husband - you've been saying that for the last twelve years, so I suggest we move on to something else."

So anyhow, Joey and I trotted off to work, confident in MIL's ability to take care of our precious little bundle of joy.

I got home that afternoon to discover that MIL and FIL's car was gone. Missing. My heart sank.

I rushed inside, to find Monkey Man gurgling in his pack and play, and FIL sound asleep on the couch. MIL was nowhere to be found. About 30 minutes later, she came bursting through the door with shopping bags galore...apparently she had decided to go shopping while Monkey Man napped, got lost, and was gone. For THREE HOURS.

Needless to say, that was the last time we let them babysit for a loooong time. My biggest problem was that he was so young at the time, what if FIL had a heart attack or stroke or passed out...and the baby was left alone for three hours? God, it made me sick to think about it.

Couple that with a few nightmarish stories from my ex-sister-in-law about some incidents when they were watching my niece, and you would understand why I was hesitant to let them watch Monkey Man unsupervised for longer than say two milliseconds. And the bellyaching from them over the past 3.5 years has almost been unbearable at times - they talk about me to their neighbors, saying that I'm "keeping them away from their only grandson" and all this other shit.

Fast forward to this week - apparently, MIL caught wind of Monkey Man's third bout with HF&M disease and called Joey yesterday to volunteer to watch MM for the day. Since I'm currently 3 weeks in the hole as far as working without pay and Joey could not take today off, we acquiesced and accepted her offer. And you know, I thought it was a very nice offer and figured, what could it hurt?

That was yesterday morning. Then an entire day of phone calls back and forth between the in-laws and Joey ensued. Finally, around 7 PM last night, MIL called and at some point FIL got on the phone with Joey. All I heard was Joey saying, "mmmm, that's right, okay, whatever you say Dad...."

Uh oh. I know it can't be good when he hangs up the phone and stares at it in disbelief.

Do you know what my FIL wanted?

Gas money. Okay, no problem, they're on a fixed income so we would definitely have at least offered it since they were driving 1.5 hours to get here.

And $10 an hour to watch Monkey Man. You know, since they were coming all this way and everything.

Never in my life have I been so astonished. They want to be paid to spend a day with their grandson.

Anyhow, I swallowed my tongue before I could bite it off and didn't say a word. I decided that they're Joey's parents, let him deal with it.

Today at lunchtime, I called home to check and see how Monkey Man was doing and I spoke with my MIL. She immediately apologized for what FIL had said - she claims that she had no idea he was demanding money and insisted that there was no way she'd accept one penny to spend time with Monkey Man today.

Hmmm. So, I guess it was just him being an asshole, huh? The whole thing has left a very bitter taste in my mouth.

So let's see...I'm on my mother's shit list, my boss is pissed at me, and my FIL attempted to extort money from me. And it's only Tuesday. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.