Pass the ketchup. And a fork, too.

I have to say, hands down, that my Mother's Day was probably the best one ever.  

But let's not be so hasty, because you know there had to be something that went wrong that weekend, right?  Oh yeah.  A Forced In-Law Interaction.

We had originally worked out that we were going to meet the Outlaws for lunch somewhere halfway between our house and their house, mostly because we had a baseball game at 10 AM on Saturday and plans with friends for Sunday.  Not that I really wanted to drive over an hour for lunch with people I strongly dislike, but I figured as long as Sunday remained unscathed and there wasn't the traditional Mother-In-Law Meltdown that I would suck it up.  Not to mention it had been a few months since I'd had to see them, so I really didn't see a way out of it.

By Friday night, however, their plans had changed.  They decided that they wanted to come up and watch Monkey Man's baseball game and then we would go to lunch.  Oh, great.  So Joey gave them explicit directions on how to get to the ball field and what time the game was and all that jazz.

To add to the stress of the morning, we were responsible for supplying drinks and snacks for the team that day - of course.  So after a stop for ice and making sure we had everything together, we hit the road and were running probably ten minutes late heading to the field.  That's when the phone calls started.  

At one point, thirty minutes after the game started, Joey tossed me his phone after his mother had already called six times because they couldn't find the field.  By the time they called again I figured out that they were driving up and down the street right outside of the entrance to the ball field.  The one with the six-foot sign.  That they couldn't find.

So I'm trying to watch the game, give directions, and keep an eye out for them when I finally see my mother-in-law come waddling down the pathway.  In her typical ADD manner she has forgotten - yet again - not only what field the team is on, but what school he plays for and what color the team's uniform is.  Since I had just told her for at least the third time when she got in the parking lot.  She announces that my father-in-law is not coming to the field because it's too far to walk.  

Well, great.

At this point, one of the other parents, feeling like they are being helpful, tells my mother-in-law that there is another parking lot closer to the field where maybe she could move the car.  But instead of HER walking over to look, she asks me to do it.  I found a few parking spots there, but honestly had no clue exactly how to tell her to get to said parking lot.  

To sum this up, she moves the car...and he still refuses to come to the field because now 20 feet is too far.  

Kill me now.

After the game, we ended up going to lunch.  My mother-in-law picked O'Charleys, which if you are not familiar with it is a chain similar to a Bennigans or something like that.  Nothing exotic, just plain ol' American food.  By the time my mother-in-law chose something off the menu - twenty-five minutes after we got our drinks - I was ready to stick a fork in my eye just to be excused from the table.  

Did I mention she ordered the till-a-pee-a?  You know what that is, right?  She ordered the cedar-planked tilapia, which she not only butchered the name of, but also smothered in Heinz ketchup.  

My father-in-law ordered ribs, which he ate with his fingers.  Which would've been okay if he hadn't also eaten his steamed broccoli with his fingers too.  Pretty sad when your seven-year-old has better table manners than a grown-ass adult.

The highlight of lunch, other than the skillful preparation of the till-a-pee-a, was my mother-in-law's 20-minute story about buying a lightbulb for her office.  You know, she only needed one fluorescent tube so she had to drive into town...got to the store where they had six individual tubes, or a carton of 20 tubes.  And how hard it was to decide whether to buy the six individual tubes, or the carton of 20.  And how then the six had to be wrapped.  And the drive back to the office.  And then how she tripped in the parking lot and fell, gashing her elbows and knees open - but, dammit, the lightbulbs made it unbroken.  Wow.  

It was at that point where I stuck a fork in my other eye.

On Mother's Day, we went to Busch Gardens with two of the Badasses, their spouses and kids.  We had a freaking blast.  The weather was gorgeous, the kids all got along, and everyone had a great time.  

It was almost worth sticking a fork in my eye.  And watching someone slather Heinz all over their till-a-pee-a.