Be kind to your mother-in-law but pay for her board at some good hotel.
~Josh Billings
My mother-in-law didn’t know me well yet when I stayed at her home while my new husband was at his twelve weeks of boot camp. She became over-protective of me, and automatically assumed I’d require her constant guidance and help with everything.
But in reality, since both my parents held full-time jobs, I’d done all my family’s cooking, housework, chores, and after-school errands since age nine. I had developed organizational skills, including the habit of resetting our family clocks on the Saturday evening before every switch between standard time and daylight savings.
On that particular Saturday evening, I set the bedside clock and my wristwatch one hour ahead before going to sleep. Sunday morning, while I was at church, Mom-in-law took for granted I’d need her assistance. Convinced I couldn’t possibly know or remember on my own, she didn’t even bother to check the time. (It hadn’t dawned on her that I’d somehow managed to get up, bathe, dress, and leave for church on time.)
She entered my bedroom and set the alarm clock an additional hour ahead. Earlier, she had murmured to her husband that if left to my own devices, I’d certainly arrive an hour late for work Monday morning. Later, unaware that she’d already remedied that possibility, he too entered the bedroom and added yet another hour.
Before retiring on that Sunday evening, I double-checked the alarm-clock setting. How strange! It was two hours fast. So I fixed it.
At breakfast, Mom-in-law sat gloating at the kitchen table. “See — you’d still be in bed fast asleep if it wasn’t for me.”
“What do you mean?” Dad-in-law chimed in. “She’s got me to thank. I’m the one who set the alarm clock ahead for her.”
I grinned, bid them good morning, then followed my usual preparatory ritual, and headed out to my office. Still deeply entangled in their intense debate over who deserved the credit, they both lost track of time and arrived late to their jobs, where their co-workers teased them about forgetting to set their clocks ahead for daylight savings time.
~Florence C. Blake
