‘Fun’ conversations with my mother-in-law

I: “My nephew will be doing a work-experience project at the Royal Marines.”
MIL: “Why?”
I: “I don’t know. Perhaps he wants to be a Marine.”
MIL: “Oh, but Marines are not in the Royal Marines!”
I: “No?”
MIL (very definite): “No.”
I: “Which part of the Army does a Marine belong to if he isn’t in the Royal Marine Corps?”
MIL: “I don’t know.”
I: “But you’re sure a Marine isn’t in the…”
MIL: “Yes! I’m sure!”
I: “Okay.”
(Just between you and me; a Marine is in the Royal Marine Corps. But just try telling my mother-in-law that.)


My mother tells my mother-in-law that she (my mother) and my father will be going to a rehabilitation centre called ‘Visio’, because my father suffers from an eye-disease.
Mother: “We’ll be going to Visio next week.”
MIL: “You mean thé physio.”
Mother: “No… I mean Visio.”
MIL: “When I go to the physiotherapist I say: ‘I’m going to the physio.’”
Mother: “Whatever. But we are going to Visio. V I S I O.”
MIL: “You’ve spelled that wrong.”



I: “I’d like to taste soy milk. They always have those little stalls with fruit juices or cheese to taste in the supermarket, but never with soy milk.”
MIL: “Why do you want to taste it?”
I: “Because I don’t eat meat. But I do drink milk. And to produce milk a cow needs to have a calf. And lots of those calves end up at the slaughterhouse. So in fact, I’m still guilty of murdering cows.”
MIL: “Oh, but you have special dairy cows who always give milk, even when they don’t have calves.”
I: “I don’t think so.”
MIL: “I’m sure of it!”
I: “No, you see, they take the calf away from the mother cow, otherwise it drinks the milk. And then they feed the calf fabricated stuff. I’ve often fed calves from a bucket when I was a child.”
MIL: “Oh, but Carolina, I’m from a farm and I’m sure there are special dairy cows.”
I: “Yes there are, but they give milk because they have calves.”
MIL: “I’m a Gemini too, Carolina (I hate it when people use my name like that), and I always want to be right too. Just like you!”
I: “But the difference is that I don’t want to be right. I just usually am.” (hubs nodding in the background)
MIL: “Well, I’m going to look it up on the internet. I’m sure I’m right. And I’ll email you the proof.”

I’m sure I won’t get that email.