The Questionnaire has met her match.

Husband calls me The Questionnaire.  He says I ask too many questions, questions I don't need to know the answers to.  I find it funny how upset he gets about my question asking.  

Or did until I met my match: my Scottish Father-in-law, FIL.  FIL asks more questions than I do.  Constantly.  And most of the time, he asks questions so that he can tell you what the answer should be. 

FIL: Why are they pronouncing the name of a car/medication/disease/word this way?

ME: Because that’s how we say the name of a car/medication/disease/word here in America.

FIL: Nooo. That is wrong. The name of a car/medication/disease/word is pronounced that way.

I find myself going into yelly defense mode over something I really don’t give a damn about, just to stop the questions.  Just like when I’m in the basement with Husband and he’s asked me to hold up a thing and I ask him why I’m holding the thing and he yells that I don’t need to know why, I just need to hold it.  FIL is doing to me what I do to Husband.  It would be an interesting study on relationships and why we choose the partners we choose – if I weren’t currently IN the study yelling “Because that’s how we do it here!” every five seconds.

This is not word for word but here is a sample of the back and forth questioning between FIL and me yesterday. I was too busy trying to answer FIL's questions to remember the exact wording and at some point my head exploded and I might have yelled, "I don't know!"  Keep in mind, everything he says sounds like Sean Connery playing a priest.  It went something like this - 

FIL: Is it an American thing to list ones maiden name and ones married name?

ME: Where?

FIL: On Facebook?

ME: Yes.

FIL: Why?

ME: I don’t know. Because we do.

FIL: Why?

ME: I guess so that your high school friends, the friends who knew you before you were married could find you.

FIL: Why? Why not just list your married name?

ME: Because maybe they don’t know you got married.  Maybe they just remember you from school and only remember your maiden name.

FIL: There was a picture someone posted in the Greenock (Scottish town) Facebook page of her mother and grandmother and she just put their married names.

ME: Perhaps its because they got married young and everyone knew who they were before?

FIL: Nooo. 

ME: Perhaps it’s because the town is small and everyone knows everyone

FIL: Nooo…

ME: Did she have links to their names?

FIL: Nooo.  They’re all dead.

ME: Well, perhaps because by the time they died, people only knew their married names.

FIL: Nooo…

And this went on forever in this vain until Husband actually said -

HUSBAND: You guys need to go to a hospital ward and talk to coma patients. They'll be all “I'm awake. I’m awake. Shut up! Please stop talking!”

Neither of us did.

And adding to the list of things I shouldn't say to one’s Father-in-law, this gem might be on the list.

ME: I think your art supplies are in the top of the closet, next to the porn magazines we found in the attic. 

Husband looked at me in horror, shook his head, and pretended he was no longer in the car with us.  Hard to do as the driver. 

See when we removed the old nasty animal infested insulation from the attic last spring, we found these old Playboy magazines along with several bullets and RC cola cans.  The magazines were chewed up and nasty from the mice using them as nesting material but I kept them in a bag along with the cards and report cards we found when we removed the bookshelf.  Maybe someday, the kid who lived here will stop by and I’ll be able to give them part of their childhood back.

When we found the magazines, Husband laughed and said –

HUSBAND: Good thing it was a playboy from the 70's.  The mice had plenty of nesting material.

I was confused until I noticed the rather un-groomed model and her “nesting material,” that he was indicating the mice would enjoy.

Husband is funny.  He can say this kind of stuff in front of everyone – my mother included and yet, when I just blurt out that there are 70’s porn magazines stored in the closet of the room FIL is occupying, he just shakes his head as if I am nuts.  There is nothing like the look on Husband’s face during an awkward naked woman story I’m telling FIL to get me giggling.  I’m sure it matches the look on mine when Husband says something thoroughly un-PC.  We’ve been married for ages.  You’d think he’d be getting used to the blurt disease that seems to overcome me around FIL. 


We apparently are a matched set. 

And that is why the battle for Most Awkward Story Told To Your In-Law will continue.  It is almost as intense as the epic battle for the title of The Questionnaire. Though, based on the last few days, I’m going to be the one losing both titles - along with my patience.