Ok, so I am out of material over here. My job is just a fucking festival of stupidity this week and I can’t write about it.
Instead, you are in luck. I will dust off one of the “You think your inlaws are crazy? You ain’t seen nothing yet!” stories from A’s family archive. I told it to Dawn and she said it made her feel like her own family was more sane. Maybe you will too.
Nah Nah Na Nah Nah… My family is crazier than yours!
After his first year in law school A decided to move home with his mother for the summer. This decision was based largely on his younger sister’s psychotic break the fall before.
A’s parents (MIL and FIL) have been divorced since A was a freshman or sophomore in college. Even before that time, their relationship was always quite rocky.
Their marriage was arranged in the early 1960’s in Taiwan. I don’t think they didn’t know each other very well before then. MIL was from a poorer family, but she was one of the smartest girls in her school. FIL was already showing signs of the mental illness that had plagued his mother, so the family was probably looking for a good, smart, responsible girl to take care of him. He was an attractive (if short, but maybe that didn’t matter then) guy from a very, very wealthy family. It seemed like a good match.
Well, it wasn’t. It turns out that they were an awful match. They didn’t really like each other by the time A was old enough to notice. FIL’s mental illness basically led him down the road to financial ruin, despite the sizable inheritance he received. (It would have been larger, but he had 16 siblings and half siblings—from two wives). MIL is still bitter that the wealth that was promised to her when she got married dissolved into thin air.
By the time I met them, they still kind of seemed married (they attended the same family functions, some finances where shared etc.). I questioned A about this and he said it was because Chinese people don’t really believe in divorce, so they still kind of considered themselves married. Strange, I know, but really in this family not as strange as it could be.
The summer when Al was living at home, his dad was living in his mom’s basement. He had just come back from Taiwan and didn’t have an apartment yet.
One morning the following exchange took place between A and FIL:
FIL: A, can you drive me to the greyhound station?
A: Why? Where are you going?>
FIL: Uh, I need to pick up a friend
A: Uh, no Dad. What friend? I have to go to work at Big Law Firm.
FIL: Oh, uh never mind
So A went on his merry way to work and didn’t think much of it. When he came home to MIL’s house, FIL said there was someone he wanted A to meet. He took A into the basement and said:
This is Natasha. She is my new WIFE.
Apparently, while FIL was living in Taiwan, he took a side trip to the Ukraine. He met Natasha when she was working as a waitress in a restaurant. Natasha didn’t really speak English, but FIL didn’t really seem to mind because his own English is quite bad (and getting much worse when he spends a lot of time in Taiwan).
It seems that on this very brief trip, in addition to taking a lot of bad photographs of Russian art, FIL also thought it would be a good idea to get married.
To a complete stranger.
Who didn’t speak any of the languages he speaks.
Then he thought it would be a great idea to get her a green card/ visa and bring her to the States.
To A’s MOM’s HOUSE.
When A finally unraveled what the hell had happened (Trip to Ukraine…Wife…Mom’s basement), he totally freaked out.
He handed FIL $50 for a hotel and said “Get her OUT of HERE before Mom comes home!”
Then A fled the scene, got in his car and drove over 100 miles to my parents’ house so he wouldn’t have to witness the fall out when his mother got home from work.
A and I have spent many hours trying to figure out this particular lapse in judgment by his father. We can’t understand why he just didn’t get himself a Chinese Mail Order Bride*. It isn’t like there aren’t tons of them advertising on the internet. * I mean, at least they would have had some culture and language in common.
Not surprisingly, the relationship between FIL and Natasha didn’t work out. As soon as she got her citizenship, she claimed she was pregnant with another man’s child (she wasn’t) and filed for divorce.
Yeah. I don’t know who didn’t see that one coming.
* What? You actually thought I was going to link to that asian fetish bullshit? Please.