A 1000 pound ball of laughs.

Last weekend, it was completely beyond me to imagine a time when the gigantic crap hole that was my MIL’s house would be funny. After the hellish weekend spent cleaning and moving over 1,000 pounds of crap (estimated), I was nothing but one bitter, tired girl.

We were supposed to go up to get rid of the last of the junk today. Somehow I lucked out when my husband -who is 100% a gift from the gods- volunteered to take care of it by himself. Since it is quite possible that I will never have to deal with that quantity of junk again, the whole situation is much more amusing.

Last weekend was full of conversations like this:

A (3 days before we went up there): Mom, go through every room and pack up anything that you don’t want to have thrown away.

MIL (the day we arrive and find that nothing has been packed or even sorted: Oh, I packed two boxes and got tired, so I stopped.

A (looking like his head was going to explode because he was so pissed): GGRRRRRRRR.

Me (looking at the massive piles of crap that needed to be thrown away): Where are the trash bags?

MIL: Oh, uh they are here.

They were in one of the ONLY two boxes that had been packed. About 20 boxes of *trashbags* in a box full of packing peanuts. WHY DO TRASHBAGS NEED PEANUTS? WHY WOULD YOU PACK THE ONLY THING THAT MIGHT BE USEFUL IN EMPTYING THE HOUSE!?!?!

Or my other favorite conversation which took place on the second day we were there, after we had worked over 12 hours the day before. We had taken two full U-Hauls of crap to the Goodwill. Imagine this scene, if you can: A and I are emptying one room and have filled about 25 trashbags with clothes and other junk, we are not even close to being finished….

MIL: Where is the (broken, piece of shit) lamp from the basement?

Me: If it isn’t in that room, it has probably gone to Goodwill.

MIL Oh no! That lamp is still good! Can you call them and get it back?

A: No. Mom. We CAN NOT call them and get it back. We asked you to go through and get everything you wanted to keep and set it aside. You didn’t do it, so we got rid of it. It was broken anyway.

MIL (voice very piercing and shrill): If there is something you have a question about, you should ASK. Is that too much for you to do? You should ASK me if something is useful before you give it away.

A and I (buried massive piles of "useful" junk): !!!!

The whole rest of the day, she wandered around (not helping at all) mumbling about the disrespectfulness of getting rid of the broken lamp, while we filled a 22 FOOT Dumpster with perfectly usable stuff.