He Tried to Stop Us From Getting Married
My father-in-law once tried to stop us from getting married by having a meeting with my parents. Spoiler alert: it didn’t go well. That’s the first thing you need to know.
The second thing you need to know is that my husband has been deployed overseas since the beginning of the year, leaving my daughter and me mostly by ourselves.
I have a strong friend network in the area, but it’s nothing compared to having family around. So I had a choice to make for that summer. I could stay two states away from my family, just myself and my baby daughter for the whole summer, or I could go home and stay with my parents.
I chose to go home. Here is the story of what happened when I did. Every summer, my in-laws take a family trip in July because there are altogether five of us, including spouses (like me!) who have birthdays in July.
So we have always picked that month to have a family trip that doubles as a group birthday bash. This year, we decided to go to the beach where my in-laws had a timeshare. It was wonderful!
We had a great time. My daughter got to play with her cousins. I got to get burnt on the beach. Just kidding, actually, I was super careful because I was adding to my tattoo collection at the end of the month. But either way, we had a great time.
However, I obviously would not be posting a story online if something didn’t go wrong along the way! We always go out to eat once while we are on vacation. This time, since we were at the beach, everyone wanted to go to a seafood buffet.
Being at the beach, we knew it would be expensive, but we were planning on eating our weight in seafood, so win/win, right?
Nope. My father-in-law did not like the $40 per person price tag for the buffet and said that we needed to find somewhere cheaper to go. I should add that he was not paying for everyone. He was paying only for himself and his wife.
We spent the whole week trying to find a cheaper place to eat. We did not find somewhere, but what we did find was coupons to the original buffet as well as vouchers from their timeshare meeting, and then a veterans’ discount.
All in all, it brought the price down to about $30 a person, and everyone was happy except him. He was still saying that we needed to find somewhere cheaper. Saturday comes, and after we have packed everything up, it is time to eat.
We all agree that we still want to go to the buffet place and my father-in-law finally relents a little. He says maybe there is a lunch price and a dinner price, so we load up in our cars and show up as the buffet opens at 2:30.
I go inside and ask the hostess if they have a lunch price. The lady says no ma’am, we don’t open till 2:30 so it’s just the one dinner price. I thank her and go back outside to relay the message.
My father-in-law asserts that we are going to find somewhere else to eat and starts heading towards the cars as the cacophony of disagreement erupts behind him.
All of us argue that this is where we want to eat and he says fine, then four of us can eat here and four of us can eat somewhere else. At this point, I have had it.
Seafood is my favorite, and I can smell the crab legs coming from inside the buffet. So I look my father-in-law in the eyes and say: “Well, I am eating here, and my daughter is going with me.” She also loves seafood.
I turn around and walk towards the restaurant, as I hear the group murmur their agreement and follow me in. We get inside, and my mother-in-law comes in just a few minutes later, letting us know that her husband left and took her wallet and phone with him.
I tell her I’m paying for her food, and we go sit down and dig in. Later, we are all chowing down on some crab legs, and my youngest brother-in-law comes to the table with a plate full of food and says that my father-in-law is waiting for us in the lobby.
He asked if we should go and get him? I look up from my plate and say no, he is on time out and he can stay there for a while.
We all chuckle, including my mother-in-law, and then go back to eating. I eventually asked my mother-in-law where he went. Apparently, he had gone down the road and gotten himself a cheap basket of popcorn shrimp. Story credit: Reddit / ThoroughlySarcastic