Out-laws

My inlaws are old.  I’m talking respectively 78 and 74.  Generally they are absolutely amazing for their age.  They still travel often and have a very active social live.

BUT, they can a real pain in the ass sometimes.

I am married to the laatlammetjie son (last of 3), and for some reason I am the designated travel agent – it might also be that we live the closest to them and see them very often.  Tonight I had quite a lot to achieve work wise and of course received a phone call to book flights to Jozi to go and visit middle son in Lydenburg.  I said no problem, let me get the kids to bed and I’ll log on and look at prices.

So, I check prices on the “cheapie” airlines and call.  Line busy.  Wait 5 minutes and call. Line busy.  Call on the cell phone.  Mother-in-law answers and gives me a loooong story.  By now I’m annoyed as I running out of minutes on my cell and have a lot to do, so I call back the landline.

Mango is the cheapest.  Oh no, they don’t like Mango, the seats are too small etc etc etc.  Ok, next cheapest by R200 is Kulula.  Ho-hum, ok, they’ll book it.  Like it’s MY fault they are more expensive WTF??  Halfway through making the booking I hear MIL in the background, then they have an extended conversation about the additional R200.  Ok, no, they’ll rather fly Mango and save the R200.

Obviously I had closed the Mango page so I have to start all over again.  Grrrr.  Eventually we got it booked and they are now flying out and will be gone for about a month.

They are still living in the same house they have been for the last 30 odd years and I worry about them as I don’t know how they manage to maintain it.  My MIL has only recently given in and now gets a cleaning service in once a month.  I think they get very lonely and we try to have at least one meal a week with them (at our house, too much chaos with the rugrats at theirs, stairs!!) and they often go and collect Daniel from school. 

Generally speaking I shouldn’t complain, some of my friends have terrible inlaws, but they can be hard work sometimes 🙂