A Plague Of Cucumbers To Replace The Flies

 Oh God forgive me because I have really been trying to be nice to MIL. I put on my big, fat fake smile when she comes in and I try to just pretend I've had a frontal lobotomy so I can be on her level. And I dig my nails into my legs in an effort to keep myself from digging them into her neck. I really have been trying but I truly from the depths of my soul despise this woman. Is it her annoying voice? Is it that putting her in charge of my baby is frightening because she has absolutely no sense at all? Is it that she is just dismally dumb as can be? Is it that she puts the channel on the TV to the most annoying one of all, with horrible Chinese music that even my husband makes fun of? It's probably a bit of everything. Add to it a pinch of resentment too since I have changed everything about myself to live over here. And that old bat won't even try to use the cookbook that I bought for her.

I detest her cooking as much as I detest her overall. She makes a few dishes well like steamed clams, a garlicky cucumber salad and a tasty whole fish sauteed in some sort of sauce that is miraculously not soy sauce (because everything else she makes is just covered with the stuff). I have to be honest and say I'm sticking to my theory that maybe she's slowing down mentally because when I first came here, she wasn't this horrible in the kitchen. Or she wants us all to die from her terrible culinary concoctions so she can hog my beautiful baby to herself. Cow.

Yesterday, I thought I was going to starve to death. For lunch, she made this fish dish (not the good one) with small fish. I hate small fish. This is the kind of fish I'd use to catch a big fish. So to me, this is bait. It smells and it has so many bones that you do more spitting than eating. She knows I hate this but she made it for her son (who, for some unknown reason, likes it). Or perhaps she's not as stupidly innocent as she appears. She also made another dish I can't stand. It has this rubbery pork in it (she never buys good cuts of meat) with green beans and potatoes. And of course is topped in salty soy sauce. She makes this all the time and every time, I refuse to eat it (though if I am hungry enough, I pick all the potatoes out and leave the rest because whatever she does to the green beans makes them taste just plain awful). I took one look at this crap and went back into our bedroom. My husband coaxed me out of the room to at least eat some rice and said she was making another dish for me. Unfortunately for my rumbling stomach, that was a fail too. She cooked up shrimp WITH CUCUMBERS. I love cucumbers but I hate them cooked. They taste terrible that way. I picked a few shrimp out, ate my rice and left the table.

I should stop here to explain that MIL grows some of her own vegetables. And it's lovely of her to bring some of this harvest to our home. But she brings a ridiculous amount of the same things. I've been busy making different eggplant dishes, baking potatoes, mashing potatoes and creatively cooking potatoes; and looking for new cucumber salad-type recipes. The eggplant and potatoes I can cook up easily and finish off. It's this mess of cucumbers that is doing me in.

And after much ado, we finally have the fly problem under control too. Xiaolong bought a spray in case we see any more of them. I still blame MIL for this problem even though my husband thinks it was his fault for not taking out the trash right away. He's done that before and we never had any flies in here. She's also to blame for hindering our efforts by putting peaches out on the table. FLIES LIKE FRUIT, YOU IDIOT! Augh! I had to collect those up, wash them and stick them back in the refrigerator. And then there was that rag I use to wipe our counters that I'd thrown after I saw them all piled up on it. She did something to it. Now I know what. Today, a new rag (same color) waited in the spot where the previous one was. This rag, as is widely known by my husband and BOTH his parents, is just for wiping up excess water on the counters and those sorts of things. It's relatively clean (or it should be which is why after she shows up each time, I try to remember to toss it in the laundry so we're not wiping something gross onto our surfaces) but it's not something you'd want to touch with clean hands. And today, I see her trolltastic self wash her hands and then dry them on this rag!!! O.M.G. Seriously. Something is wrong with this woman, truly.

But now that the fly problem is under wraps, we have a new plague. Of cucumbers. There are. SO. MANY. CUCUMBERS. The old troll made us lunch today and thankfully, she made clams (which I eat) and she also made her garlicky cucumber salad thing (which I also eat but I am getting tired of having it every single fucking day). And then she made us some cooked cucumber dish seasoned with soy sauce. I didn't take photos because my husband was in no mood to field my complaints today so just imagine very soggy, brownish cucumbers that tasted like how farts smell. As if this wasn't nasty enough, she had to outdo herself with an even more barfy dish also using cucumbers! It's as if she imagined herself to be competing on Iron Chef. Only they would totally never use cucumbers as the secret ingredient. And even if they did, they'd make something good. But she could never be on that show because she sucks at cooking. It would be fun to watch the judges tear her apart though.

Anyway, this next cucumber dish was a soup with egg and cucumber and it was so bad it tasted to me like how it smells when your house floods and the carpets get wet. Yes, that nasty-farty-carpet smell. So our lunch was essentially clams and cucumbers. You know it's bad too when my husband tells her he didn't like it. I would like to point out that we had many other things in our house to make. As I mentioned, we have plenty of potatoes and eggplant in this house too. It boggles my mind how many cucumbers she must have used because there were 3 dishes chock full of them and there are about 10 in our refrigerator now (which I put there because her brainless ass had them on the counter to beckon the flies with). I am hoping that she'll stay away for a few days and we can perhaps donate this excessive supply of cucumbers to our neighbors. But I'm sure when she shows up again, she'll come toting a bag of cucumbers and more ways to disgrace their naturally good taste.