People Who Don't Use The Internet Are Free Game

My father-in-law has never been on the internet. He refuses to keep up with the times. In fact, not a single person who has ever used the internet besides me, my husband, my brother-in-law, and my dad currently have contact with him and he will never hear about this blog entry because it is funnier to maybe have a future post about my internet-lame father-in-law than it is to let him in on his mention in my blog.

Tonight I was asking about where a certain city is in California and I happened to be at my father-in-law's house where wifi is not an option. He pulled out an atlas...

AN ATLAS... MADE OUT OF PAPER...

Well, it turns out, this particular city is not a major city and is not readily found in a 400 page atlas of the United States. My father-in-law not only pulled out his atlas, but ALSO HIS MAGNIFYING GLASS.

Normally this would be hilarious. However, tonight I just really needed some information and instead I got a useless atlas, a magnifying glass, and a tutorial on every city in the history of the United States that has been visited by my father-in-law Also, we looked at the states of Kentucky and Mississippi just for fun to see what stupid names their cities have. Mud Lick Kentucky is at the top of the list, btw.

Anyway, my father-in-law is a tad... I'm trying to think of a nice word here... Um... Brash. He's brash. He's a brash-hole.

He has done amazing things in his lifetime as a pile driver and a veteran, but the guy basically makes me freaking crazy. He has no qualms about telling me what kind of person he thinks I am and the nicest thing he has said to me to date other than the obligatory "I love you," is "Your hair looks nice today. It looks very Asian."  He also told me my lasagna smelled good once but refused to eat it because he said he was full from the chili dog he ate at Sonic. As an Italian/Czechoslovakian, this is unacceptable as an excuse not to eat my cooking. I would have taken, "I have Ebola," or "I was born without a stomach," as acceptable responses to my offering of food. And only those responses.

So, because I love him and I don't want to physically harm him, I have come up with other tamer revenge tactics to counter balance my loss of power and dignity around this man.

First, I play dice with him. I always win at dice. ALWAYS. Well, except for three times. But the other four hundred and twenty-seven times I have won. It amuses me to see him get upset enough to shove the dice in my general direction when he loses. I also like playing dice for two hours and have him insist we switch to gin rummy and then win at that. It makes me smile on the inside because if I smiled on the outside it would let him know I care about winning and that would defeat the feeling of defeat he feels when he knows  I don't give a shit about winning. 

Second, and lastly, I do something that might affect him mentally but delights me in every sense a human being can experience.


I STEAL HIS TO-DO LISTS...

 Maybe this is mean. Or wrong. But, if stealing my 68 year old father-in-law's to-do lists is wrong, I DON'T WANT TO BE RIGHT.


I don't know why it makes me laugh so much to know that he is slowly going to go crazy wondering if he misplaced his own list or whether the list ever existed in the first place, but it makes my fucking day and it is the most innocent thing I could do to exact revenge for his grumpy passive aggressive remarks toward my hair/face/life areas.

The list that was my favorite of all time included the task of "Change the fucking locks!!!" He wrote it on there twice. I don't know if he ever changed his locks after I stole his list because it's not something I can casually slip into conversation.

Here are a couple more, one of which is just a grocery list, but it still amused me to no end to lift it from his coffee table after a game of dice WHICH I WON.

If he forgets any of these items, I will admit... I will be sad not to get to have a batch of his homemade bbq sauce, but in the long run it's about principal, and the bottom line is pride. I have too much pride to let him win this battle.

Ok, now I know what you're thinking. If his house burns down it will all be my fault. But, let me convince you (and justify this in my own head) otherwise. He has to know what's on his six item list (three things of which have been crossed off) because he is retired and lives alone with his thoughts and he knows that the beeping round thing on the hallway ceiling is a smoke detector that needs replacing. He is brash but not a simpleton.

Follow me on Facebook if you agree that stealing to-do lists is not elder abuse!