Well, this isn’t as terrible as some, but it was definitely unsettling to me. We had just been married for about three years. I had been working a 36 hour week at the hospital which was actually pretty nice. I had Sunday through Wednesday off ever week. Mj thought it was pretty nice too, because on the days she was working I pretty much took over all the “wifely” duties around the house.
At the time my hair was shoulder length, but I had recently had a perm so it was very curly. I wasn’t very good at putting it up in curlers yet so Mj would do it for me before we went to bed so it would be dry and ready to comb out when we got up the next morning.
We were both usually off on Sunday so I would get up early and do my nails and makeup then by the time I finished doing my nails and makeup Mj would be ready to go and she would take out my curlers and brush out my hair for me and we would go and do our weekly food shopping. On Sunday afternoons we would go to a movie or just come home and veg out and get ready for the upcoming week.
One Monday morning we were running a bit late, so I just fixed breakfast and got Mj off to work. She usually combed out my hair for me, but since she was running late, I just suggested she take the car and go to work and I would finish getting dressed and get started on the house.
I had gone in and finished getting dressed and was just about finished with my makeup when I heard someone in the living room yell, “where are you?”
I thought it was Mj had forgotten something, so I hollered back, that I would be right out, that I just had to put on my lipstick. I still hadn’t had a chance to take the curlers out of my hair, but thinking it was my wife, I wasn’t too worried about it.
So after grabbing a sweater out of the closet, I headed for the living room and to my amazement, there set my Mother-in-law. Talk about the flight or fight response setting in, if it weren’t for the fact that I had one arm in my sweater and couldn’t find the arm hole on the other side, I would have turned and ran for my life.
Mom just stood up and helped me with my sweater, then told me I could close my mouth and go and get a brush and she would help me with my hair.
By the time she got my curlers out and got my hair brushed out, I had calmed down quite a bit.
After she finished, I asked her what she was doing there, she said she and Dad were in town and she didn’t want to go with him to the stock show so she thought she would just stay with us for the day and then we could take her back to the stock show later that evening.
She told me that she knew all about my “OCD problems” before we got married, but she didn’t realize how pretty I was. We spent the rest of the day visiting and she actually let me make lunch for her. Mj got home about 3:30 and was pretty astonished to find her mother and I setting in the living room visiting.
I can’t say this was a scary moment, but I was certainly caught by surprise. After that she called before heading our way.