In addition to my sister-in-law treating my elderly mother like shit and thus shortening her lifespan, this woman was also quite inconsiderate to ME while she lived with my parents.
Here are examples of how inconsiderate my sister-in-law was to me.
The Garage Door Incident
I returned to my parents’ home after taking my 94-year-old father to the emergency room. At the time, my sister-in-law and my brother were still living (mooching) in my parents’ home, even though they were supposed to have long-ago moved out.
My father and I were seated at the kitchen table. Soon after, my sister-in-law Julie left the house with her two preschoolers, going through the laundry room door that led to the garage.
Sometime later when it was time for me to go home, I opened the laundry room door to enter the garage, where my car was parked.
The garage door was open! I pulled out of the garage and, inside my car, pushed the remote control to close it.
But the door bounced back up because (as I had believed) the green trash bin – which had been at the curb when I had returned from the ER – was now apparently over the sensor boundary at the junction of the garage door and driveway.
Obviously, Julie had brought the trash bin in when she had left with the kids. I texted her that she had not placed the trash bin in far enough; that it had prevented the garage door from closing; and that she had sky-high left without remedying this problem.
This ingrate texted back that when she had gone into the garage with the kids, the garage door was already open.
When she had pushed the button to close it, it had begun lowering but then bounced back up – because my car was the object penetrating the sensor field.
So let’s assume, then, that the interference was actually from my car.
According to that assumption, when I had returned with my father and pressed the button by the laundry room door to close the garage, I had no idea that the door had bounced back up.
After all, I was focused on getting my physically disabled father through the laundry room door, and I shut it behind me, not knowing that the garage door had bounced back up.
The million dollar question is this: Why didn’t Julie, after she tried to close the garage door and saw it bounce back up because my car’s bumper was in the sensor range, come back inside and inform me of this?
My sister-in-law could have come back in, kids in tow, popped her head through the door adjoining the laundry room with the kitchen, and alerted me. This would not have required an army to pull off.
She had no reason to believe I was leaving in a few minutes, either. For all she knew, I could have been there for another two hours, having no idea that the garage door was stuck open because of my car.
This bitch had rolled the trash bin back into the garage, yet couldn’t take another lousy minute to go inside the house and say, “Hey, did you know your car is sticking out and preventing the garage door from closing?”
Instead, Selfish Sis-in-Law let the issue go and walked her kids across the street where her vehicle was parked and took off.
Why didn’t she even TEXT me once she was in her vehicle, kids strapped in, for that matter? What a snot.
Anyone could have wandered into the garage and committed theft. Furthermore, the weather was chilly, and when a garage door is left open, this impacts a house’s heating system.
Excessive Early Morning Kitchen Noise
On numerous occasions I slept over my parents’ home in the name of assisting them with medical issues.
I slept in the dining room, which was actually fashioned into a sitting room, and it was adjacent to the kitchen with only a curtain separating the rooms.
Julie would be in the kitchen as early as 6:45 am to prepare breakfast for husband Lance and their three kids.
She knew I was sleeping in the next room, with only that curtain dividing. She knew I was never up at this time.
I made a living working on my computer. My parents slept in till 9 am. There was no reason for me to be up before 8:30 am.
Yet Julie thought nothing of being needlessly noisy with kitchen work, letting cupboards and drawers slam shut, loudly placing pots and pans on the counter, etc. Being quiet in a kitchen does not require rocket science.
It does NOT require Olympic-athlete agility to gently close cupboards and drawers and quietly set the biggest pots and pans on the counter.
Julie and Lance also allowed their kids to be noisy as hell at the kitchen table. When I was growing up I remember being instructed by my mother to be hush-hush quiet in the morning whenever a relative was sleeping over. This was a piece of cake.
But the kitchen table from 6:45 am to 8 am was a free-for-all with no consideration whatsoever that someone was sleeping in the next room.
Their tween daughter Dakota was even allowed to SING during this time (off-key, not exactly “America’s Got Talented Kids” material).
One day when I pointed this out to Julie, she actually said she’d speak to the girl about saving her 7 a.m. singing for the basement. Lance overheard and irately said that Dakota did not sing loud.
Have you ever heard of a tween girl who sang at the same volume she talked? No such thing exists.
But in Lance’s mind, his kids could do no wrong.
Julie Has the Patience of a Preschooler
When my mother returned from the hospital to spend her last days in her bedroom, I took care of her.
One evening while I was dressing her because she was too weak to dress, Julie kept sticking her head in every 30 seconds. I pretended not to notice, not wanting to interact with her, wanting to just focus on my mother.
As I type this, I do not recall what Julie wanted, but I DO recall that it had turned out to be NOTHING URGENT.
She must have popped her head in half a dozen times over a five-minute period, clearly seeing that I was dressing my mother (do you know how long it takes to dress a fragile, dying adult?)
Why didn’t Julie Einstein just patiently wait in the living room or kitchen, since duhhh, I would have eventually come out of my parents’ bedroom?
To this day I regret not marching over to my immature sister-in-law and snapping, “Would you effing stop it already? Can’t you see I’m busy?” and then shutting the door and locking it.
But I guess when you’re dressing your dying mother, you just don’t have the fire inside to put an obnoxious person in their place.
Potato Salad
For Thanksgiving 2016 I had announced I was making potato salad. At this time, Lance, my sister-in-law, their three kids and my parents were occupying my parents’ home.
I made a TON to make sure that everyone could feel they could have as much as they wanted. After bringing over two giant bowls, I noticed that Julie was making mashed potatoes.
Needless to say, I had a TON of leftover potato salad because Julie’s family instead ate the mashed potatoes.
No doubt, you’re tempted to cast me off as the oddball here, since you’re perhaps thinking, “Who the bloody hell eats potato salad with Thanksgiving dinner?”
HOWEVER, remember – I had made an announcement that I was going to make potato salad. Now…this certainly doesn’t mean anyone has to eat it.
Yes, I get that. I get that fully. BUT, BUT…here’s the kink in the chain: My sister-in-law, upon hearing this announcement, SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT SHE WAS MAKING MASHED POTATOES.
Instead, that snot said NOTHING, faking me into believing that she and her family would eat the potato salad. Lance was present also, when I had made the announcement.
He could have said something such as, “Hey, Julie makes mashed potatoes every Thanksgiving. It’s our tradition. Just so you know. You shouldn’t make a lot of potato salad.”
It would have taken my brother or sister-in-law LESS THAN 10 FRICKING SECONDS to clue me in. But instead, they said NOTHING. And that’s where the problem lies.
TEN DAMN SECONDS. This would have saved me all the time making a ton of potato salad and then having to deal with the leftover excess – which ended up mostly getting tossed since potato salad lasts only a few days and doesn’t freeze well.
This was another fine example of my brother and sister-in-law’s thoughtlessness.