3’s a Breeze: 14 Stairs

Downstairs

Well over a decade ago my younger daughter waved a magic wand and changed my life forever – she said “I do” to her handsome prince and POOF! I became a mother-in-law. A few years later my son gifted me a daughter-in-law and a short time after that my elder daughter married her high school sweetheart and I acquired another son-in-law. I have a trifecta of children-in-law (well technically adults-in-law but I’m generally not one to split hairs) and I love each of them with my whole heart. I feel like they’ve been part of the family forever – and they almost have – but it’s the newest in-law that I’ve known the longest.

The newest in-law has now become my closest in-law – geographically speaking – he was one of the instigators of the real estate transaction that landed us fourteen stairs apart for probably the rest of my life. As well as in-laws we have become business partners and I’m fairly certain he has no idea what that might entail. He may be the newest in-law but he has now unwittingly become the long-suffering one.

I’m guessing he thought our arrangement would be a piece of cake – living in close proximity to your mother-in-law couldn’t be that complicated, right? I mean the apple doesn’t usually fall far from the tree and he has been in love with one of the apples that fell from my tree for most of his life. He could be in for a rude awakening – his particular apple inherited most of her finer qualities from her father; the logic, resourcefulness and reason she is famous for didn’t come from my side of the family.

I’m loving this new living arrangement – the door to my washing machine locked itself shut yesterday and help was a mere fourteen stairs away. I didn’t have to run to the store last Sunday for the olives I needed to garnish my charcuterie board, they were also fourteen stairs away.

But sharing a house with two self contained homes within it has some kinks as well – for example the furnace is located on my level and the thermostat is right up those stairs. Luckily my long-suffering son-in-law is working from home right now…

Upstairs

“Eyes Wide Open”

I have known my wife (the eldest daughter) since we were 14 years old. That’s a long time. She is fond of saying that we both got into this relationship “with eyes wide open,” meaning that there are no secrets and very few unknowns. We saw each other’s awkward teenage years up close and personal; she knows about my fondness for old cars that are falling apart, and I know that she is a bit of a “stuff-liker.” There is also an old saying that when you marry someone, you also marry the family, and in this case I have also had a front row seat to my wife’s family since I was 14. As a teenager I spent a lot of time at their home, and much like their children, got lovingly yelled at for raiding their fridge, driving recklessly, parking in interesting and creative ways in the driveway, and for bringing their daughter home after curfew.

At one point my father-in-law, against all better judgement, hired me to work for his company for a period of time; my tenure in civil construction was famously characterized by one incident where I drove a compactor back and forth for two hours without the compactor running, while the other guys on the crew laughed as I drove back and forth, ineffectually packing nothing. They still let me hang around.

So here we are, many years later, and I’m living back under the same roof with my mother-in-law. This time, it’s with eyes wide open and of my own free will and volition. so, it couldn’t be that bad; then again if she comes up those 14 stairs in her housecoat waving a wooden spoon and asking who’s making all that noise like she did back in the day, I’m going to blame her daughter, and turn off the heat. She doesn’t scare me anymore…much.