Fracas at the Lake

I'm getting so lazy about posting. Not really the regularity, just the length of the posts. Maybe it's because when I finally get a chance to sit down and work at the computer, I start thinking I should actually be writing. So...the blog suffers. But I have a good long story for you today.

There was tension at the lake. Frissions of tension between my sister-in-law and me. Usually the two of us get along pretty well. I tease alot (having grown up with it) and she doesn't get it (having grown up with nobody ever really teasing her). So she takes it wrong, I feel slightly insensitive, we both get over it.

So this time, my family (husband and boys) got to the lake Friday before her and claimed the one guest room with a queen size bed versus a bi-level day bed. She had invited a guest to the lake, who was coming a couple of days later (Monday afternoon), with whom she wanted to sleep, so the day of the trip to the airport, she hinted that she'd like me and my husband to switch rooms with her. I basically told her to forget it.

So that evening, after my boys had gone to bed, she 'suggested it' again. I should mention here that after two days at the Lake, my husband had to go back to work Monday morning, to return Tuesday night. I told her I wasn't interested in switching and these were my reasons:

1. She'd claimed dibs on the room with the double bed at Christmas, telling me it was first-come, first serve. Since I arrived first this time, I'd claimed it.

2. I'd been living in the room for two and a half days now, with my stuff scattered everywhere. Plus, we'd each slept on our respective sheets and used the towels in the adjacent bathroom. Switching at this point would mean a ton of laundry.

3. I had at least as much right to sleep on in the queen bed with my husband of eleven and a half years as she had to sleep on said bed with someone she'd been dating for two years, tops.

She dismissed all my reasons as ridiculous, told me she had much better reasons, and then refused to outline them. Told me she didn't have to 'stoop to my level'. As you can imagine, that got me all in a tizzy, and I started in with my 'you're a lunatic' voice. She then informed me that she couldn't respond to my comments because 'we don't talk to each other like that in my family'. To which I responded, 'because your family kowtows to your every whim!' She countered with the accusation that they actually kowtow to mine, and we were at an impasse. We didn't speak until the next afternoon. She did, however, tell my mother-in-law that since she wasn't getting the room, they'd just go to a motel.
Side note here: she did not have a vehicle to get to a motel.

At this point, my mother-in-law, trying to keep the peace, offered her room, with a king bed upstairs. My SIL said that it was 'not an option', that she wouldn't 'put her out'. Obviously she had no trouble putting me and my husband out. My MIL then changed the sheets in all the bedrooms, asked very graciously for hubby and I to move, and offered my SIL any room in the house. (This after my MIL admitted to me that she knew her daughter was having a tantrum, but she just wanted family accord.)

The following afternoon, I walked into the house to be confronted by my SIL. She said to me, "I want you do know that we're going to stay in this room (bi-level bed room) because I don't want to hurt my mom's feelings" (I'm paraphrasing here) "But let me tell you what I expect next time I come: I expect to be able to sleep with my guest...something something something" I said, "You are doing that." She said, "On a bed that's all the same level" Of course this ultimatum irritated me anew, and I set off on my tirade, and she once again dismissed all my arguments.

She and her guest left today after spending virtually the entire visit by themselves. She and I are still only speaking as necessary. We will see where things go from here...