Your best In-Laws story

I am exceedingly grateful my in-laws are more annoying than actually malicious. Enjoy them immensely but they are what Jim referred to in Blazing Saddles as “the common clay of the New West. You know … morons.”

FIL once tried to set up a DVR and was following the instructions from his son. It didn’t work and he was getting madder and madder. Finally my wife asks if he turned on the DVR. Surprise, he hadn’t. So now he’s looking at the instructions and is baffled that they didn’t include “turn on the DVR” at which time he utters a phrase my wife and I use anytime my in-laws do something in a way more complicated way than it should be “it’s an extra step!”

Wife told her brother the story and berated him for not including “turn it on” to the instructions. Turns out he did include them. FIL missed it.

But to be fair, my FIL is the guy you want with you when society collapses. He can build anything and knows how to live off the land. But technology confuses and scares him.

 

Thank you for the response. It's much more than I expected, and all very clarifying and interesting -- and all absolutely legit and right for your wife, obviously. Kudos to her for, seemingly, coming through the system well.

I asked about her decisions because I actually am pretty interested in the social services, and the foster system in particular, and people's experiences with them. I wrote a couple of newspaper stories regarding such things during my past career, and I've applied for a few related jobs since, coming close to getting one, but not the rest. It's also a regular reading topic of interest for me -- both straightforward informational stuff, and true-life fostering books.

I did not intend to pry. Thanks for not taking my post that way, and for giving me a sense of your wife's experience. Based on what you posted, she sounds like someone I'd like, respect and admire.

 

She very much is. Thank you.