Thanks For Calling

***This is one of those Grrr (and not the good "grr") post. Feel free to ignore.***

Sunday night, I was caught off guard when my dad told me my ex-mother-in-law was on the phone and wanted to speak to her grandchildren.

Just to back up a wee bit, the vileman's parents have never wanted anything to do with me or my children. They had already done "grandparent time" as most of their grandchildren were teenagers and adults by the time my oldest child was born. Vileman comes from a very weird family and if you didn't travel down his mom's birth canal, you were shit to her.

I have spent many occasions being pushed out of family pictures - only vileman, his six siblings and parents were needed. At our first wedding in Las Vegas, there were 32 relatives in attendance and I wanted a picture of all of us. His mother said no, just the "kids" (her kids at that time, ranged in ages from 34 to 48). I asked another out-law (a brother-in-law married to one of the kids) why the spouses couldn't be in the picture and he told me to "get used to it."

It only got weirder as the years past. I could write volumes of atrocities performed by vileman's family.

At this point, I would like to say that just because someone is currently 81 years old and in fine health; she can still be a BITCH. That's right, a full-fledged, all caps BITCH.

Vileman has a dad too but he is spineless.

So Sunday's call was unexpected.

It was unexpected because it was the first time she tried to contact "her grandchildren" since vileman got into trouble.

I had expected a call from her on the day he was arrested. In my weird make-believe everyone is nice way, I had hoped she would call and give some emotional support to the kids and I.

Day after day passed, and no one in his family telephoned to check up on us.

My kids were never close to their parental grandparents and in fact, after the 5 year old was born, no one in his family called or sent a congratulations card and two of his brothers lived in the same town as us at that time.

I was beginning to think they didn't like me. (HA!!!!)


Anyway, Sunday's call . . . I know Grandma 'B' was put up to calling the kids by vileman. Sunday would have been our anniversary (the second time we married) and I suspect he begged his mother into calling the kids to find out what they know.

I wasn't going to allow her to tell the children anything about their father and how much "he loves them". I also suspected vileman was conferenced into the call somehow (paranoia - great destroyer!). He is about 2500 miles away from his parents but I still think you can do a conference call without the third party knowing.

When I got on the phone, I told her that the 12 year old needed his grandparents' support on the day his dad was arrested. . . not eight months later.

The 12 year old wrote them off a long time ago. He is very smart and has always known we were outcasts on vileman's side of the family.

Her excuse for not calling on the 25th or 26th was "there was a lot going on that day". I guess eight months later she had a free moment.

Needless to say, she didn't get what she wanted. The months of counseling/therapy that my children have gone through cannot be destroyed by a phone call with Grandma 'B' telling them lies about vileman. And that is exactly how it would go . . . Grandma defending her son. She won't be calling back.

I guess I'm a bitch too. But I'm just a lowercase bitch.