My Mother-in-Law Practical Jokes My Husband

I recently came back from visiting my Mother-in-Law near Sarasota, Florida, where my husband’s favorite hobby is teasing his mother about Florida-retiree cliches. Golf carts, sweat, swimming aerobics, fried beach hut food, more sweat, having to walk the dog so it isn’t carried away by gators or panthers (or gators and panthers who have worked out some sort of hunting partnership)… you name it.

Water Aerobics. The horror, the horror.

But my Mother-in-Law had her revenge.

We were on our way to the pool at her community. I was poking through her endless array of visors, having remembered that the heat and sun in Florida is more like Mars than Earth. Did I want glittery? Thatch? Pink? Neoprene? Be-speckled with tiny Flamingos wearing sunglasses? Settling on a plain white visor with a brim curved to emulate the world’s twistiest roller coaster, I waited in the hall with my Mother-in-Law, Mary, for my husband, Mike, to return from a quick trip to the bathroom.

We watched as he exited the bathroom and flicked the light switch on and off several times. He stood in the hall, hands on hips, peering into the bathroom, befuddled.

“I can’t get this light to turn off, Ma,” he said, flicking the light a fifth time.

“Kick your leg in there,” said Mary.

Mike looked at us. “What?” he asked.

“Kick your leg. Just stand in the hall and kick your leg into the bathroom,” she said. “That will turn it off.”

“Seriously?” said Mike, assuming this was another nutty thing Florida-retiree bathrooms did, like spontaneously sprout tissue box cozies.

“It’s so stupid,” Mary huffed, as if she wrestled with the light every morning following the preparation of her standard 9-course breakfast. (Did you know if you eat yogurt every morning you’ll never have heartburn? Did you know these are the greatest peaches in the world? Did you know the mango jelly is homemade?)

Mike kicked his leg into the bathroom like a Rockette. I could see the light still shining.

“Kick!” said Mary. “Really kick!”

Mike kicked several more times and waved his arms for good measure. He’s so tall and thin he looked like Kermit the Frog having an epileptic seizure.

“Ma!” he said. “It isn’t working!”

Confused how these goofy machinations could ever work, I squinted at Mary.

“It’s on a motion sensor?” I asked.

She grinned and winked at me as Mike danced in and out of the bathroom.

“It’s a skylight,” she said, as we both burst into tears of laughter.

More humor & adventure from Amy Vansant:

Angeli: The Pirate, the Angeli & the Irishman - 46 Amazon reviews (4.7 average)

Free via Kindle Unlimited! - Urban Fantasy/Romance/Humor/Mystery

Once a legendary pirate, Anne Bonny is a Sentinel, a soldier for mankind’s mysterious guardians, the Angeli. Anne will live 1000 years, but in return, she must hunt & neutralize Perfidia, corrupted Angeli who drain human energy to survive. Together with her fellow Sentinel, Con, and Arch Angeli Michael, Anne must face an added threat; a new breed of Perfidia possessed of untold power.

Monsters are only half Anne’s troubles; her stormy love life would make Blackbeard pack up ship and move to Kansas. After losing his corporeal body in battle, Anne’s former lover, Con Carey, visits her by possessing the bodies of humans, often with embarrassing results. In the meantime, Anne’s complicated romance with the aloof Arch Angeli Michael has intensified, but is their love spawned by the magnetic attraction of their powers? Or something deeper?

Can this unusual love triangle work together to protect the world from the cosmic horrors sworn to destroy it?

“..Author Amy Vansant has created humorous, captivating characters… The world she’s created is so real… It’s a page turner and Vansant is a compelling writer. Highly recommend.” — Actress/Comedian Suzy Soro

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Emmy winners, magazine editors, comedians, TV personalities, bestselling authors and social media superstars team up to bring you a laugh-out-loud book not about being a mom, but about having a mom, grandmom or mom-figure. And while it’s not OK for someone else to make yo-momma jokes about your momma, it is perfectly healthy — even downright hilarious — to find the humor in your own upbringing. In fact, these writers highly recommend it. So if you think your mom is nuts, pull up a chair. You’re in good company.

“These essays are so good and so funny, it makes me mad that I don’t know a lot of these writers. Wait…that’s the kind of back handed compliment you’d get from an obnoxious mom. Curses!” – Laraine Newman, original Saturday Night Live cast member
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