The blog post by Jennifer on A Broad Abroad writing how her dear mother-in-law murdered the microwave inspired me to write about all the things my in-laws have successfully destroyed so far. At first I could only think of a couple of things however as I delved into my memories I came up with more and more sad stories.
I don’t know how my in-laws are doing this but somehow they are able to brake something on a weekly basis. They are not clumsy or something like that (Well, MIL is!) but disaster seems to follow them. FIL is still a novice compared to MIL though even though he has already a destruction value counter going into the few hundred Euros.
The problem in this whole thing is that there are so many little things which broke already that I will just focus on the situations which are basically burned into my memory and only done by MIL.
The time MIL broke our toaster. During her three months stay last spring she broke few things. First thing which gave up on us was our beloved toaster. No, the electronic parts didn’t break nor did MIL throw it down. It is a bit more weird than that. The toaster had this function to warm up bread on top of it so when you wanted to use it you had to push a button and a bread holder came up. Whatever MIL did to the toaster it ended up that there was no more warming up function has the button was hanging loosely around and the bread holder was suddenly missing!
The time MIL broke the towel holder in the bathroom. We had next to the sink two metal towel holders attached to the wall. They were pretty stable but I noticed when my in-laws were with us two years ago that they became more and more loose. Then when MIL was last year with us suddenly both arms detached themselves from the wall one by one within few days. My guess is that both of my in-laws were using the towel holders to lean on or they were putting some random heavy things on them.
The time MIL broke the seatbelt in our new car. Last Spring MIL somehow managed to entangle the seatbelt in the fond of the car where she was always sitting. Later the seatbelt gave up entirely and did not even roll into its normal position after using. Both my wife and I believe that MIL was actually rather happy about it as she hates to use seatbelts. Most of the times she did the “fake” buckling up by just holding the seatbelt around her body so it looked that she was using the belt the proper way…Really wonder why so many Chinese are kind of allergic to safety measurements in daily life and come up with all kinds of ways to not use them.
The time MIL broke a decorative purse from a not so cheap brand. The purse thingy belonged to my wife and she got it from her work. When crazy mother-in-law was with us she tried to open it. Mind you, it was a decorative item, not meant to be used at all due to its delicate structure. As you can guess MIL had suddenly two parts of the purse in her hands and blamed the poor quality.
You know what the best thing about this all is? MIL’s denial! Some time after she stayed with us last year my wife was asking her mother how she felt about breaking so many things. The answer was the standard MIL answer I had heard so often before “Something broke? I didn’t breake anything, ever”…
When my in-laws are alone at home and MIL is breaking something it is usually FILs fault. “Why was this vase standing there, why have you moved it there? No wonder I got against it and it fell down!”, the vase in question had been standing at the same spot for the past few years.
P.S. mom-in-law did not break the room from the featured image, at least that I did on my own…
Do you have a clumsy person in the family, or even a dear mother-in-law who brings sometimes disaster into the household?
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Aha, that reminds me of my childhood. I used to be the hyperactive kid always breaking things in my relatives house and feeling bad about it.
But I thought that was a childhood thing? Is it all repeated in old age…??
It could be that in old age people reverse again so perhaps you will turn into that hyperactice kid once again later!
Haha. It reminds me of my MIL, as she tends to “store everything away”, basically meaning to put things from one room to another. E.g. my husband would ask her, where she had put his iPad, and she would say: I’d never dare to touch any of your things! How do I know, where you put it? Why you blame me? And then 20min later she would come out of another room with the iPad in hand and say innocently: Is that the one? I happen to see it laying around there… 😄
ahahah I feel sorry for you dear! but on the other hand there’s one thing she didn’t screw up which is your lovely wife 🙂
I guess denial is to save her face, when Momzilla made a scratch on the car from the pole she blamed me all the time until Sing saw her opening the doors and hitting the nearby poll and she just ignored that, kept on blaming me 😀
Maybe momzilla and my MIL are somehow related? This sounds too much alike 😀
Hahahah – oh dear. Bad case of denial if she doesn’t thing she breaks anything ever! 😉
Breaking a seat belt is rather intriguing. We want to know how she managed that one.
Luckily no one springs to mind that we know that is an adult, that is that clumsy. All our household appliances and fittings are exactly where they are meant to be…
P.S love the new look blog!
I have the feeling that my dear in-laws are very special people 🙂
The seatbelt is also still a mystery to me, I have no idea at all how she managed that one.
Thank you, I awNted to update the look of my blog for a long time but I am a pretty lazy person who loves to postpone things:)
My MIL is actually amazing! I have some ‘why did she do that’ moments but nothing that drastic or significant. I have a couple of posts written about mother-in-laws in Taiwan, including my own. I know your MIL is crazy to an intent, but at least she isn’t mean.
However, how did she break a seatbelt? Is she that strong or does she have some super power you don’t know about? And I LOLed about pretending to wear a seatbelt – maybe not wearing one makes her feel like a bad girl! 🙂
Yes, that is the good thing that she is not mean or anything like that. Too many horror stories my wife told me about her friends and then there those TV shows with the mean MIL!
The seatbelt is up to this day a mystery to me,not even the technicians at the workshop had any idea how this could happen or how anyone could do it.
In mainland China the seatbelt must be really a sign of the devil. I have not seen anyone using it, there are people even wearing t shirt with a belt printed on it so it looks from the outside that they use the seatbelt…or Ina few taxis I have been in the seatbelts have been removed!
When the technicians are questioning how it was broken, then it must be something rare. I bet I am right about her having superpowers! 🙂
I remember the first time I got into a car in Taiwan, I automatically put it on out of habit. Everyone stare at me like I had about 10 heads. However, things have changed since then and now everyone wears them since it became the law.
According to MIL a baby is safer in a car when in the arms of her (who is not using a seatbelt) than in a proper baby car seat…
I don’t think my mother-in-law ever broke anything. My daughter’s cat is the dangerous one. One night while he was here, he slid across the dining room tablecloth and took a flying leap into my four-paneled screen–claws extended. The screen was a large art project of mine, each panel made from batik on silk. He ripped the silk on one panel, and now I have a three-paneled screen.
Cats are not to be trusted. I am not bad with cats or anything but they really have their own mind and anything can suddenly turn into a war zone. When I had an international exchange year the family I lived with had two cats. They were nice animals but still, I will never get myself a cat, I am more of a dog person 🙂
I hated to have one panel of my screen destroyed, but–strangely enough–I still love cats.
Thanks for the mention and linking me in. =) I think I love the towel rods the most. How in the world?!? I’m betting they hung some random crap on there too. MIL always make the faucet in the kitchen sink loose over here. No wonder we had that crazy leak situation. Gah!
I i really believe that all MILs come from some distant planet i which they can’t destroy anything, all items are just too durable!
I am just glad that my MIL hasn’t destroyed anything yet which might lead to some greater catastrophy such as the water outlets…
Hilarious! Your MIL is a walking comedy show. I have to sympathise with the seatbelt incident, however. None of my family and relatives are particularly fond of wearing seatbelts too and will pretend to buckle to seatbelt just by holding it across themselves, like your MIL. I think it’s because if they are strapped to the car seats they can’t move around much and look outside, I don’t know…
Not many things get broken in my family. My parents in particular are the very careful kind, always warning the kids like me not to lean on the hand rails in the toilet, don’t touch anything that is made of glass, don’t even go in the kitchen because someone is chopping the carrot with a sharp knife… 😀
Now I am just wondering howcome appearently so many people in Asia try to avoid the seatbelts 😮
Yeah, daily life has a lot of dangers it seems, even in the own apartment
A lot of my parents generation/relatives didn’t grow up riding cars with seatbelts… I don’t think public transport back then like the buses, bikes, motorbikes and rickshaws had seatbelts.
In Asia, it is common for a whole family to squeeze into a regular four door car, making it impossible or uncomfortable for those seating in the back seat to put on a seatbelt 😀
My parents grew up as well without seat belts as did my brother (who is 20 years older than me). However in the 80s in Germany they ran campaigns for using seatbelt and I believe they did so in most of Europe. It is very very rare to see even elderly people in their 90s without a seatbelt…
Hahahaha! How expensive! And probably NOT funny at all during the time. I think I’d go insane. My hats off to you and what a great list you put together…a list. So sorry 😛
I can still handle it thus far bu who knows what crazy things she will do next time and what will break 🙂
You should actually write a book titled “The day my MIL broke the toaster” haha 😛
A good title for a book! Let’s see when I get around writing it all down, it is a huge list after all 🙂
Poor MIL! I think she is innocent and everything is a complot against her 😀
Yes, she is indeed very innocent…😇
Wow, that’s quite impressive! My MIL doesn’t break things *as far as I know*, since I’ve not been around enough (or rather she’s not been around my stuff enough), *but* lots of my husband’s things tend to “disappear” if he leaves them on a table or something when visiting, even just for a short while. It took us months to get back a brown bear mascot I got him for his birthday. The weird thing is, the bear sits on the toiletーwhy would she want that? XD (It’s an inside joke for us so it works but… whyyyyy)
It seems that I just don’t have anything worth for MiL to use for her own home as the only things which tend to disseapear are from my wife. But that’s a whole other stories again now that’s think bCk what all happened already …
My mother-in-law actually hasn’t broken anything of ours that I know of. My husband, however, knocked down our Christmas tree breaking several ornaments from my childhood. I wasn’t angry, just a bit sad. I was hoping for an apology, but instead he said, “you shouldn’t have put the tree there.”
I don’t really expect any apologies anymore whenever something bad happened. It think my wife never apologized for anything, somehow she is able to turn it around so thato was doing the mistake at first the place. I believe she got that from her mom as she is, quote by father-in-law “twisting the truth according to her believes” 🙂
OMG! It’s so funny that you’re MIL denies everything. I don’t think I have ever met a person in my life as clumsy as her.
You will definitely meet someday a person as clumsy as MIL. My theory is that they hide in some places like caverns where they can’t destroy too much or hurt people but from time to time they venture out, just like my MIL :p
True. They must be lurking in the shadows somewhere. I’m sure one day I will get to meet one and actually talk to them. I tend to be the victim in those awkward situations when someone clumsy knocks something over I take the hit.
Find some old German ladies who need exercise. Enlist your MIL to teach them plaza dancing.
I think there will be problems as “Ordnung muss sein” and there are not (yet) laws written for these kind of dance 😀