Christmas with the In-laws

We were enjoying a Christmas dinner at my wife's parents' house this year that was rather low on Jesus and rather high on alcohol. As usual, it devolved into going around the table so everyone could complain about their work lives. In my many years of Christmases I've found that this is an important ritual because you can only complain so much about your family to the people at work before you get sick of hearing your work colleagues own complaints and want to complain about them. That's where the holidays come in.

Anyway, we had been going around the table in this fashion for a while and my father-in-law was getting pretty tired of hearing his other daughter -- the one who isn't my wife -- complain about her PhD supervisor's lack of helpfulness with her esoteric thesis on Aboriginal conceptions of the transgendered bestiality impulse so he shrugged and said, "Life's a bitch," in an attempt to get her to end her turn. He said it in such a droll manner, though, that I felt to compelled to add, "And then you marry one, amirite?" while I made the nudge-nudge motion with the vaudeville smirk.

I tried to explain it was a joke, but my mother-in-law still took back the video game she bought for me anyway (now all I have are socks from her), and I had to spend the rest of the evening on the wobbly air mattress that passes for our bed reassuring my wife that I don't think of her now that we've been married for six years as a "nagging bitch". You know, I bet if we had a real bed and I had been sleeping better I wouldn't have made that stupid mistake so really the whole thing was my in-laws fault for being so cheap; just because it's Christmas doesn't mean you should recreate Jesus's manger for me to sleep in, you know? My wife claims it also might have helped if I hadn't been drunk.