The Daily Gripe #3 - Ranges, Flames, and Mothers-in-Law

My wife blew up the stove the other day. That's enough to gripe about, I know, but there's more. Actually, she didn't blow it up. The oven caught on fire -- which I'm sure wasn't her fault (that's her story, and she's sticking to it) -- and it burned through the heating element in the oven. Voila! No more oven. Funny thing is, just two days earlier she had talked about how badly she wanted a new stove. But that's another story.

So I left work early today to take my wife out shopping for a new stove. Did you know that you can't even buy a new stove anymore? Seriously! I don't know when it happened, or how, or why I wasn't consulted, but somebody somewhere along the line replaced the stove with the range! Can you imagine that? Anyway, so we're out shopping for a range, and my wife is probably a very typical woman shopper. She can leave the house knowing exactly what she wants, but somehow she still needs to look at everything that's available before finally settling -- on exactly what she wanted in the first place. Enough to gripe about again, but still not the main issue.

We only went to three places, and I won't mention them here, but one of them was a pretty good experience (we actually bought a nice stainless steel microwave that was a display model for $10.00 (no, that's not a typo, that is ten dollars). One of them was a very good experience, and one of them was just a little unsavory. Oh, the people were nice at the last place, but the environment wasn't the best, and they tried to sell us a used stove -- I mean, range -- that they hadn't even cleaned up yet. It still had someone else's dinner funk on it! Needless to say, we purchased our new st--- range at the place that was the best experience. We got a brand new (we'll have to generate our own dinner funk on it) stainless steel ceramic top range. Exactly what my wife wanted. It's being delivered tomorrow.

Now, it's gripe time. My wife, being a woman, had to tell someone about her new appliance (that's easier to remember than "range") immediately, so we went to see her mother (who just happened to be watching the kids for us, so we would have had to go there anyway). What's the first question her mom asks her? Go on, I'm sure you can guess. She's a typical mother-in-law. That's right, "How much did you pay?"

That really gripes me! I mean, what makes her think it's any of her business how much we pay for anything we buy? Her daughter will always be her daughter, but she is now my wife, and our finances and expenditures are our own business, not hers! I told my wife that would happen, and that she should tell her we got a good deal on it and leave it at that. But not my wife. Instead, she told her a little fib to get past the questions, then showed off her new $10.00 microwave (now that I think about it, she's been talking about wanting a new microwave, too. Have I been had?). Women!

Joe