Mar 08 2005
Madam ‘Take-My-Own-Sweet-Time’
My mother-in-law (MIL) is an extremely ‘MO’ woman. ‘Mo’ – slow/ no sense of urgency/ take her own sweet time… Well, it doesn’t mean that she does things slowly though. She can do housework very quickly; she can cook 3 to 4 dishes within an hour… But, she just doesn’t have sense of urgency when it comes to meeting deadlines. My father-in-law (FIL) is well aware of this, and always calls her ‘Mo-De-Fu-Ren’ (Madam MO).
I have not been spending a lot of time with her until she starts taking care of Ian, my darling son. The first time I empathized with FIL was on the day that I needed to man MMB’s booth in Mid Valley’s Kid’s Fair. It was a working Friday, and I was working from home. I had 2-hour lunch break, from 12:30 to 2:30pm. I planned to man the booth from 1-2pm, so have to leave the house at 12:30. MIL wanted to bring Ian and join me, and she knew I had to leave at 12:30. Well, at 12:30, just before leaving, she went straight to the bathroom wanted to take her shower. And then she needed to check this and that… whatever that she can think of. We finally left the house at 1:30. At that point, I started to understand FIL’s frustrated comment he made one day: “Your mother (in-law) is very ‘mo’, every time if I have to go somewhere with her, I always be late. I can never be puncture if she comes with me…” That is very true.
On working days, DH and I normally fetch Ian to MIL’s house in one car, and I normally leave to work first whilst DH leaves later in separate cars. On those days that DH is away, I have to send Ian by myself. These are the days that I would sure be late to work. Why? The moment I reach MIL’s house, she would either still hanging her clothes; washing the toilet; mop the floor, etc. I would normally have to take care of Ian until she is done with all the house chores, and that can take very long – sometimes I have to leave her house at 9 or 9:30am. Well, my office hour starts at 9am (latest), so I normally would be 1 to 1.5 hours late to work!
Today, as I can go to work later, we left our house later today. Guess what? When we reached MIL’s house at 9:30am, she just took out her laundry to hang. It wouldn’t affect me at all as I was leaving, no matter what. It was my DH who has to wait. Haha, this time, it was DH who couldn’t stand it and said: “Why you have not done all these? When I come at 8am, you have not finished. And I thought if I come later you would have finished, but still you have not!!! I have important meeting in the morning I must leave now. So how??” Well, I don’t know what happened after that, as I have left the scene already.
The real problem with her is, she just doesn’t think there is a problem. Whenever FIL scolded her for delaying stuff, she would come and complain to me. 
This is my MIL, ‘Mo-De-Fu-Ren’…
