Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 336, 23 April 1928, Page 5

Mundane Musings

Mothers-in-Law By A MERE MALE The usual impression of a mother- j in-law, as gathered from music-hall comedians, Is all wrong. She is pictured as being so fierce that you ought to take out a licence for her, and-she hates her son-in-law because she thinks he isn't good enough for her daughter. But having been saddled with the wretch, so to speak, she does her best to reduce him to the harmless condition of her own husband. Somehow, my own mother-in-law isn’t a bit like that. When she comes to see me, she drives up in a yellow motor-car that would sting you if you let it settle on you. It is loaded like a furniture van, with golf clubs, tennis rackets, and new gramophone records, and mother-in-law is shingled, shortskirted and silk stockinged, so that she looks about 25. The first thing she tells me is how a good-looking young ' policeman with blue eyes tried to lock her up for going too fast, arid then she wants to show me a new step in the Yale Blues. She leaves cigarette ends all over the place, and I get blamed for it. One thing is the same. She still thinks I am not good enough for her little ewe-lamb, because I won’t give up a day’s work and go and play tennis with her. She considers I am an old stick-in-the-mud, but the fact is that we young married people have too much responsibility, and avg shan’t be able to grow young again till our family is grown up and off our hands. At the same time, I don’t believe mother-in-law was ever so bad* as she is painted, although in the old days she didn’t paint at all. She always came round and looked after things when her daughter asked her to, and she never minded taking care of the baby while its parents went to the pictures for once. And somebody had to rake in the old sock to find a few pounds when times were hard. True, she was a little critical of men, but what can one expect, seeing the number of years she has had to put up with father-in-law?

One of the most absorbing topics we can discuss is money. Money, in case you don’t see enough of it to become familiar with it, is the stuff you buy things with; and we get it issued yearly all fresh and beautiful, the idea being that we will like it so much that we will save it, and thus become a thrifty people. Of course, money isn’t everything; but we should find it very difficult get along without it. For instance, if you worked in a clothing factory, tjie only thing they could pay you with would be some of the stuff you had been making, and if you’d had a short week, your wages might be one leg of a pair of- trousers. Certainly you might be able to go to a butcher and change this for some meat—if he happened to be a one-legged butcher, and in want of it. And what of the dentist? Would the furniture dealer say to him: “Of course, I shall be glad to let you extract one tooth now, and one every month for 40 months in exchange for that piano”? We should see advertisements like this: “Desirable villa res., 4 bed, 3 rec., etc. Rent six woll'-hounds per annum.” “For sale, bicycle, 1927. Price 500 small coffees.” “Wanted, daily girl. Wages, 75 dance records yearly.” * * * And how would one get on at a charity bazaar? There was a Grande Olde Fancye Fayre and Fete at our Town Hall recently in aid of the Waifs and Strays. They spelt it like that to annoy the compositor. My small daughter was dancing there, so we naturally went, puffed up with pride. We discovered that about 500 other i children were taking part, the idea being that as most of their parents would pay to come in, the affair was bound to be a financial success. Early in the proceedings my wife abandoned me to the wolves while she went to dress the child, so I was left in the midst of several rapacious women who were looking after the stalls. Although I had my best clothes on, I felt like', a mongrel dog in a cat show. Hungry eyes followed me all over the place and I kept on walking, like elix. I knew that if I stood stiii Somebody would fancy I was looking at some article and make me buy it in aid of the waifs and strays. I did stop at one stall run by a couple of charming waifs who seemed to have strayed in from the Hippodrome chorus, and I paid them five shillings for a bookmark. But just then a large lady in a big fur positively dragged me away and held me still while she sold me tilings by force. My wife’s remarks on my extravagance might have borne some weight, only the white elephant stall was being run by a man with a profile like Ramon Navarro in “Ben Hur.” She couldn’t resist buying from him. Luckily, we lived quite, near, because we had to walk home.