column: Frankie #16 Apr/May 2007

things not to do when you meet your in-laws

1. You shouldn’t call these people “Mr and Mrs Relevant Surname” any more than they should call you “Pig Shit”. It is what it is — irrelevant. What are you trying to say? I read Time? I preface everything with “ye olde”?

2. “Say it with flowers.” Say what? I wuv you? You do not know these people. You do not wuv them any more than you wuv the California Walnut*. Skip what is clearly a transparent suck routine. (You should bring wine, obviously. This is a matter of course.)

3. Should you offer to wash? I don’t know. Should you offer to lick their boots? Should you strap a dirty rag to your arse and swivel your butt through their house? I know; offering to wash their dishes is more or less obligatory. But do I normally handle strangers’ used napkins, balled up, containing whatever rancid combination of slag and olive pips they have chosen to drive into the centre? Do I normally handle the bones or bacon rind they have sucked, drawn out of their mouth and flung back onto the plate? 300 million people have scabies. I don’t believe my in-laws have scabies, but I don’t believe they DON’T have scabies. I would not offer to wash their dirty plates any more than I would request to scrub the rancid crotch of their underpants. But then, that’s my way. If your attitude towards parasitic skin infections is a lassiez-faire one, by all means, wash.

4. You cannot reject their food. Chow is the lifeblood of the home, and represents, at the very least, their sweet effing time. Though I like to remember it also represents live bacteria. Always remember you can spew into a balled napkin. In any case, offer compliments. “Ooh la la! Quelle chow! Ooh, what is swimming in this? I want more of that brown juice! I love the hard bits! This boiled pig is the best! I love the way you just kept boiling it. I actually want to induce vomiting, just so I can keep ramming this pig in my face! You know how you sometimes just want to eat the smell? Can I drink that water you boiled it in? I like the look of that skin I see forming! Can I have it when it goes solid? Are there any more bones I can suck? I don’t care, I am eating this cartilage. It has a tang, doesn’t it? No, I like it!” (Of course, you should bring emergency food for later. I carry Wizz Fizz as a matter of course.)

5. Don’t act precious. If you continue dating their child in any long-term sense, you’ll be seeing them regularly, most frequently in the context of their parties. You should not present yourself as “Ooooh, little me?” at this first meeting, if within weeks they’ll see you wasted on Bundy, belching in their faces, putting cigarettes out in their dip, and dancing like a rabid, unhinged, junk-addicted, low-end whore, before jumping in front of all the old people and throwing up in their faces. It’s hypocritical.

*A walnut circa 1990 that apparently only I can recall. He acted as a spokes-nut for Californian nuts, wore sunglasses and sang Al Jolson’s “ California , Here I Come”.