My brother, Mark, moved to another, distant city to work after graduation. He was going to live there for only a year, save up for the down payment and return to his hometown to buy an apartment. But fate decreed otherwise. He met a girl there and they decided to get married. My brother stayed there to live. We did not know our daughter-in-law. It so happened that at the time of the wedding I was nine months pregnant and due to give birth soon, so we decided that I would not go anywhere. My father was not allowed to be away from work for a few days, so only my mother was at the wedding. My mother did not communicate with my daughter-in-law closely, she just met her, crossed paths on the wedding day and that was it. They went on their honeymoon, and my mother returned home a few days later. Mom said the girl was pretty, smiling and nice. Several years passed, and we never met my brother.
We couldn’t manage to fly to them. But this year my brother told us great news. He planned a multi-stage trip. First, he and his wife were to come to us. Then they would go to the wedding of my brother’s friend, then take part in a class reunion, and then meet their parents at the sea and finally come home. They were supposed to spend two days with us. I did not see any problem. True, we had a small apartment, but we had my in-laws’ summer house at our disposal. My mother-in-law allowed us to spend time there and said she would help us set the table. However, it hadn’t been renovated for a long time, but there were satisfactory living conditions. That day, I was in a good mood, and we went to the airport to meet the guests. And from that moment on, problems began. My brother introduced me to my daughter-in-law, and from the first minute we met, she started complaining, saying that the plane was hot, noisy, tasteless, uncomfortable, and so on.
Then we arrived at the summer house. I decided to give a tour. My sister-in-law was looking at the shower and toilet with such a look, with a face as if she had been kissed by a homeless person. She took her brother aside, they made fun of each other, and then my brother asked my husband to take them to the city. My daughter-in-law said she would not use this shower. They went to our place, my wife washed, put on makeup and came back. Then it turned out that she wouldn’t eat anything we had prepared. And we had prepared the best we could and knew. There was gluten, fat, and I don’t remember what else. As a result, she ate only vegetables, and even then she looked at them suspiciously. And in the room we prepared for them, she did not want to sleep, so we went back to the city, to our apartment. And the next day, when we went for a walk in the city, she was more capricious than my three-year-old son. Either she was hot, or her leg started to hurt, or she was bored. I was very happy to see them off to the airport. I wonder how my brother has put up with her for three years. She got us in just two days.