By request of my little sister Janice, who will be taking the plunge in June, marrying a Brit, and moving to England.

I was dating my soon to be fiancé when he said that his mother was visiting his grandparents in the next town and that he would like to take me to meet her. At this point I was about 87% sure that this was the man I was going to be married to, so I realized that I would most likely be meeting my future mother-in-law. This made me a little uptight. I had heard some pretty serious horror stories about mother-in-laws and really didn’t want to make a bad impression.

So I put on nice causal clothing and did my hair and make-up. Chris took a goo dlook at me when we were driving to Manti and said, “You’re wearing make-up! You got dressed up to meet my mom!” and then proceeded to laugh at me the rest of the way to his grandparents.

When we got there Chris introduced me to his mom ( I met his grandparents on our first date so we were past that). She seemed nice enough and didn’t really pay any major attention to me. Grandpa was the problem. He made me talk into one of those asinine talking stuffed parrots that he had hanging in the sunroom. He asked me if I had studied a foreign language and when I said that I had taken a few years of German, he said “the bird speaks German! Go talk to it.” (I’m not making this up). To be polite I did. I’m sure I was blushing three shades of red.

On the way back to my seat, I managed to spill red cranberry juice onto the cream carpet. Then we had to have a conversation about how fluent I am in German (umm not much- high school clearly did me no good). So I got to look like an idiot. I believe my dear boyfriend did manage to point out that I was attending college on scholarships, so that saved me a little bit.

After that I think Chris and I escaped to the basement to watch a movie and make out.

About two weeks later we were engaged and Chris’ whole family (except his older sister) came from California to meet me. I felt like a zoo animal. His little sisters kept looking at me and laughing and his parents we pretty nice to me, but I mostly just remember feeling like I was being scrutinized to within an inch of insanity. I have never been so grateful to leave someone’s house as I was that day.

After that, I warmed up to Chris’ family right away. They are very good people. My mother-in-law is loving, sweet, and really funny and we get along great. So much for the horror stories.

So, good luck on this trip to England, Jan. And may your future mother-in-law be as wonderful as mine!