Crazy In-Law

"Come on, we're gonna be late!" Adam shouted to me at three in the morning as I had just gotten out of bed. As far as I have known him, he and his family have been super into Thanksgiving.

"Babe, I just woke up, why do we have to be there by four anyway? Ain't Thanksgiving normally celebrated around lunchtime? Plus you aren't cooking." I stood up after stretching a bit. I yawned.

"I know that I'm not helping cook. And I usually would, but our family tradition for newlyweds is that we don't have to help with anything this year. We have to be there though, we have breakfast, snacks, lunch, more snacks, then dinner. Finally, we have dessert and then at 2:00 in the morning, we go shopping. If we are late, we will miss a portion of the day which means we miss part of a story and we won't get to hear anyone's news." Adam droned on about how this is the best holiday and all of that.

"You should've gotten me up earlier if you wanted me to look half decent. But you didn't so now I am gonna look like a trash bag." I headed to the bathroom to get into the shower.

"Hey, don't blame this on me. I tried to get you up at one when I got up, but you didn't want to. You pushed me away. We won't be late and you won't look bad. I guarantee it." He smiled at me.

"Yeah yeah..." I turned on the water and got in. "Will you turn on my 'shower' playlist. Please?" Before I could finish my request, I heard my music playing.

"I love you." Adam started humming along to 'Memories' by Maroon 5.

"I love you too." I started singing along. We were both very musical people. We met at an honor choir trip when we were seniors in high school.

Eventually, we were able to leave. We got in the truck and immediately, Adam said something about what I was wearing - ripped jeans and a blouse - which, according to him, was not something I wanted to wear to the Thanksgiving feast. "Welp, guess that sucks. I'm not changing. Y'all're just gonna have to deal with it."

When we got there, Adam just walked in and didn't ring the doorbell or anything. I got kind of sketched out when I saw the house. Adam wasn't rich and neither was his family - the house was huge though. Adam wasn't raised poor, but they didn't have enough money to live in a house like this one. There were a ton of people inside when we walked in. Everyone greeted Adam and most gave me a disgusted look. I guess that's what I get...he walked in there with a white chick...

"Hey, Adam!" His little sister Bethany came running toward us. "Hi, Norah." She hugged Adam, then me. She turned around to her family, "Hey, y'all, this is Norah, Adam's wife." That's when the disgusted looks stopped and turned to smiles.

"Oh my gosh, hi!" This was his aunt. She was probably the sweetest one there. We stood and talked for a while. So long that it was already breakfast by the time we had finished. "Do you wanna sit by me?" I nodded my head and smiled.

When we had gone to go sit down, everyone seemed really nice and relaxed. As soon as they said "amen" after the prayer, everyone went wild. It was like this for the entire day. Eventually, dessert came and they had a pie baking contest and any in-las were the judges. I was one of the judges.

They set about ten slices of pie in front of every one of us. Apparently, since Adam's great grandmother was going to die soon, the winner of this contest got this house in her will. Okay...no pressure...yikes.

"Hey, don't overthink it. It's not like our future depends on this." Adam tried to reassure me, but what if it actually does?

"Right." I put on my happy face and muscled through the pressure. I fell in love with one of the pies. It just made me so happy and I had to give it my vote. The other pies were pretty good, but they weren't all that great.

"Pick one yet?" I nodded, as did everyone else.

We put our votes into the box and they shook it up. Mimi (Great Grandma) counted up the votes and the winner was Bethany. Once the winner was revealed to the family, everyone became really scared because she was a sociopath. No one knew what she would do to the house. Frightened, they all congratulated her. "Great job, maybe we can visit sometime?"

She took my hand and patted it seven times. With a straight face she looked at me "Of course, I wouldn't have it any other way...after all, Adam is my favorite sibling." She smiled at me as she shooed us out.

As we left, I realized that we hadn't gone shopping. I turned to Adam, "Are we not going to go shopping or...?" He shook his head. "Wanna talk about anything?"

He sighed. "She's crazy. I can't believe that she won. She has no baking skills at all. She poisons just about everything she touches, so how did she win?"

"What?!" My eyes were bulging out of my head. "She poi- she poisons stuff?" I had a stuttering issue when I got nervous. "Like how?"

"Last time, she put bleach in it. The time before that it was weed. Three years ago, she put a ton of hot sauce in her chili. She is trying to kill all of us, I'm telling you."

"She's trying to what? She's trying to kill us?" He nodded violently. "Her pie had a different effect on me. It made me go to like a different world for a brief second." He slammed on the breaks and looked at me.

"She unlocked it," he mumbled under his breath. "We have to go back."

"Umm..." I look at him, "you really want to do that? Like seriously? Okay..." I was scared, but I would never let him know that.

We turned around and when we got there, the family had gone mad. They were out of their minds. We walked in and saw that they were all celebrating. "Hey, I heard we were all supposed to go shopping so, pile in. I opened the front door as they all ran and got into the truck. They were like dogs running outside. I was terrified.

We got in and they promptly became almost normal again. It was scary how they could just turn it on and off. As we went shopping, they had been banned by multiple stores for violent behavior in there. Adam and I needed to get away quick. We left them in one of the stores and ran out to drive away. "Just pray that they won't find us. Right now, they don't know where we live, but they're all crazy, so they might find out. Until then, trust no one.