How to look young forever.

MIL: "You should never laugh or smile or else when you are older, your face will be super wrinkly.   It is my secret to why I look so young."

The perfect man

Wife: "Mom, what do you look for in a man?"
MIL: "Just two things, 1- he must be rich. 2- he must always obey me."

The cure-all

MIL: "I don't feel good, go get me a glass of salt water."
Wife: "What are you going to do with the salt water?"
MIL: "Drink it of course."
Wife: "Why?"
MIL: "Last time I was in the hospital, the doctor gave me an saline IV drip.  I looked it up and saline is salt water.  So now I drink salt water anytime I'm sick."

Whose got big balls?

MIL: "You know your cousin who is always depressed?  She had a baby last year.  Her baby's balls are HUUUUGE!  Women who are depressed when they are pregnant will always have babies with gigantic balls."
Wife: " Sadness makes balls bigger?" 
MIL: "Of course" 
Wife: "So since I'm happy all the time, my son will be born with tiny balls?"
MIL: "Obviously!" 

warning: explicit content

MIL talking to my wife:  "You put too much sauce on the eggplant you son of a bitch*!"


*in China the profanity she used is actually much worse than "son of a bitch" ; basically to put it in a less offensive way, she said "daughter of a mother who has relations with dogs" 

Mr-T

MIL picks up my Mr-T Bobble-head doll

MIL:  "I like your statue of Zhang Fei."
Wife: "That's Mr-T."
MIL: "Nonsense! That's Zhang Fei!!"

Lost

Wife: "Did you like that season of Lost?"
MIL: "Yeah, good ending."
Wife: "That wasn't the end, there are still 2 more seasons."
MIL: "Nope, that is the end I'm sure of it. There are only 4 seasons and there can't be anymore after that ending; the boat blew up and Ben died when the island moved-THE END."
Wife: "No, look, here are seasons 5 and 6 right here in my hand."
MIL: "Those can't be real.  The story is obviously over.  Those DVDs in your hand must be fake."

Bad FIL

(A condensed version of a conversation my wife and I had recently)

Me: "I can't believe how hurtful your mom is all the time."
Wife: "Yeah, well at least she never threatened to kill me like my dad did."
Me: "Huh?"
Wife: "Dad cheated on mom and when she said she was going to leave him, he grabbed me and ran out to the highway and held me close to the speeding traffic and started screaming that if mom left him, he would throw me in front of a bus.  Then he acted like he was demon-possessed and blamed all his bad actions on the demons inside of him.  Mom's friends called an exorcist and after a few minutes into the exorcism, dad pretended like the demons came out of him and said he didn't remember anything.  He was acting just like people do in cheesy Chinese ghost movies though, so it was easy to see he was faking the possession."
Me: "Holy cow!" 
Wife: "Yeah, then later after the exorcism, when mom said she was still going to divorce him, he grabbed a bottle of rat poison and started acting like he was going to drink it if she divorced him."
Me: "To bad he was bluffing"
Wife: "Then another time my mom said she wanted a divorce and he grabbed a knife and threatened to kill himself in front of me.  Mom told him he didn't have the guts to do it, so he put his hand on the table and cut one of his fingers off.   He freaked out and started screaming for us to take him to the hospital.  There was a lot of blood.  It was a bit traumatizing."
Me: .......

Pizza sucks

"Gross, ewww,  I want to throw up!  This is more disgusting than a hamburger!  How can you eat this horrible garbage!?"


MIL tried a piece of pizza for the first time in her life.

your husband sucks

MIL: "I don't like your husband. He is no good at all and not good for you either!"
Wife: "Why?"
MIL: "Why?  He still hasn't bought me a house yet!"

your ugly skin

MIL: "Your skin looks so old and wrinkled.  You look much older than me.  When we go outside, everyone  thinks that you're my older sister."
Wife:  "Mom, that isn't a nice thing to say."
MIL: "Yeah, well its true, I can't help that I look so much better than you do."

mystery boyfriend

MIL: "When I get back to China, I have another boyfriend waiting for me, I'm going to move in with him when I get back."
Wife: "Where did you meet him?"
MIL: "I never met him,  I just got a random SMS from a guy in Tibet and we started talking by SMS and now we are a couple.  He wants to move in with me now. He says he is really rich."
Wife: "You can't trust a guy you never met before.  You don't know if anything he says is really true."
MIL: "Oh don't be an idiot! You're just jealous that I look younger and sexier than you. Plus he sent me a pic, so he can't be lying."

Whats yours is mine

Wife:  "Auntie said that all the family members chipped in and raised $1,000 US that they gave to you to give to us for the baby."
MIL:  "Yeah, they did. I spent it all shopping in China; I needed some new things. Oh and you owe me $100 because after I spent your $1000, I gave $100 of my own money to one of my friends as a gift, but I meant to give them your money instead but I didn't realize I had spent it all, so you have to give me $100 to cover that to."
 
     

the quick way to wash your hair

Wife: "Mom, when was the last time you washed your hair.  It looks super oily."
MIL: "I just washed it this morning."
Wife: "Did you use shampoo?"
MIL: "No, I just rubbed a bunch of that conditioner stuff in my hair"
Wife: "Did you use any water?"
MIL: "No, why would I do that?"

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

A couple ants found their way to our grapes and my wife washed them off and ate one of the grapes. 

MIL: "Don't do that.  If you accidentally eat an ant, it will make a home in your stomach and will eat you from the inside out.  I'll lay eggs and soon you'll die."

Wife: "If an ant made it to my stomach alive, I'm sure the stomach acid would kill it before it could make a home. Plus only queen ants lay eggs."

MIL: "I can't believe I have to explain this to you.  Worms live in the ground and worms can go in your stomach, make more worms and make their home in your body.  Ants live in the ground as well, so it means ants can do the same thing as worms." 

The germ myth

MIL is handling some old, raw beef and chicken, puts it in the sink and then starts touching the food we are about to eat.
Wife: "Mom, you need to wash your hands after touching all that raw meat, especially before you touch the cooked food we are about to eat."
MIL: "What?  Why?"
Wife: "Germs, bacteria, salmonella."
MIL: "Don't tell me you believe those myths, that is all just made up so you'll buy soap."

No veggies for you!

MIL: "After you have your baby you can't eat anything with pepper, or chilli, you can't eat any vegetable and you can't eat rice porridge for at least a month."
Wife: "Why?"
MIL: "Why do you always ask why? Just trust me.  But for your information, if you eat any of those things within one month of giving birth, anytime you eat those things afterwards they will make you sick and give you an allergic reaction and you won't be able to breath."

MIL: "That medicine you gave me made me sick."
Wife: "Mom, that was just a vitamin C."
MIL: "VITAMIN C!? That stuff will give you arthritis!"
 

Tie the baby's feet together

"Buy that rope there, so later when the baby is born you can tie his feet together.  The baby's feet need to be tied together for the first month after he is born.  If you don't, he will grow up bow-legged."

MIL pushes the doorbell several times- "Your light-switch is broken."

MIL defies the laws of physics

MIL: "Its weird how you always see the lighting first and then you hear the thunder later.  I wonder why that is?"
Wife: "Light travels faster than sound."
MIL: "No way, not possible, you don't know what you're talking about."
Wife: "Why is it not possible?"
MIL: "You always say that you can hear me way before you see me."
Me: "You're mom has a point"
MIL: "Of course I do, I'm not an idiot like you."

Tie up the baby

MIL: "After the baby is born, for the first month you must always keep his hands tied together. 
Wife: Why? 
MIL: "So the baby doesn't try to grab everything...OBVIOUSLY." 

How to avoid a sore neck

"Pat the back of your pillow three times to avoid waking up with a sore neck."

How to have an silver baby.

"Don't eat the skin of the fish when you are pregnant.  If you do, your baby will be born with the same skin color as the fish that you ate."

Terrifying Creatures

MIL:  "Those creatures are terrifying.  The ones that make noise are the ones that love to attack humans.  We are all in serious danger. We need to leave now!"
Me:  "Geckos are harmless."
MIL:  "Only the quiet ones are harmless, those ones making noise are very dangerous. They have big teeth and strong jaws!"
Me:  "If you get attacked by a gecko here in Cambodia, I'll give you $100 for each one that attacks you."


*She is no longer scared of geckos, now she watches them almost like she is hoping they will all jump her.

**update 9/16/13 -  She has reverted to being scared of geckos.  Nothing we can say or do convinces her that they're not planning their attack on her.

That is why you are stupid

Mother-in-law talking to my wife:  "Since you've been pregnant, how many times have you fallen down on your stomach?  None?  Wow! When I was pregnant with you, I fell down a lot...that is probably part of the reason why you are so stupid." 

Ouch

Mother-in-law talking to my wife,  "Your husband met you and your best friend at the same time, right?  I really don't understand why he picked you."