I’ve just said goodbye to my inlaws after a five-day visit, and suffice it to say I am ready for another weekend to recover from my weekend.  We had a lovely time, actually, filled absolutely to the brim with activities and family togetherness.  But I know I can’t be the only one out there who is never fully relaxed when there are houseguests of the inlaw variety staying in my bedroom while I sleep on the futon in the guest room.  (Please tell me I’m not the only one.)

I love having people in for the weekend, and I love weekends that are full to bursting with fun and activities, but they sure have a way of throwing the following week off-kilter.  Right now the only food in the house is leftover potato salad and some pickles, I’m down to one pair of clean underpants, and I accomplished exactly zero on a work project I’d hoped to address at least a tiny bit over the weekend.  Oh well.  Such is life.

The highlight of the weekend, comedy-wise, came during a rousing family game of Apples to Apples.  For those not familiar with the game, the basic idea is that one person reads a green adjective card that says something like “happy” or “outrageous” or “timeless” and the rest of the players choose a red noun card from their hand that they feel best aligns with that adjective (like for “timeless,” some submissions included “Romeo and Juliet,” “Niagara Falls,” and “Frank Sinatra.”)

We were playing last night with my mother and father-in-law and my sister-in-law and her partner.  My father-in-law, a rather buttoned up ex cop, draws “playful” as his adjective.  The rest of us look to our hands, select the cards we feel best align with “playful,” and turn them in.  One by one he reads out the submissions, and it’s immediately clear that none of us had anything good for “playful,” and we’ve all decided to just use this round to dump cards.    “The Godfather!” “New York!” “Rust!” (That was mine.  I mean, who hasn’t had some good times with rust, am I right?)

Then he gets to the last card.  He pauses, as the word kind of catches in this throat:   “Whips!”

Sister-in-law, her partner, John and I all totally lose it. Mother-in-law turns bright red, says “no!  oh dear!”  which only makes us laugh harder. And my father-in-law, bless him, considers each card carefully, thinks for a minute, and finally says “you know, I think the most playful thing in this group would have to be the whips!”

And that’s how my sister-in-law’s partner got her first green card of the evening.  Welcome to the family, kid.