What is it with redneck, white-trash, goldigging, system-scammers?!

WARNING:  I just realized how big this post is.  Yikes!  Sorry.

Just came back from my in-laws for Thanksgiving.  A nice enough time and a great meal.  But one side of the family (married into) is just so...  Jerry Springer!

My wife's mother died from breast cancer when she was only 41 and my wife was 19.  My father-in-law remarried a southerner who was nice enough when they were dating, but once they got married, her true golddigging, childish behavior came to the surface.  This guy is the type who can't not be married.  She was the first person he dated and he's also the type who sleeps in the bed he makes.  So he never thought about walking away from it  - or at least, realized the cost would be tremendous.

At Thanksgiving you get this group of 2 dozen plus at his house.  Half are NY/NJ Jews and the other half are southerners.  But it's their lifestyles and behaviors that just blow us away!  Check this out...

Mother-in-law:  Her husband died from cancer and with the insurance money, she chose not to work, and buy a condo in Myrtle Beach and lots of "toys".  When the money ran out and she was broke, she snagged a sugar-daddy and suckered him into marriage.  We don't speak because she never once even asked me how I was doing throughout my cancer treatments.  And then when her grandson was diagnosed with leukemia (the best, most-curable kind - he's doing GREAT and is in remission), she says to me, "you didn't really even have cancer.  You don't know what it's like.  All the chemo treatment he has to go through.  He's just a boy and you're a grown man.  I never want to hear about how you think you had cancer."  So I simply ignore her for the most part.

Mother-in-law's oldest daughter:  Was married with 2 kids until her ex-husband started sleeping with her 2 best friends.  She used to work for government social services and found some way to scam the system into collecting retirement benefits starting at age 40.  She and ex also took $40K from father-in-law for the down-payment on a house they couldn't afford which wound up in foreclosure 5 years later.  She likes to run up credit card bills to the max and then default on them.  Oh and in addition to "retirement" she's also on disability for "migraines" so she gets that too.  We're still trying to figure out HOW she manages to cheat the government into retirement and disability payments and how she manages to keep getting credit cards that she never pays back.  This one's the MASTER of scamming the system.

Mother-in-law's oldest daughter's ex:  A thief who stole cash and jewelry from father-in-law, took $40K for the house which he lost, sleeps with wife's best friends... but we don't see him anymore.  Thank heavens!

Mother-law's grandson:  Always sponged off of mom & dad (above) and was always spoiled rotten with "toys" iPhones/iPads, TVs, game consoles, etc.  On the first day they were dropping him off at college, he has a breakdown, says he can't do it, and threatens to commit suicide.  So they bring him home...  And bought him a 2005 Audi A6.  WTF?!  19, doesn't work, lives at home and still gets the toys.  Most of the money he finds goes into tattoos on his body.

Mother-in-law's granddaughter:  Just simply pathetic.  She barely graduated high school and she's too "fragile" to work or do anything else.  She doesn't have a drivers license because she's too afraid to drive a car.  So she hangs out all day on Facebook, etc.  She used to live with Mom, but Mom started to demand she get a job.  So she went to live with Dad and he showered her with "toys" for love.  Then he started to ask that she do something with her life.  So Mom missed her so, so she went back to Mom's who now lets her do nothing all day except watch TV, surf the Internet, eat and get fat.

Mother-in-law's middle daughter:  She's nice, but SO naive!  Her alcoholic husband ran up so much debt, that he had to foreclose on their Myrtle Beach condo, and he emptied the bank accounts to keep his flooring business afloat and hide it from her.  She had no clue as to what was going on.  She never worked and finally got up the courage to divorce him.  He simply went to live with the woman he had been sleeping with for years - HER YOUNGER SISTER!!!  You read that right, he was sleeping with his wife's younger sister.  She's too ignorant to lawyer up and fight hard, so he got the house and for a long time, she and her two kids moved back in with Mom and father-in-law.  Father-in-law set her and the kids up in an apartment (in Durham, her oldest son has leukemia).  She has no job skills and was doing some part-time work as a Pilates Instructor.  But mostly father-in-law supports her and the kids.

Mother-in-law's youngest daughter:  Never knew her much.  She dropped out of high school and we think she was stripping for a while.  We knew that she had a boyfriend who would buy her stuff.  Of course then we found out it was middle sister's husband.  She's gone with him now and we don't see or hear about her anymore.

But STILL - Every Black Friday, they have a family tradition of going out to buy the latest and greatest toys.  They give eaother iPads, big HDTV's... if it's expensive and cool, that's what they get each other for Christmas.  No money, no self-control, no ambition... except to buy stuff.

Mother-in-law vents to father-in-law, "how come your two daughters are so lucky and have it made in life?  Their lives are so easy and they have all the money.  Why is life such a struggle for my three?"

Because his oldest daughter (my wife) works 7 days a week, day and night, to run her own business that she started from the ground up, and is still the best mother and wife inthe world!  She busts her azz and is amazing!  2 bachelors degrees, a masters, and the highest industry certification you can get.  Luck had nothing to do with it!  I come from school teacher stock, so I never had a hand-out.  Everything we have, we earned ourselves.  (Oh and luck?  Her husband gets cancer, then gets fired from his job and she's bald as a cue ball living with Alopecia Universalis.  Yeah, that's some really good luck for ya.)

Because his youngest daughter works 60+ hours a week, traveling, and being the National Marketing Director for a national restaurant chain.  She busted her hump to get where she is and she's really good at what she does.  AND she does this all with a 3-yr-old and a 9-mo-old baby!  Luck has nothing to do with it!  She earns 6 figures as does her Wall Street trading husband.  But everything they have, they earned themselves.

What a Thanksgiving dichotomy:  One side of the table believes that education, hard work, and smart choices gets you places, and the other side believes in luck and getting things handed to them.  Father-in-law has paid out 20 times to his wife's three goldiggers than he ever gave to his own two.  He has pride and respect for his daughters and we never asked him for anything.  But the other side?  I think he's forced to keep them afloat to keep his wife quiet.  For 18 years we've been waiting to hear talk of a divorce, but nothing.  The guy really got himself in it.

... It's painful to listen to them sometimes.

(Family Thanksgiving vent over.)