Sizing Up Your In-Law Quiz

From clothes to decorating taste, to hobbies and majors in college, identify what kind of in-law you have and how much work is ahead of you. Recognize whether your father-in-law would rather be complimented or argued with, and whether your mother-in-law speaks her mind immediately or will wait a year to tell you how she feels, in an e-mail.

1. Your mother-in-law thinks that terrorists . . .

a) Are everywhere
b) Are plotting to attack her rural town in Idaho
c) Probably went to art school
d) Have a good point

2. True or false?

Your sister-in-law just sampled all 28 flavors from Baskin-Robbins and didn’t buy a scoop.

3. What is your stepfather-in-law most proud of?

a) Running the V-strike play during the Louisiana State football championship in 1956
b) Serving his country in Vietnam, boy
c) Not needing Viagra
d) His home-grown tomatoes

4. Your brother-in-law arrives unannounced on your doorstep. He is . . .

a) Looking for a place to hide from his wife
b) Dropping off a 200-gallon fish tank that he bought you for your engagement
c) Trying to sell you something
d) Breaking into your home

5. The rental car your father-in-law reserved isn’t available. What would he do?

a) Punch the #1 Club Gold sign and start shredding the complimentary Hertz maps until security escorts him away
b) Quietly suffer, squeezing his large bags into a Hyundai Accent
c) Convince the staff to upgrade him -- who’s driving in style now, baby?
d) Fake an accent and pretend he doesn’t understand the situation

6. Both your parents-in-law think that your two-year-old child should:

a) Learn Hebrew
b) Get a job
c) Not go to bed if he doesn’t feel like it
d) Prefer them to the “other grandparents”

7. Your mother-in-law would like to talk to you . . .

a) Every day with her morning coffee
b) Once in a blue moon, when she sees a woman that vaguely looks like you
c) Via e-mail, so there’s a paper trail of your correspondence
d) Just so long as you don’t talk back

8. Two trains leave the same station. Train A leaves the station traveling at 40mph. Train B leaves the station 60 minutes later traveling at 60mph. When does Train B pass Train A? Your mother in-law would say:

a) Why are they taking the train?
b) I’m going to buy tickets for Train C; it leaves an hour later and my daughter-in-law has such trouble with time, so when she shows up late, I’ll be prepared!
c) t-1hr+40t, 3hrs
d) Can trains pass each other? That doesn’t sound very safe.

9. Your grandmother-in-law annoys you by:

a) Cheating at mahjong
b) Refusing to wear her hearing aid
c) Using her knitting needles as toothpicks
d) Making you sit at the “kids’ table”

10. What will your mother-in-law wear at your wedding?

a) A brown cotton shirt-dress that covers her knees, arms, and neck
b) A dress that’s sexier than your wedding dress, in a size 4
c) A black suit with a black hat for mourning
d) A piece of jewelry that requires a bodyguard

11. True or false?

Your brother-in-law doesn’t eat meat he didn’t shoot.

12. Your parents-in-law think the computer is:

a) Something to put flower vases on top of
b) A godsend -- there’s no other way to order Lands’ End underwear
c) A reason to call you at 1 am for tech support
d) The most wonderful place to find a friendly community of fellow Croatian pornography lovers

13. I can annoy my mother-in-law by doing what?

a) Limiting the wedding guest list to 200
b) Feeding her dog from the table
c) Feeding her son from the table
d) Not calling her Mom
e) Calling her Mom
f) All of the above

Copyright © 2007 Dina Koutas Poch. All rights reserved.