Dried Cantaloupe

I love my mother in law dearly. I really lucked out with her, because she loves me dearly in return. When she lived here we would have breakfast together every Saturday morning, if i didn't stop her she'd blow a large portion of her limited income on little things that she sees that she thinks i would like. . . really, i'm very lucky. And as a member of my family that i dearly love, she occasionally drives me insane.

I'm leaving tomorrow to go to Arkansas to visit her. She moved down there a few years ago, and i haven't gotten a chance to see her house or her town yet, so this is our summer vacation. It's turning into an impromptu family reunion for my husband's side of the family; so far an aunt and three, possibly five cousins are planning to go the same week we are, so i'm very excited about it.

Last week, she called and left me a voice mail, asking me to swing by this grocery store Brookhaven to pick up some dried cantaloupe to bring to her. It's not sold down there, and apparently Brookhaven has a produce department that puts the other stores' produce departments to shame. It sounds like a simple enough request, until i realized that Brookhaven is almost an hour drive away from me, in another state. This in and of itself is enough to give me pause, but the icing on the cake is: this store is in the same town as her sister. It's five-ten minutes from her house. I was absolutely baffled as to why she wouldn't ask her sister to buy some and mail it to her! The answer, of course, being that she didn't want her sister to have to pay to mail it to her since we're already coming. She's completely ignoring the fact that it'll take me a 3/4 tank of gas to go to Illinois and back, which would cost WAY more than the three bucks her sister would have to pay to have the stuff mailed. Not only is it an expensive drive, i'd be hitting the Chicago traffic at rush hour because i don't get off work until 4:30-5 p.m. So my 50 minute drive there and 50 minute drive home is gonna get another 45ish minutes tacked onto it, putting me at home at a really unreasonable hour.

Unfortunately, as thoughtful as she is, she can also be incredibly selfish. I don't think she intends to be, she just doesn't stop and think that if it isn't something she'd be willing to do for someone else, then she shouldn't ask someone else to do it for her. I know for a FACT that she wouldn't be willing to do this one, because when she stays with her sister, she isn't willing to drive to my house to see me. I have to go see her.

As much as i hate to disappoint her, i can't do this. So i'm hoping that in her excitement to see us and show us around her house and her town, she'll forget about the cantaloupe completely.