Zipper Down

I can’t ever remember hearing a father-in-law joke when growing up. Back in the post-World War II era of my youth, who would dare take jabs at men who saved the country from its enemies and then became the family breadwinners. Patriarchy was kevlar. 

But I did hear lots of mother-in-law jokes, especially at extended-family cook-outs. The women would listen with tolerating smiles.

What I have appreciated most about mother-in-law jokes is that I didn’t have a mother-in-law like those parodied. 

My mother-in-law Alma Dudey was gifted with patience and a touch of humility.  Farmwork in her younger years may have cultivated patience; later raising six daughters must have trained her in listening before talking.   

With me, the talker-entertainer son-in-law, she typically would wait, smiling, for me to finish my act before she might come ujp with a zinger response.

In her last hours, she lay in her hospital bed, in and out of consciousness, surrounded by a circle of family members.  She spotted me entering the room and taking s place, standing, at the foot of her bed.  I greseted her with some wry coment.  She stared at me and said something.   I couldn’t hear her soft words.

My wife, sitting close to her, leaned in, asked her mom what she said, and then announced to the crowd, “Mom says your zipper is down, Richard”

Raucous laughter. 

I asked Alma Mom if those were going to be her final words to me.  That got her deeply laughing what would be her last laugh. And that became for me the best son-in-law joke and the one that I shared at her funeral service.

I have now run out of mothers: mine is gone, Alma is gone. Sad. No more son-in-law jokes. But lots of memory-smiles.