Thanksgiving and Illness

My mother-in-law wanted to go to Walmart;  the only condition I put on her coming here, and this was with her not my husband, was I don't have to take her to Walmart.  It is an exercise in futility and I hate the store; I don't shop there.  Whatever she wants is never there, ever.  On Thanksgiving Sunday, she got off after my husband from the time she got up telling him she needed to go to Walmart.  She wanted extra large man-sized tissues; they are the only ones she uses.  Now, we do a big deal for Thanksgiving; my parents come over, the children bake a lot, and my husband does the turkey.  Everything was interrupted as her quest for hankies had to be fulfilled.  Of course, they weren't there; last time, I picked them up at a drug store and she knew this.  Anyhow, my poor husband, who is not the most patient at the best of times, had to get after their service help, on a holiday, to look for these tissues.  And, the tissues weren't there.  Then, he had to explain to the matriarch about the tissues not being there.  At which point, she replied, "Well, they should be..."

Apparently, the service help was accommodating, but my mother-in-law went into a tirade in the store about how these tissues should be there.  So, my husband in a very nice way gently guided his mother out of the store, into the rainy, cold day outside and she promptly caught a chill.  Now, we needed the large sized tissues.  But, they were not to be found on a holiday Sunday.  Change of scene to our home and my mother-in-law retreating to her room upstairs to eat potato chips and mumble to herself about the weather.  Thanksgiving went off well; but, the matriarch, having eaten a whole bag of potato chips, didn't eat her dinner and told me the turkey wasn't cooked well enough for her to chew.  My husband, decent guy that he is, spoke up and said he cooked the turkey and it was fine.  I think he was getting annoyed at his cantankerous mother.  She did eat her dessert, a slice of each pie, apple and pumpkin, and the homemade ice cream.  The matriarch was in bed by nine, with a chill and slight fever.  And, no appetite.

As all this went on, my health and frustration level peaked; my children seemed to have caught some sort of cold; so our Thanksgiving ended with me reading to three sick kids, tissues (actually toilet paper) in my lap and the faint echos of my mother-in-law's snores.  And, I don't know what to do...the matriarch has a cold not pneumonia; she does have a doctor's appointment next week and I thinking eating potato chips all the time is not doing her health any good.  I gave her honey for the sore throat and Nyquil for the cough and am going back to bed myself.  The children survived with no fevers, chills or sniffles and are off to do their usual thing.  It's so trying sometimes.  The matriarch is a grown-up; but, those man-sized tissues seemed to mean so much to her...