Coupon Nazi

WTH? This woman--my not-quite-MIL--is insane. She absolutely cannot give us our mail without looking at the return address and either announcing who it's from, guessing what it is, or getting involved somehow--especially if it's a recurring bill. On the Sunday's when I bring the newspaper in, I clip the coupons I want and put it all back together to give to her because otherwise she piles them up for months until she finds time to go through them, and by then they're usually expired. I even asked once if she could pass them onto me when she was done and I never saw them again. One day when I was going to the store to get a few things she says, "I was just about to get you some coupons from the paper and look! (holds up coupon pages) They're gone!" I'm like, "Yeah, I already got them yesterday." She exclaims, "Oh!! I thought the mailman was stealing my coupons!!" .....really? You actually thought the mailman chose our house out of all the others, opens up the paper and cuts the coupons before delivering the paper? Yeah, sure.

Yesterday she was going through them again. She had 6 piles going on the table and then had to leave for work. So, as I'm clearing off the table for dinner I moved them all into one pile, staggering so she could separate them where she had them. Then today she gets this tone and says, "now...do you know which pile was where because I had them sorted by (blah blah blah)...and the ones I was done with I put in a trash pile." Yeah, obviously you had them sorted by something, but I didn't know that ahead of time so I couldn't do much with it other than what I did. She says, "well, I guess I'll just start over. I should be able to figure it out." Ok, so then I say to her a little later in the day, "I was thinking, when you're done, don't throw out your trash pile. I'll go through it and see if there's any more I could use in there." Now, instead of just saying "Ok." She says, "Well, see the trash pile is mostly expired and I've already taken out any of the ones I thought you guys would use...like I keep all the baby ones and I kept one for your sour cream..."

I don't even know what to say to that and I've never seen a single baby coupon from her, so where she puts these ones that she thinks I'll use, I don't know. But my real questions is... how hard is it to just let us decide for ourselves what we want to keep? A lot of times I don't buy stuff until I notice a coupon for it and that will make me think, "Oh I've been wanting to try that!" So, how would she know that I don't want a coupon for something just because she's never seen it in the house? She does the same thing with our mail! If she thinks its junk mail she'll throw it out before even giving it to us. How does she know what our junk mail looks like?

Ugghhhhh! She is making me crazy! God, I wish we could just win the lottery and move out of here now instead of waiting until we're ready and able.