We Thought My Mother-in-Law Was Smoking Pot — Her Real Secret Stash

I never in a million years would have guessed this is what my mother-in-law was hiding in her bedroom

“I need to tell you something serious, and I need you not to freak out,” my husband said.

I’d been sitting on the couch, watching my toddler play. My husband had just come back from checking on my mother-in-law.

My mother-in-law lives with us because she can’t live on her own. A brain injury forced her into early retirement in her 40s, and she’s had health issue after health issue ever since. She’s frequently unwell, and she spends a lot of time in bed because she doesn’t feel up for moving around.

“What?” My heart raced. I didn’t know what to expect. My first thought was maybe one of the cats had pooped in the basement. It wouldn’t be the first time, but I couldn’t imagine my husband reacting this seriously if that were the case.

Maybe one of them was hurt in the basement. Or worse.

I knew my son was fine because he was right in front of me, so it had to be the cats, right?

“I’m 100% my mom’s smoking pot,” my husband revealed.

My jaw dropped wide open. I would have never in a million years would have guessed those were the words that were going to come out of his mouth.

“What? How?” I asked.

It didn’t come as a huge surprise. I knew his mother was in pain, and people have been able to get medical marijuana prescriptions in Iowa since 2018. It wasn’t crazy to think that, maybe, she had gotten a prescription.

“Maybe she got a prescription,” my husband said, the most logical explanation.

“I need to make up an excuse to go in her room,” I said, thinking quickly because I wanted to smell the evidence for myself. “I’ll ask her if her TV is working and tell her we’re having issues with our Wi-Fi.”

I run with it, and sure enough, her room smells exactly like how my old apartment used to smell. I knew it was marijuana.

So, I immediately search online how to get a prescription for medical marijuana in Iowa.

“It says she would need to have a card,” I said. “Why wouldn’t she just tell us?”

Now, that was the million-dollar question. She typically had no problem telling us just about anything else related to her health, even the stuff we didn’t want to know.

“Maybe she thought we’d tell her she couldn’t have it,” my husband suggested.

“I don’t care if she uses it for a medical reason,” I said. I’ve always been pro-medical marijuana. “I just don’t want her using it illegally.”

The last thing I wanted was to get in legal trouble because she had illegal drugs in my house.

“I know. We’d just need to have rules, like our son can’t be in her room when she’s smoking it,” my husband said, and I agreed.

We discussed how to confront her, and my husband said he’d ask if she had a medical marijuana card. If she didn’t, he would ask her who had given her the pot.

I pondered over who in the world would have given it to her. She doesn’t go many places, though she does have people who come and give her rides since she doesn’t drive. Perhaps one of those people had given it to her?

She also has a habit of walking to the store, and then asking random people to give her a ride home. She’d done that just a few days before this happened. A “nice old lady” had driven her home.

My mother-in-law constantly talks about her chronic pain, so I could see someone with drugs on hand telling her they had something that could help with the pain.

So, my husband went to confront his mother. Instantly, she became defensive. She said she didn’t smoke pot and didn’t know what we’re talking about.

My husband and I decided to snoop, both believing she was trying to hide something. Our noses surely weren’t deceiving us.

“Maybe it’s my hairspray!” she suggested, so we went into her bathroom. The scent came from her bedroom, not her bathroom.

That was when we discovered two bowls of uneaten soup on top of her dresser near the bathroom door. I took a whiff and nearly vomited. I’d never smelled such a horrendous stench.

We discovered that my mother-in-law was telling the truth: she wasn’t smoking weed.

Her secret stash was, in fact, three-day-old rotten soup.

The thing is, we were so sure it was pot. Anyone from law enforcement would have brought in their drug-sniffing dogs had they entered her bedroom that day.

We took the bowls upstairs, and the scent lingered for two days.