Out of pure personal observations (and not experiences) I hereby bring to you the MIL checklist. It could do one or more of the following for you:

• Remind you of your days as a bahu
• Prepare you for what you are in store for when you get married to your ‘boy’ (they never really become men, do they?)
• Relive what you are going through/have gone through/will go through with your MIL during her visits (more so if the visit tally is still in the single-digit range)

So off we go. Here’s what you need to check for before she’s due to make her presence felt (in every way possible):

1. Leftovers in the refrigerator – anything that i.) looks more than 3-days old ii.) smells like the boy’s sock iii.) has this weird, grayish-green thing on the surface (which is called ‘mould aka fungus’ btw) iv.) has changed its color – from one end of the colour spectrum to the other, or v.) has changed shape – more like withered away on the lines of ‘what was a grape, is now a raisin’ and v.) all of the above – then even your mom (who’s otherwise usually tolerant) is sure to freak out.
2. Near-expiry Noodles/sauces/soups/masalas/legumes - or any other stuff that’s sold with a pack date and a BBD (best before date) and looks more like a pictorial representation of the Mesozoic era
3. Noodles/sauces/soups/masalas/legumes packets – that were there in the same exact shape and place the last time she came over (even if the BBD is as far as your fiftieth birthday, which we women never have, btw)
4. Clothes of the boy – hanging behind doors, crawling out from under the bed, peeping out of discarded travel bags – they are THE boy’s clothes. Ignoring them means as much as ignoring him, which shows you are not responsible enough and are incapable of taking care of her delicate, dainty darling (and his progeny)
5. Dust/cobwebs around the house – even if you’ve just pest-controlled the whole place and this cheeky li’l spider decided to be obnoxious enough and disregard your attempts and decided to spin, you gotta pay for it babe! After all, being a working woman doesn’t mean you will let the house fall into a state of disarray, right? That’s IRRESPONSIBLE
6. Pieces of crockery/cutlery/dinnerware which are in odd-numbers – a clear sign that either careless you the careless maid (never the boy, mind you, naah) has broken them – means you were not vigilant enough with yourself or your maid (she shouldn’t be handling them in the first place!). Now dinner sets don’t come along everyday, do they?
7. Pieces of jewellery – DO NOT leave around anything that’s amber-ish (not your husband, NR).. I mean the colour. It could be precious/semi-precious/un-precious, but that’s going to induce your maid to turn dacoit overnight and start plundering your place. Also, as always, it’s a sign of arrogance and negligence (my son doesn’t strive and toil and make money for you to throw around now, does he?)
8. Containers without lids – now these could be containers you got from the take-away and conveniently forgot to dispose of them, but how can they not have a lid? What good are they without one and it is a sign of arrogance of the young generation who takes everything for granted and thinks everything can be wasted away coz we’ve got the moolah to buy all u see!
9. Pack sizes of all essential stuff – (from laundry to groceries to personal care) – size everything to suit your teeny-weeny two-people household (btw, for the record, I HATE, no, ABHOR, anyone using DINK – disgusting set of jealous, two-faced people! More on that separately). Did you buy that huge bar of soap or that large bag of Ariel? Now why would you do that – don’t you know your house-help will tend to overuse all this when she sees there’s so much at her disposal?
10. Anything that’s totally new and seemingly redundant (namely, that charming coffee table, the fancy flower vase, the cozy couch – whatever) – now why would you want to add stuff to your already splitting-at-the-seams house? Did you really need that? You should be holding on till you have babies (oh no! not that territory again!)… that’s when you’ll need to buy lots and lots of things.
    
    Before I rest my case, remember, that if:
    You’ve been married for over 12-24 months (depending on where your in-laws are on the ‘broad-mindedness’ meter (I know that’s a word loosely used here, but couldn’t think of a replacement)
    You or hubby are hovering around the ‘time-for-parenthood’ age (which in turn is defined basis the meter discussed above)
    One or both of your in-laws, thinks, that they won’t be around for long (touchy topic, that one)
    all points of discussion/debate or otherwise will lead to the ‘mere khandaan ka chiraag kab aayega’ (in true KSKBT style) juncture – from where the direction in which you head is entirely, succinctly put, your baby.