32-bit Siren posted:

The first time that I met my husband's family was fun.

I didn't get any sleep the night before, I was sick, and I got aggressively bad airplane ear during our flight's descent.

His dad was waiting for us when we got off the plane, and he tried making small talk with me, but I couldn't understand any of it. I kept struggling to explain to him that I couldn't hear him, but he and my guy kept right on talking. It was painfully awkward. Hours later, my ears hadn't popped yet. I'd had to cringe-grin and shrug my way through hour after hour of conversation, as my guts folded into origami. I felt like all of my insomnia-inducing fears about humiliating myself in front of the in-laws were coming to life, and I couldn't escape the situation.

To top it all off, my man, my sister-in-law, and the folks decided that after dinner was a great time to play a card game together. Again, I tried to explain that I couldn't hear worth a gentle caress, I was feeling sick, and was falling asleep on my feet. From what I could understand of what they were yelling at me, they all said that it would be fine, and that I should play.

I held it together for about ten or fifteen minutes. I was sweating, feeling like I was going to black out, I couldn't understand the game or anything they were saying, and my stomach was cramping. I excused myself, ran to the bathroom, and shat blood.

And, I cried.

My ears finally popped.

When my husband came downstairs to check on me, he said "Oh. We all thought you ran away because you were doing so bad at the game!"

I collapsed, and fell asleep. Had to spend several more days with them after making this sparkling entrance.
Fortunately, they all turned out to be legit cool people. We got along after that, but the memory of that trip still haunts me.