STRANGER THAN FICTION: BREAK OUT THE PLEDGE, PA, THE FOLKS ARE COMIN'!

You never see mothers-in-law rushing around the house when their daughters-in-law are about to visit.

When you live in Florida, you never know if you have loving relatives and true friends who'd travel miles to visit or if you just know lots of people who like the beach.

The Other Half's mom and dad proved themselves to be in the first category. They stayed three nights last week and never laid eyes on the water.

The news that my in-laws are coming typically sends me into a state of panic. We're in our third year of marriage, and I'm not sure how long it takes to believe you've passed the mother-in-law test and have graduated to the full honor and respect that goes with sharing her last name.

Now that Mr. Half's folks are farming instead of building engines, they're slaves to the seasons. When a free few days spring up, they have to take off for a vacation right then.

Last Tuesday night, Mr. Half announced that his parents would be here Thursday. My calculations revealed that left one night -- a weeknight at that -- to get the apartment up to snuff. I went into what some scientists call the Pledge Frenzy. That's when you grab every cleaning supply in the house and run madly from room to room until the insanity subsides.

In furniture polish commercials, well-dressed women wearing strands of pearls and toothy grins are shown spraying dusty tabletops and wiping them clean. Why bother? Take a feather duster, spray the ends lightly, quickly run it over everything in the living room and you'll get about the same results.

Most importantly, you'll get the same lemon-fresh smell. And that smell lets your mother-in-law know you aren't allowing her son to live in a dusty pigsty with only the occasional asthma attack to break the monotony.

Another tip: A few vacuum marks on the carpet will work just as well as vacuuming the whole room. Now THAT'S something you won't read in Hints from Heloise.

Unfortunately, there's no way to fool your way out of cooking a great meal. Sure, I can keep Mr. Half and myself alive and relatively healthy, but The Frugal Gourmet isn't exactly beating down my door for new recipe ideas. With the folks in town, there was only one thing to do. I had to buy meat and tell Mr. Half's father that I've been craving his barbecue since I moved down here (the old Tom Sawyer, white-washing-the-fence concept. And it worked).

The visit went really well. My in-laws are obsessed with two activities that I can take or leave: watching auto races -- live and on television -- and shopping at open-air flea markets. And that's all they did during their entire stay.

The flea market was an experience. I'm not sure what makes people think that they can drag any common trash out of their basement, label it with a piece of masking tape and convince someone to purchase it.

But I did come home with some earrings, a red candy apple and a golf umbrella with only a very small hole. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Funny thing is, for all the panicking, our little two-bedroom apartment seemed a little emptier when my in-laws left Sunday morning. Even Romy and Bosco, their grandkittens, seemed a little depressed.

Lucky for us, the soybean harvest is coming up pretty soon, thus another break for my farming relatives and maybe another visit.

And this time, they're going to the beach, like it or not.

~Heidi Nieland is a former staff writer for the Southeast Missourian who currently resides in Pensacola, Fla.