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It's nice to call in-laws something more personal

One of my friends calls them Hiiii! and Hellllooo!

What do you call your in-laws? Ma-pa, Mom-Dad, Ammi-Appa, Ammi-Abu, Okaasan-Otoosan (if you're Japanese)? One of my friends calls them Hiiii! and Hellllooo!
They aren't her favourite people (ha! familiar?), so this all-year, all-purpose greeting suits her fine. Friend pinged yesterday, groaning about how she has to again meet the 'in'sufferables for dinner, helpfully putting the quotes 'in', lest I confuse these insufferables with other garden variety ones. She said she can't get over how they (husband's parents) never specifically invite her, and how they never ask her to book a place, always the husband. Just to mess with her, I took their side, saying I'm not sure I'd ask someone who calls me Hiiii! to book a table. I'm not sure I'd ask that person for anything, actually, much less especially invite to dinner. We exchanged some emojis and lols and that was it. (Got update later that dinner wasn't all the insufferable, surprise! surprise!).
I ask the 'what do you call your in-laws' questions to a lot of people - informal data collecting purposes. Amazing, the things people come up with. Another friend has been saying aunty to her mum-in-law (MIL) for a decade. Aunty doesn't mind, doesn't think it is impersonal/ distant/ etc. When I ask my friend, but you call even your neighbour aunty, surely there needs to be a distinction. She's not too concerned. What's in a name?
Someone else I know is lucky enough to call the mother of her spouse by her first name - "what's up, Sudha" kind of thing. I just gape, in semi-envy. The perks of marrying much later in life. Famous words: "I can't call someone barely 15 years older than me Mom, for god's sake!"
I remember, in school - tuition, actually - my Madhuri Dixit lookalike accounts tutor with her henna-ed hair used to answer her cellphone everyday in class with a discrete "haan ji, Ma ji," and then walk out to finish the chat. This Ma ji was mother of the guy who wasn't even yet the "fyoncee" (Punjabi for fiance), but Madhuri Dixit lookalike was wasting no time getting cosy. Years later, I heard the engagement got called off. Can't say what Ma ji's role was in that one.
Call me old school or regressive or whatever, but I think it's nice to call the in-laws something more personal. Unless of course, they're truly insufferable (but maybe even so?). Isn't it about keeping someone happy, and shifting focus away from your own self-consciousness, megalos that we are? My husband - sayer of 'uncle' and 'aunty' - used to get hell from me, for the double standard: I call his parents Ma and Dad because I asked them what they would like to be called and that's what they said. But hapless other half's face turns purple when his friends ask how, how! he's been allowed to get away with this, especially since some of then have been on this 'Ma-Baba' trip since even before they married their spouses. One guy jumped into it the morning of his engagement. "It was like a switch", he told me, "I didn't think so much".
And this still gets on my mother's nerves. She sent me a text last time husband and self were going to see them: 'looking forward to seeing you and my nephew'. Nicely played, I thought. Cause, you know, she's still "aunty".
- nivriti@khaleejtimes.com