94 thoughts on “October 18, 2011: Fuming”

  1. My father and I had a dust-up with my sister's husband a couple months ago. We'd been very polite and forgiving for more than ten years to a guy whose head is intimately acquainted with his colon, but my dad finally blew his top at him. I managed to keep my dad from beating the crap out of him, and then I kept myself from beating the crap out of him, but it's been even more uncomfortable being around him than it was before this happened. It was overdue and needed to be done, but my brother-in-law is never going to admit he was wrong and that he needs to change, so ultimately it accomplished nothing. I hope your situation turns out better.

    2. My in-laws have this habit of trying to tell me how to be a dad. It's stupid stuff, like what exact time they should be eating, how much of a punishment each thing should warrant...all the little things. Finally, I got sick of listening to that nonsense.

      1. Man, I'm slow. I so thought you actually went rowing with an in-law. And you know, it's so hot in Phoenix, that you're still cooling down.

      2. Patton Oswalt has a bit about his parents doing this with how he raises his child on his new stand up album, and it made me clench my teeth. J & I are not having children, but in my head I could imagine my mother doing this and that alone drove me crazy. People seem to spend far too much time telling other people how to raise their family. That's always bothered me.

        1. J & I are not having children

          That will be enough of a crime to where you'll get advice, or at least a great deal of "concerned interest". Linds and I have been married for 4 years now, the constant "so... were you guys thinking sometime soon...?" talk is about ready to drive me insane.

          1. You can always have your wife start crying and say she's incapable of having children thing. That makes people feel sufficiently dick-ish enough, usually.

            2. We've certainly thought about it... I suppose that would make for awkwardness when we finally do have kids, but the whole "you two have had your fun, now start reproducing" thing is getting to both of us.

              1. We waited 7 years to have a kid...hearing the comments got old and then it disappeared entirely. They just got bored I think.

                1. dido on the seven, although the last two weren't by conscious choice.

                  My grandmother got tired of waiting and made a quilt in expectation (she made a quilt for each great-grandchild). Granted, she was 88 when we got married, so she probably figured she didn't have a lot of slack left.

          2. Yeah, we've already gotten some of this. I know for sure we've been told our choice to not have children is "selfish" which bothers me quite a bit. The things we want to do in life aren't terribly compatible with children. For people who would see the kids occasionally, at most, to say it's selfish of us to not have children for their benefit is fairly frustrating.

            As far as cheaptoy's suggestion, I actually am incapable of having children. This is my new strategy. The people who make these comments don't need to know why I am incapable. If we ever changed our minds, we would adopt, so they'd be never the wiser.

          3. Linds and I have been married for 4 years now, the constant "so... were you guys thinking sometime soon...?" talk is about ready to drive me insane.

            I know too many people who have had trouble conceiving to make a comment like that (for better or for worse.) If a couple that I know wants to volunteer information about whether or not they want to have children, I'm all ears, but otherwise it's not really my place to pry. Even if I suspect someone is pregnant now, I don't bring it up unless they say something.

            1. Even if I suspect someone is pregnant now, I don't bring it up unless they say something.

              well, that one is just asking for trouble.

        2. Mrs. Runner and I prefer to keep our advice to ourselves...and shake our heads/forehead slap after we've left. But there really is no one correct answer to anything regarding rearing kids. (I'm not with Strategery! 😉

      4. I'm too Swedish/Minnesotan...I pretty much smile and nod to whatever the comment or situation and then savage them when they're out of earshot. That being said (and I know I'm not breaking any new ground here) it can be helpful - though sometimes uncomfortable - to establish boundaries with parents and in-laws. Sometimes doing so takes an altercation or two.
        Regarding rearing children, lack of children, politics, religion, etc., all of these items have come up either between me and my in-laws or between my wife and my parents. Once we finally established what advice/comments we were looking for (or willing to accept) from our family, those "suggestions" finally settled down to only the occasional out-of-turn comment.

        Good luck with your in-laws spooky.

          2. I am a Italian from New York, but I'm pretty laid back. Usually.

            I was at a movie with the missus once and folks in our row were talking through the whole thing (redundent, I know). I leaned forward and looked down at them, fully intendeding to say "Hey, could you please keep it down over there?" but somehow it came out "Hey, why don't you all shut the f#ck up?"

            1. When I saw LOTR FOTR, the guy next to me kept explaining the story to the guy next to him BEFORE those things had happened. I elbowed him hard and said something similar. After the movie, the lights came up, and my friend laughed and pointed out the dude I elbowed. He was about 15. Oops.

            2. I just did the same thing at a performance of Art Miller's All My Sons. I went for polite, but ended up going with intimidating. I'm pretty sure one of the actors heard me chastising the lady, but the show went on.

              1. The actor was firmly in your corner.

                I saw Laurence Fishburne in a show on Broadway. A cell phone in the audience went off. The culprit wouldn't answer. The actors froze and Fishburne stepped downstage and said "i don't care how embarrassing it is - whoever you are, turn the fucking thing off."

              2. It's one situation where my pseudo-NY accent gets turned up to 11. It was more like, "'ay, whyuncha all suddafuckup down 'ere?" I don't even know where it comes from, but it was intimidating enough that I did not get my ass kicked.

                1. I'm a fairly large dude, but my friend evan puts me to shame. He's large. Full of tattoos. Huge, imposing earrings. Soft as a teddy bear, except when people talk during movies, plays, etc. Over labor day we saw The Guard (excellent flick, btw) and some dude sitting next to evan talked for the first 30 minutes. Evan turned his whole, hulking body into the guy's view and told him that he needed to shut up or die, "I don't care which one, just pick it now...."

                  Dude didn't make sound. Afterword, dude tried to apologize, and when he saw the tat's and earrings he just said, "okay, we cool? Really.... we cool?"

      5. I've been real lucky as far as extended family goes. It may have a lot to do with separation (Hers are in Washington, mine in Minnesota), but I can't remember a time when either set of parents tried to tell us how to live our life or raise our kids and yet they have always been there whenever we needed help, whether to lend us money in an emergency, help us move, lend us a vehicle, help with minor house repairs, etc. It helps that my wife and I are so much alike, which means our parents are a lot alike (same religion, politics, race, etc.). It also probably helped we waited six years to have kids, so they're just happy to get grandchildren. Also, both of us are considered the "good" ones in the family. My wife's older sister is unmarried, and my sister and brother have both been divorced while we've been married over 16 years.

        1. We have an interesting problem wherein her parents relentlessly attempt to interfere, and mine never do. The Milkmaid apologizes, but it's not her fault.

      6. It's still a ways away but I already know how much of a pain in the ass that problem will be. Sheenie is still treated like a 4 year-old by her mother, and we never do anything right. After having been told for the last seven years how much we're screwing up the lives of our dogs by someone who has never had one, I cannot even imagine how much we're going to screw up the life of our hypothetical children.

        Usually after two days, I have no tongue left to bite.

        1. so, your MiL really IS jewish!

          *to my MiL, in case she's reading, I kid! (in my case, it's my parents who are the more obviously judgmental)

        2. we've been lucky so far, and i'm optimistic that things will stay that way (though we have 3 sets of parents to contend with), though it's still early in the game. at the very least, we've got some distance on all of them (but 3 less sets of babysitters as well).

    3. My fear is that my little sister winds up marrying exactly the same kind of guy, assuming she and her fiance keep it together (they've already called off the wedding once or twice). He can be perfectly sweet at times, but the clutch between his mouth and his brain burned out about a decade ago and this too frequently causes pretty big waves. I've already thrown down with him once.

      1. I have a brother-in-law like this. He's a nice guy, but a bit loud and smart enough to know that what he says and does gets a rise out of people...I'm nearly certain that he does it on purpose. I agree with a lot of what he says, just not how he says it.

        I hope this next part doesn't cross the line, but better safe than sorry. It's nothing inspired so you won't miss anything if you don't read it...

        Spoiler SelectShow

        It has made for some interesting family functions...including the Christmas where he and a former brother-in-law went at it.

        1. smart enough to know that what he says and does gets a rise out of people

          This, exactly. I grew out of that sometime between high school and the end of college. It really irritates me that someone in their thirties (with children!) doesn't understand that other people aren't always going to agree with you, and that doesn't mean that the other people are wrong.

        2. It has made for some interesting family functions..
          Mebbe try out Festivus with him - Feats of Strength!!

    4. I'm not going to tell you what to do, since I don't know the situation. If there's a way you can smooth things over, though, it's often best to do that. Something that has always stuck with me from the book "Ball Four" is Jim Bouton quoting someone (I think it's Mike Marshall) as saying something like "It's usually best to apologize, even if you don't mean it." And the truth is that, even if we're convinced we're right, we can usually find something in our behavior that was not as good as it should have been, and which we can honestly apologize for.

      Hope that doesn't come off as judgmental or anything, because it's not intended to be. It's just some friendly advice, which you can take or leave as you wish.

      2. I generally would follow this advice with one caveat: if the other party is not one to graciously accept apologies, then be really careful about that which you apologize.

        I have experience in this area, believe me.

        1. That's very true. It's "usually" best, but not always. As with many things, it depends on the situation.

      3. I actually already apologized for my part of the situation (had to leave a message). I took out years of pent-up rage. He deserved to get something, but not as much as he got.

        1. Just curious, are you paying rent to live in his house? I'm not suggesting that he's right to be criticizing your parenting skills, but, you are the visiting team. You might need to get your own stadium to avoid the heckling.

          2. We are. I was given the impression that this was a duplex-style place, but I think now that this was just a tactic to get the kids here. We barely have our own space but we sacrificed so much to get out here that we're in no position to do anything about it at present.

  2. Apologies to all for skipping First Monday this month. Things just kind of piled up. But here is an interesting strategy for selling books. Just announce and retract award nominations!

      1. Derrida and the other poststructuralists were virtuosos of doubt, tunnelling underneath all forms of ideological certitude

        Thanks for the link, DG. This sums up my graduate school experience pretty nicely.

      1. It's interesting in that his constant meddling with pitching changes (in all appearances) seems to be working this postseason, so people are giving that a waiver. I don't think people care greatly whether he comes back next year or not; it sounds like he is though.

        I don't think so much anyone had been calling for his head here really, it's just a matter of the shine is off the rose and if he goes away, the team can live without him.

    1. Actually, the old site is where I learned to do this...though I do still occasionally slip.

    3. While I generally agree, without the "we" in "team", sports teams are all relegated to the Florida Marlins amateur club status. There just wouldn't be the kind of money there is in pro (and college) sports without a lot of "we"s.

      I mean, would you pay good money to go see a bad play or movie over and over and over again (and buy their merchandising, thus PAYING for the privilege of advertising for the club)? Yet millions of sports fans do exactly that.

      2. While I own a few garments that advertise for the home team, none them were purchased by me, or at least I didn't make the purchasing decision. If the product isn't entertaining, I turn it off. I don't attend many games. I'm a fan, but I'm definitely not part of the "we".

        I guess I'm just an old stick in the mud.

        1. fanaticism is a young man's game, for the most part. Soon enough you will have your chance to be an annoying soccer parent.

      3. Not to mention all of the public subsidies that go towards a team. Fans are constantly threatened that teams will leave if they don't get public money to finance a new stadium, whether it is through the front door (explicit taxes which go to the team) or the back door (tax breaks for building the stadium), and here we are told that the team would exist with or without us? But someone who buys a fake "share" in the Packers can use the third person plural? Truly all is right with the world when these are the hairs we choose to split.

    4. I generally agree with this sentiment, but what the author is missing is are several psychological studies suggesting neural-physiological connections between what we see on the field and our perception that we participated in the action. These connections can, and often do, form deep and lasting relationships between spectators creating a sense that 'we' accomplished something.

      The discussion from a few days ago about 'make some noise' style audience prompts fits nicely here also. The more that audience members are told that they can have a positively affect the outcome of games the more the notion of 'we' is reinforced.

    5. I get the idea that fans aren't actually part of the team and that they are technically using the wrong pronoun, but anyone who I've seen complain about this at length has come off like a jerk to me. Here we have someone who is counting on devoted sports fans reading his writing, and he's complaining about fans being too personally invested in their team? That's awfully close to biting the hand that feeds you.

      1. Yeah, his tone amused me. If a writer's going to treat something that meaningless as being that important, nobody will buy it when he actually feels strongly about something.

        Of course, I guess there's a chance he does feel strongly about this, which is a bit sad.

        1. Bloggers know that they just need to get a reaction, whether positive or negative, and I'm sure a topic like this does just the trick no matter what side you stand on.

    1. I definitely wouldn't count on a sweep against STL's offense. Yeah, the Rangers have the edge on the mound, but small sample size and all that.

    1. Ha! I haven't picked up any of this year's Update set yet, but I think he's right on the nose. I could tell "right off the bat" that it wasn't Plouffe!, but would have had to dig to come up with Butera. Plouffe!'s hair is pretty easy to spot when wearing a cap; not so much with a helmet, but still, come on Topps!

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