...because I am constantly employing the "complete silence" trick! They are a "colorful" bunch who treat arguing like a sport so it is hard to not be baited by them! Here are a few examples:
Mother in law: You know, I must have been a slave owner in a past life.
Me: COMPLETE SILENCE
MIL: Because now, I have the dish washer and the clothes washer and dryer to do all my work for me, I just tell them "wash!" and they do, it's like having machines that are slaves!
Me: COMPLETE SILENCE
MIL: But if I *did* have slaves I was a nice slave owner, one who would help the women have babies and teach them to read.
Me: COMPLETE SILENCE
My MIL also refers to Alzheimer's disease (which my grandmother in law was recently diagnosed with) as "Alt timer's disease," a neologism of "Old Timer's" and "Alzheimer's." I though that was cringe worthy enough, but no:
MIL: I hope that if the baby boomers all start getting ALT-TIMER-ISH that the politicians don't come in and trick them into voting for them! That's what I worry about, that we'll all be in homes being ALT-TIMER-ISH and they'll take advantage!
Me: COMPLETE SILENCE
I also have a cousin in law who has been drifting from career to career for over a decade and recently started studying chiropractic medicine. Unfortunately it sounds like the school is less than reputable, but we bite our tongues because she's already enrolled. But then she says stuff like this:
Cousin in law: At school we went to a lecture where they told us about a boy with Autism who was cured by chiropractic medicine!
Us: COMPLETE SILENCE
CIL: Because Autism is neurological, and chiropractors work on nerves in the spine that go to the brain, so it makes a lot of sense!
Us: COMPLETE SILENCE
Other baffling things that could only be responded to properly with silence: a cousin revealing that his father forbade them to watch Star Wars growing up because it would "convert them to New Age religion" - this same cousin ended up having a Star Wars wedding! Or an aunt telling me that "high fructose corn syrup is what made America fat" so they were cutting it out of their diets - mind you, not watching portions or exercising, just cutting out HFCS - is it any wonder that a year later they are still just as overweight?
I am seeing all of them this weekend for the 4th of July so I'm sure I'll have more gems to share

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