Dear Blake,
My sister is driving me and our other sister nuts. There are five years between the three of us. We are all seniors who live in the same city and have always been close. The oldest talks nonstop. It was always a family joke, but it’s gotten worse. Now she interrupts people to tell her story (after all, everything is all about her). A cousin we hadn’t seen in several years came to town, and we all had dinner. Not once did my sister ask, “Why are you in town, how are you doing, your family, etc.?” She just talked and talked about herself and her family. It’s no longer a joke; she is just plain rude. It’s getting difficult to be around her. How do we stop her outlandish behavior without hurting her feelings?
Signed, Agnes
From Green Bay, Wisconsin
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Dear Agnes,
It’s entirely possible that your oldest sister may believe that age brings wisdom. Yet she failed to realize that age also brings senility and stupidity. How should you deal with her? Well here are some of my ideas. When she’s around, you and your other sister should be wearing noise cancelling headphones hooked up to your iPods blasting some music, and tell your oldest sister that you only want to communicate through a text. And then delete them as quick as you receive them. Or you can tell her whenever she’s around, that everyone has to speak in sign language. After she learns how to do that, change it to a foreign language that you and your other sister have secretly learned. This idea may also work. When both sisters are present, have a rule that everyone has to speak in rotation for a maximum of one minute. And whoever follows your big sister, should begin by saying, “Well, that was boring”. But sometimes it is necessary to be really aggressive in dealing with problems, so my last suggestion is this. Tell “motor mouth” that she is driving everyone crazy, as you hold her down while your other sister staples her lips together. Your screaming sister my find that extremely painful, but it won’t hurt nearly as much removing the staples, by blasting them off with some left over firecrackers from the 4th of July. I hope this helps.
Blake