Dear Blake,
My mother-in-law is contemplating a move to the small Southern town my husband and I have called home for more than 10 years. She’s a vibrant, well-to-do Southern lady with many friends and family in the big city where she has lived her entire life. The problem is, I really don’t want her to live near us. We have five children whom she constantly tries to tell me how to raise. I don’t know why she wants to make this drastic move because she ridiculed us when we relocated. For that matter, she ridicules us about everything we do. We visit her often, and she visits us. This arrangement has worked for many years. How can I tell her we would prefer she stay in the big city without hurting her feelings?
Signed, Amanda
From Barnwell, South Carolina
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Dear Amanda,
If things are currently the best way to keep things peaceful, then I understand your position. So I will give you some suggestions that may deter her desire to relocate because it’s very unfortunate that nosy arrogant old bats often don’t have a clue on how irritating they are. For starters, considering she ridiculed you and her son for relocating, ask her if she plans on continuing her hypocrisy, so you can decide if you want to take any self-defense classes to learn how to take down a verbal assailant. Or, give her a list of subjects she has to avoid when she’s in your household and give her the maximum amount of words she can speak after she enters your home. If she violates any of those, throw her through the nearest glass window, hand her the bill to get it repaired, and then call the police accusing her of vandalism. You can even create some bogus news articles from your local newspaper, that your town has a high concentration of serial killers and they prey “exclusively” on new residents. But if she decides to move their anyway, this final suggestion might work. Tell her there has been a mysterious animal in your town that has been attacking people while they sleep. If you can give her a sedative that causes her to sleep deeply, sneak into her home when she snoozing, and then give your mother-in-law a reasonable amount of punches and scratches. If she believes that the animal attacked her when she was sleep and she becomes terrified, that’s a good thing. If she believes you did it, but she knows she can’t prove it, that’s even better. I hope this helps.
Blake