LPTP Thread #3...at friendly Uncle Albert's!!!

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Oh boy...

My m-i-l and I were having a discussion one time about another family member that was doing something and she me told that "I can't understand the problem". I told her okay let's move on to another subject then. She got REALLY MAD at me because I wanted to change the subject, I told her what she said and that she had NOT said 'you don't understand', but that I "can't" understand the problem. I told her there was no use in me wasting my time on a topic of conversation if I "can't" understand it. She stomped off and I refused to ever discuss it with her again, making her even madder!

I build computers for people all the time, often transferring their old info to the new computers I either build or they buy. I built my m-i-l a pc at my f-i-l's request, it was working fine with no problems reported. My wife and I went for a visit and I found 4 sets of printer drivers for the same printer on the machine, I talked to my f-i-l about the solution and proceeded to delete them all and was getting ready to reinstall the right ones and she stomped in, said MOVE and tried to print and email. Of course I had not finished yet so no printer drivers were installed and it wouldn't print, she screamed at me, her husband, my wife and told me to NEVER touch her pc again!! I said okay and walked out of the room and went to my f-i-l and told him. He worked for IBM and was at alot of the shuttle launches representing IBM in case there were any problems, he knew mainframes not desktops, but still knew about printer drivers etc. After we left he went in and installed the printer drivers and we agreed that she would contact a local guy for ALL her future pc needs, which she still does to this day, 10 years later.

One day the wife and I were at my in-laws place fro the weekend, they live about 2.5 hours away from us, and my m-i-l was eating an English Muffin, she had peanut butter and jelly on the muffin and was putting salt on top of both. I asked her why the salt and she said "because I am low on salt today", I asked her how she knew she was low on salt, what it felt like, what her doctor had said about her salt intake etc, she uses ALOT of salt sometimes and other times uses none, and it's not like she forgets. I was trying to figure out what 'low on salt' felt like, like when one is having a heart attack people say it is like having an elephant sitting on your chest etc. She got super angry and refused to talk to me the rest of the weekend. She told my wife she felt like I was questioning her judgement or something instead of trying to learn something new. She is a homeopathic type person often using homemade or non prescription meds to solve her problems. While I do the old "better living thru chemistry" theory.

We rarely talk or see each other anymore, holidays only, and even then for a quick visit with the wife and I often staying at a local hotel for the night. My wife goes without me at other times and things are MUCH better between my m-i-l and I!! They always say 'you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, you can even pick your friends nose, but you CANNOT pick your family'!!

I got married last week! I have a lovely mother in law, she always has my back when Mr99 isn't behaving himself ;)