Dear Queenie,
My wife’s mother talks all the time during any kind of performance. If we try to shut her up she claims she wasn’t talking, she was commenting on the performance.
We have tried to explain that we are trying to hear the performance and when she is “making a comment” she is talking, and ask her to save her comments for after it’s over, but she just gets mad at us and won’t stop talking.
Queenie, can you think of a way we can shut her up?—Disgusted son-in-law
Dear Son-in-law,
Did you ever hear the saying “You cannot teach an old dog new tricks”? The same goes for your mother-in-law. Frankly, I am surprised no one else has ever asked her to shut up, especially if the performances you mention are public ones, as in a theatre.
Your choices are limited: Learn to put up with her chit-chat, do not take her with you to any kind of performance, or arrange to sit as far away from her as possible.
