My Brother's Wife Could Talk The Ear Off A Concrete Elephant

The BBQ Pit
1

So I went up to Colorado, to see my parents’ new house, for Thanksgiving. My parents have sold their house in New Mexico (closing on 12/3) and are moving up there. This has been the busiest semester of my life, so I haven’t had a chance to see anyone in my family since August. And when I arrive, it starts. So, if I may rant for a moment:

I just woke up and spent 11 hours in a car so that I could see my family. Yes, you’re a part of it, but JESUS! Did you have to bring the whole brood over on the first night, along with every baby supply under the sun, and stay for the ENTIRE FUCKING WEEKEND? I didn’t drive 11 hours so that I could be handed a baby first thing and be expected to ooh and ahh over every vacant observation you make.

Speaking of which, do you EVER have a thought that doesn’t come dribbling out of your fucking mouth? News flash: we do NOT need a running commentary on your life. And you even keep talking when no one’s listening! You fucking talk to yourself when you’re alone! That’s beyond sad, beyond pathetic. But I’m too goddamn tired to argue with you about it, so I’ll just ignore you as best I can.

And you know, if you used whatever passes for your brain, you’d realize that everything you say is fucking useless in the first place. I make the mistake of telling you I’m seeing someone new, and you grill me about it all weekend. But you ask the DUMBEST fucking questions. “How old are her parents?”?!? What, you think I asked to see their fucking birth certificates or something? Rev up that one-cylinder mind and follow me: not that the ages of her parents even matter, but, she’s about my age, so (DUH!) maybe her parents are about the same age as mine! I’d ask you to mull over that brain-teaser for a while, but it would just come tumbling out of your piehole in the form of another question.

Do you know why my parents are moving to Colorado, near where you live? Yes, they want to be near the grandkids and see more of them, but there’s another reason: you are a fucking trial. They can’t take any more weekend-long visits from you, so they decided that living nearby meant they’d only have to put up with you for a few hours at a time. Ah, but that wouldn’t occur to you, obviously, since you came over Wednesday night and didn’t leave until Saturday night, just before I left. I’m completely fucking exhausted from putting up with your endless stream of shit. I should have just stayed in Texas, I would have at least had a chance to relax.

You know, my parents and my brother might have appreciated spending time with me too, but you had to monopolize all my time, be the center of fucking attention every waking moment. My brother chose to marry a bubble-headed trophy wife, and he’s got to live with it, but christ on a cream cracker, leave me alone once in a while, go occupy yourself with the petty shit you think is important and keep up appearances. I’ve had enough. Next time I go to Colorado, I’m going to lowball. If I plan to be there on the 16th, I’ll tell you I’ll be there on the 20th. Then maybe I’ll have some fucking peace.

2

Wow - if she weren’t single, I’d swear you were talking about someone I know that I just spent most of the weekend with.

In her case, we’ve discovered that the reason for her diarrhea of the mouth is simple - she cannot think without speaking at the same time. I’m glad breathing is autonomic, otherwise she’d suffocate when she fell asleep. Yabble, yabble, yabble - she makes me look like I’ve taken a vow of silence.

It’s not enough to talk about something - it needs to be talked about, and then every single possible physical permutation of the potential ramifications of that something need to be fully address (and, of course, the possible outcomes of each of those as well) until you’re so bogged down in meaningless, trivial, hypothetical possibilities (and the exacting details thereof) that you fear making any kind of decision (if you even remember what the original decision was supposed to be).

And tangents - hoo, boy, she’s got a head full of them! What amazes me, though, is that we can talk about something, come to a resolution, go off on a tangent, go off on another tangent, keep talking for another half hour… and when there’s a silence for a moment when she takes a breath, she has to interject, “Yeah, so, that’s what I think about the original thing we were talking about a half hour ago,” and then launch into another set of tangents.

Woman - SHUT THE FUCK UP!

And let’s not even talk about her inability to be anywhere on time, her reality filter that shuts out any possible bad thing (including the relationship that she moved halfway across the state to end), her committing to do about four thousand things in the same day (and following through on none of them), her inability to make a decision, her sticking her nose in where it isn’t wanted, her trying to take charge of every situation she walks into, and, of course, the ever-present aforementioned inability to shut her streaming pie-hole!

And the sad thing is, it all stems from one thing - she just wants to be liked. By everyone. At all times.

We, her friends who can no longer tolerate her self-defeating behavior, have decided there shall be consequences for her actions. If she’s not ready to go when we say we’re going, we’re leaving without her (even if it means leaving her stranded somewhere). If she doesn’t meet a deadline, she’s no longer responsible for it. And I, personally, am going to start interrupting her when she continues to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

(Actually, I’m just stressed because I had to deal with her in rare form all weekend. Truth of the matter is, I really do like her, but whenever she has to be responsible for something, no one can stand her. But if you want to sit around and shoot the shit intelligently with someone, she’s quite fun. You just can’t depend on her for anything.)

Esprix

3

Ugh. I have an aunt like this. I dread getting stuck in a one-on-one situation with her because she’ll just talk…and talk, and talk. And it’s not about mundane and pointless shit either!

That I could handle…but no, it’s always gotta be about your fucking health. In the 10+ years that you’ve been married to my uncle, I’ve heard it all. In the last 2 years it’s all about how poultry and other fucking food make pollyps and shit in your digestive tract, and how Dr. Chang(or some other shit), your “Food Doctor” has put you on a diet that consists of this or that, and free-range chicken only, or accupuncture, accupressure, you were sick last night, Oh my god, how sick were you?

You quit your job and career because you were “too sick” to fucking work…well, we all know it’s a load of horseshit. Once you even broke your ankle, and you laid there for like 12 hours until my Uncle got home.Once you got it casted, instead of laying on the couch downstairs(right next to the kitchen, BTW), you’d call my grandmother, or my uncle and have them come and get you a glass of water.

Well, fuck you, and your endless whines about your health and food stuffs and quack doctors who look at your blood under a microscope and magically discover that you’ll develop cataracts in the next 5 years, so take these herbs that the same doctor sells you until you die.

Bah!

Talk, talk, talk…and all because(I hate to sound repetitive here), my uncle decided to marry the bubbly trophy wife.

Sam

4

I pity you. I have a sister-in-law from New Jersey, who jabbers on and on in that atrocious accent about the most inane topics. One forgettable family function, we were all treated to her describing in minute detail the new Lenox Christmas china that she bought. “Well, I would use the Noritake dishes we got for our wedding, I mean that china is “nice”, but it’s not as “festive” as the Lenox pattern. It is soooo cool. It has green Christmas trees on it, with little red decorations on a white background. Well, really, it’s closer to ivory. I got eight pieces to begin with, but I’m planning on getting sixteen just in case one breaks. Oh, and of course, I had to get the matching oval platter. It had a wreath on it, not a Christmas tree. That was on sale for a hundred and forty, so I had to get it. I mean, it’s normally two hundred, so I couldn’t pass up that good deal! Douglas is going to kill me when the bill comes, but I figure that we’ll use it for years, and I’d like the table to look elegant when we entertain, so it’s worth it.”

I swear, I was this close to saying, “What do you suppose is more shallow? You or the new Christmas plate?”

5

Damn people! I never new that my sister was triplets!

6

I hate to reinforce an ugly stereotype, buuuuuut…

Oh yes, you did. And I’m sorry.

How do you think I feel? I’m the youngest of – count 'em – six girls. In one family. What the OP described fits at least four of 'em. I’m the “quiet, laid back” sister. (You’d laugh really hard if you knew me. The word, “hyper” is also used to describe me – but not in comparison to the rest of the clan.) Needless to say, I haven’t been home in ten years for a holiday, just so I can relax during my holidays and not have to burn several vacation days, spend hundreds of dollars, drive or fly for hours and hours, just to sit through days and days of Annoying Chick Babble – and be handed demonspawn fresh from the loins of the youngest unmarried, drug-addicted teenager in the family.

On another note, I once had a friend who was like this. Only she repeated this mindless drivel over and over. If you interrupted her, she’d keep talking right over you. If you stopped her and said, “you told me this already.” She’d say, “Oh.” And KEEP RIGHT ON telling you the same story she’d told you three times already. I finally quit hanging around her because I could not think of a nice, tactful way to ask her to shut the fuck up without hurting her feelings. She’s really nice, a great friend and fun to be around, but only for the first fifteen minutes. After the second round of the same stories, I would be ready to send her home. And if you give her a drink to relax her – she’d go into hyperdrive and talk even more.

Note: Not all women are like this. Some men are like this. Regardless of their gender – these people need to be muzzled.

7

This is known as the “Organ Recital.”

8

Actually I think Max Torque sounds like an 18 year old little asshole. Get over yourself and be glad that you are lucky enough to have living family that are there to annoy you.

Christ, its not like she used your tooth brush you to scrub her asshole you know.

9

Actually, I did that. Sorry Max! I’ll buy my own next time.

Zette

10

My sister-in-law, too, blathers on and on and on and on. It is an exhausting excercise just to be around her. Luckily, Thanksgiving and Xmas come but once a year and I can bear damn near anything for a day.

11

DING DING DING DING DING

We have a winner! I just spewed Diet Coke all over my monitor with that line! Thank you!
Phouchg
Lovable Rogue

12

It sounded to me like Max Torque was glad to see his family and would have liked to spend some time with, minus his sister-in-law’s blather. Then again, I must be a whiny asshole too, because I get annoyed when people yak onandonandon with no regard for the feelings of the other people trapped in the conversation.

13

Gotta agree with Ballybay here. I have an aunt who never shuts up–and worse, never shuts up about how much money she has. Someday, I would like to have a conversation with my uncle, who is nice, and who is my mother’s big brother–but that will never happen, because she doesn’t let him get a word in edgewise.

It is great to have family. It’s even better to get to converse with some of them once in a while.

14

I…I never knew us quiet people were so appreciated. I think I’m misting up here…You see, I talk when I have something to say. I listen the rest of the time, so that my contributions to conversation will be appropriate and thoughtful, and add something to the discussion. So, next time someone says to me, “You’re so QUIET.”, I’ll just think of this thread and smile.

15

I have, more than once, mused aloud on locking my dear grandmother and my sister’s mother-in-law (Jeanne) in a room together, just to see how long the oxygen lasts.

A couple of years ago I house sat for sis and bro-in-law while they went to Sturgis, and Jeanne stopped over. Just to see how things were going, you know. I was outside taking care of Kitty the Dog at the time, and as Jeanne and I were chatting, the phone rang. It was sis herself, and we started talking. As did Jeanne. Jeanne talked to the flowers. And my car. And the garage. And the garage door. And the oak tree. And the curtains one can see from outside. And …

Well. You get my drift.

Then there’s gramma. {Who, may I remind you, I love to death.)

No, thanks, gramma. I’m not hungry.
Yes, I’m sure, but thank you!
Yes, I know you had meatloaf for supper, but I’m not hungry.
Yes, I’m sure.
Thanks, gramma. I know where the bread is. If. I. Was. Hungry, I’m sure I could make myself one.
Oh, the Miracle Whip is in the fridge, you say? Why don’t you just leave it on the counter so I could get salmonella, die, and never ever again have to listen to you tell me that warming something up for me for supper is no big deal!!!

<ahem>

So anyhow. Yeah. The whole ‘see how long the oxygen lasts’ idea. I think it’s a good one.

16

I’m not sure why, but I’m really getting a lot of satisfaction (and yuks— you people are hilarious!) out of this thread.

I think it’s because my pet theory is that talkers /conversation dominators / people who are either super nosy or love to talk in excruciating detail about their own lives, are really control freaks / passive aggressive / some other really unhealthy thing that I don’t care to associate with.