Put In My Place

I was raised to believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion but this doesn't entitle them to be ugly about it. I've always kept this part of my raising in mind when stating my opinion about any matter of things that may come up in a conversation and just such a conversation occurred the other day that caused me to have to dig deep to take a firm hold of this advice to keep from becoming really ugly.

My husband has an uncle who's the type who'll take anything and turn it into an argument. He's been married about 4 or 5 times and the more I think about it, the more I realize the women probably left him in order to keep themselves out of prison for murder, because the man is an arrogant ass. Actually, he's an ignorant, arrogant ass, and he reminds me so much of my father and oftentimes, my husband.

An ignorant, arrogant, ass is someone who has an opinion about something and insists that their opinion is the only correct opinion that can be true about it. The ignorant adjective is used in order to describe their certainty that they know all the facts about the subject because they read it in a newspaper article once or on the NBC nightly news. (Modern day IAAs have often read one article from an internet site). I'm not saying that there is not much to be learned from such sources but the IAA mostly only uses ONE source in order to make their decision in a matter because they're more interested in having their say and having you agree with them than they are in the truth about anything.

Ok, now for the conversation.

While sitting in the kitchen waiting for time for the visiation for the uncle who is deceased, I was talking with an older lady, man, and my mother-in-law. We were mostly just making small talk but one of them mentioned something about the war in Iraq and how they sure hoped it wouldn't turn out to be another Viet Nam. IAA uncle, who hadn't been doing anything other than his usual staring into his coffee cup, suddenly jumped up from the table and shouted, "I was there! The Viet Nam war was what it was because of YOU people, YOU protested, YOU didn't let us finish the job over there, YOU are to blame for it!"

I almost started laughing at the man. It was such a shock to see someone actually behave like that in front of folks who weren't family, but I noticed how the older lady across the table from me kind of turned pale, over being shouted at like that, so I quickly changed the subject.

Then later on I screwed up and said I didn't like Bush and the man started shouting at me "for being so stupid, and women like me were the reason women shouldn't be allowed to vote!"

In a calm voice I told him that I thought he was in dire need of a brain transplant, and a padded room, then excused myself before he could launch another tirade, and went outside to sit in the swing with my sister-in-law.

Has anyone else had a dressing down from their neighborhood IAA lately?