I’d put some lawn chairs outside and make 'em sit out there. Nobody’s gonna endanger me, dagnabbit.
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Ha, yeah, me, too. Set up a tent and give them a bucket. “Thanks or coming, jerks!”
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I considered “Hey, welcome! I get that you don’t want to get vaccinated, and I respect that. I’ve sent the grandkids to go stay with my parents while you’re here. Cheers!”
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May I suggest finding the room in your budget to put them up in a local motel instead of your home? Sucks that you would have to foot the bill, but it’s better than sharing indoor space with them 24/7, and would send a message.
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Ah, I’ve read further. Can you leave all the windows open in your home the entire time they’re there, and always sit outside whenever possible?
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Interesting. I was going to go with “drink a lot of bourbon and scowl.” But your idea has merit.
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Haha, I wasn’t sure if you were game, but my very first thought was to ask if you had any edibles or a good supply of bourbon.
I feel like I’m just finally crawling out of my T and COVID-induced funk, and I can’t imagine dealing with such a visit without copious amounts of bourbon.
and bonus - bourbon goes well even in coffee!
Maybe if you think of collecting all the crazy-ass things the FiL says to share here it will make it slightly less painful to live through. Like an anthropologist…a slightly drunk and scowling anthropologist.
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I don’t know the details of your situation, but if you have (unvaccinated) children then you have every right to prioritize their health. In your shoes I would pack up the kids, get in a car, and simply not be home when the potential disease carriers arrived, and damn any consequences to family relationships. This might spoil a surprise for your wife, but so would a kid with long covid.
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Horrible, terrible, no good, very bad in-laws.
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@anon33932455 might find this of interest too…
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So this is less awful than some of the other recent actions such as the air strikes in refugee camps that killed many young children, but man, I really don’t see what the Israeli military and/or government thinks it has to gain by blowing up the local headquarters for several international news organizations.
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Controlling the narrative about the conflict, ultimately.
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Follow up:
It was as tense as expected. Until my visiting brother-in-law, who is a medical weed farmer in Montana, talked my FIL into eating two edibles. Much calmer since that became a thing. Flat FIL afterwards.
ETA: and I really, really appreciate all the expressions of support. Y’all the best.
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Trans and BAME people do not trust the police as it is, all this will do is cause a hidden group of untreated mentally ill people (including myself) scared to find help.
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Worked very well for the US in the invasion of Iraq. Kill local journalists, face absolutely no consequences for it, bring in your media to see some bullshit performance with a rent a crowd from out of town which, as they don’t know a fucking thing about where they are covering, they breathlessly “report”.
Because when the right/centre talk about freedom of speech they do not mean for Muslims.
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It remains to be seen if there’s any meaningful consequences besides a couple of angry news cycles (I wouldn’t hold my breath) but what makes this different is that it wasn’t just local journalists who were affected by this. The AP and Al Jazeera news organizations have huge reach beyond the immediate region and bad coverage from those groups could potentially sway world opinion against these actions, at least a little.
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Given that neither of those organizations are particularly pro Israel in their coverage, this will hardly cause them to shift their editorial stance.
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Wasn’t in Iraq either (US rocket attacks on Al Jazeera for example, along with years of targeted harassment of journalists). By local I meant people with real local knowledge. It’s important to get rid of journalists who can confidently call out your bullshit when you are going to pull some propaganda stunt. Often these organisations will hire locally too, but the main point is they are on the ground, speak the language, and know the players and what’s going on.
As I said the US got away scot free from that and has a reputation, to itself, as the home of press freedom. So does Israel and it will point proudly at its free media. They don’t point so enthusiastically at the suppressed media under their occupation which is brutally, sometimes fatally, censored.
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I would argue that the US reputation worldwide took a very serious hit from the whole Iraq war debacle, from which we still haven’t fully recovered. The US is large and powerful enough that some reputational damage doesn’t necessarily translate into serious economic harm (we’re so big that everyone pretty much has to trade with us) or put us at a huge physical risk (we don’t rely heavily on allies to protect ourselves from an outside attack.) I’m just not sure that’s true to the same extent for the nation of Israel. But time will tell.
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