That would mean speaking a language he understands. Being civil and taking the high road allows him to bulldoze right in. Visibly dismissing him as any kind of serious contender removes his fangs.
She should just be unfailingly chipper, start calling him "old man" all the time, and framing everything around his insecurities.
"How they danglin' Old Man?"
"Let the women speak, Gramps."
"This country's too big for those tiny hands, Old Man."
"Step aside and go yell at a cloud."
"Shouldn't you be lying about your golf scores somewhere?"
That's always his plan of attack, so you KNOW it works on him. Mockery and dismissal will have him weeping with frustrated confusion. We've already seen the best he's got is "No, YOU are."
I have random stupid hangups and for who knows why profanity is one of them. I'm fine with it. I barely notice when others use it. But I just can't. It doesn't sound right in my context or in my voice.
Of course I hate my own voice with a fiery passion, but that's another hangup.
It's been around for a while. Over a decade ago Target ran a cheeky back to school advert featuring a slow pan across school cubbies with lunch pails all labelled with variant spellings of "Braiden". I thought it was hilarious.
Little Kitty Big City. It's cute & charming, a little glitchy here and there, and makes me smile. I'm not trying to speed run the thing, just collecting hats and trying to hit all the goals.
It's a short series (six episodes so far) but with two more in production:
The Devil's Hour.
Go in blind, don't spoil it for yourself.
If you like a series that gives you all the clues but none of them fall together until the last episode, this one is dark, brain-bendy supernatural mystery with an excellent cast.
Listening to other people, especially to women, is a skill. Don't spend silent time in a conversation waiting for your chance to speak or be smart or witty, stay quiet and really process what you're hearing. Imagine yourself in their situation. Accept that what they say is exactly how they feel.
The less time you spend talking, the more your conversational partner will tell you, and the more you will start to understand them, their lives, their goals, and their anxieties.
Knowing and understanding other peoples' experiences will help you not only make better decisions in your own life, but understand why other people act and think the way they do. You'll be less likely to snap-judge or make assumptions about others. And knowing more about your loved ones, co-workers, and neighbours will allow you to help them effectively if they need it.
And travel abroad as much as possible - listen to people from other countries and cultures. The human experience is wildly varied and endlessly fascinating.
Exactly - I started noticing prideful ignorance in the early 2010s. People around me made bad choices and would not be corrected. Their ignorance was just as valid as someone else's actual knowledge. That's when, strengthened by their own baseless pride, their shame disappeared. I'm not saying shame is good, but when it's the only thing keeping the deplorables in check, maybe a little of it helps.
It used to be that I'm general, horrible people realised they were horrible and at least went through the motions of being decent. They were like cockroaches scurrying for the shadows when you turned on the light. Now they're like a cat peeing on your bed - they pause long enough to lock eyes with you, then continue peeing.
Speaking optimistically, at least now we know exactly who they are.
It's great being the one nobody suspects! A few people thought I might have done the baby thing but I was also "finding" babies in my work area and was decent enough faking confusion and offering up more plausible co-workers as suspects. I like your idea of getting creative with the hours sign!
I forgot - I also did a squished spider prank. I drew a "crushed" spider in a random spot on a sheet of copy paper - two sloppy body segments and broken stick legs in the general squished spider arrangement. I used just a black felt-tipped pen and even added a tiny drop of water to the body to bleed the ink and make it look juicy. Once it dried, I slipped the paper face-down in the paper feed tray (so the print would be on the spider side) under two clean sheets of paper.
When my supervisor printed a spreadsheet, there it was on page 3. Sadly, she didn't have a huge reaction to that one, but I was still proud of myself.
You can get a bag of hundreds of tiny plastic babies on Amazon. I got a couple hundred of them and hid them everywhere in our office over the weekend when nobody was there (including in my own office).
It's been a couple years, people are still finding them, and nobody knows where they came from. A few people blamed one of the HR ladies and a co-worker who's addicted to buying tchotchkes on Temu. Hopefully none of my co-workers are on Lemmy, because I hope to refresh the baby population soon.
At my previous job I tied strings to a couple packages' worth of Dove individual chocolates and hung them from the ceiling of a co-worker's office when she was on holiday. She is short and loves chocolate, so they were tantalisingly out of reach. She liked how they looked and kept them there for a while, but eventually started pulling them down as she had chocolate cravings.
If you like twitchy reflex killers, two oldies-but-goodies from Terry Cavanaugh: Super Hexagon and VVVVVV.
Fun chiptune soundtracks, minimal graphics, and so much "I died already? Okay just ONE MORE try and then I really need to get some work done. ARGH - okay maybe ONE MORE try...." And when you finally succeed the dopamine is second to none.
YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A MOUSE