Heh. A good point. Though to unpack that a bit, it's "more polite" than the other options which might leap to mind, like yelling at the uncle, swearing at him, laying him out across the sideboard with a right cross, or throwing a pie in his face. It's "more polite" than joining the battle at the diningroom table to disrupt his discourse precisely so that he doesn't get to talk about what he wants to.
And I promise, if he was just getting to building up a head of steam on his favorite topic, about how those [redacted] are all [redacted], unless you are amazingly skillful about inventing attractive derails[*], he will be peevish that you changed the topic out from under him.
[* True story time: when I was an undergrad, I had a bio prof who loved to tell Linus Pauling stories. By the end of the term, many members of my class had figured out that if they just didn't feel like having a bio lecture at any given moment, all they had to do was ask a question that had anything to do with Linus Pauling, and that was it for the rest of the lecture. This was not great for my education (in biology - not so bad for psychology) but entertaining as hell.
If you can figure out what racist uncle Joe's Linus Pauling story vulnerability is, you're golden. Just remember absolutely anything, no matter how much of a non-sequitur, can follow the words, "That reminds me".]
And I promise, if he was just getting to building up a head of steam on his favorite topic, about how those [redacted] are all [redacted], unless you are amazingly skillful about inventing attractive derails[*], he will be peevish that you changed the topic out from under him.
[* True story time: when I was an undergrad, I had a bio prof who loved to tell Linus Pauling stories. By the end of the term, many members of my class had figured out that if they just didn't feel like having a bio lecture at any given moment, all they had to do was ask a question that had anything to do with Linus Pauling, and that was it for the rest of the lecture. This was not great for my education (in biology - not so bad for psychology) but entertaining as hell.
If you can figure out what racist uncle Joe's Linus Pauling story vulnerability is, you're golden. Just remember absolutely anything, no matter how much of a non-sequitur, can follow the words, "That reminds me".]
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