Parry That Thrust

Control:  To exercise influence over; to suggest or dictate the behavior of.

And here's another gem of wait-while-keeping-your-mouth-shut-isms . . . .

My cousin - who is a much nicer person than I am - and her husband have decided to visit my parents.  This is going to be a very nice thing - my cousin and my mother are very similar people so they're going to enjoy pawing over each and every last piece of detritus that's still crouching in my parents' house, oohing and aahing over each and every one.  They won't get anything accomplished as far as reducing the size of the pile, mind you, but my ma is thrilled that someone else loves her stuff as much as she does.  I've seen my cousin's garage and it looks a lot like my parents' basement - the two of them couldn't clean out a thimble with a fire hose.

So I get the word second-hand or third-hand, maybe tweeted to me by a migrating European swallow passing over my house, that my cousin wants to sleep at my parents' small apartment and also wants to save some money by using my parents' car.  I don't want to put words in someone else's mouth - or at least I want to do it in a way that seems like I'm not doing it so I don't get blamed for doing it - but my folks didn't want me to stay there and they didn't want me to use their car, and I'm their son, black sheep though I may be, but I'm still pretty sure what their stance about anyone else using their car is.  My ma actually threw up a polite defense, saying that they didn't have an extra bed anymore, but my cousin parried this thrust by saying that they'd sleep on the floor.  I could hear my father moan from 2500 miles away - my cousins are extreme extroverts and dad doesn't like being around anyone so this had the makings of a match in a fireworks factory.

And what should I do?  Tell my cousin to back off, politely, sticking my nose where it very well may not be wanted?  Call ma and ask her if I should intercede, almost certainly breaking one of her cardinal rules - speaketh thou not ill-will-ly of thine relatives?  I want to be an advocate for someone if I can but I also need to be careful that I'm not thrusting my nose directly into a parry of some sort.

And . . . the entire thing worked out just fine with absolutely NO interference on my part.  

Howabouthat?  The world didn't need me in control.