Before I start I'm from New Zealand where Covid is basically contained and we are not under any restrictions. I apologize to any other countries who are, my thoughts are with you :(
I am a lawyer who does comedy writing on the side. I've only been doing it about 2 years now. Part of the reason I got to do this is because of my Twitter, its how I booked a few writing gigs, but unfortunately that means a lot of my material is public. And so, my husband's mom steals my jokes.
I'll workshop a joke on Twitter or FB and the next thing I know, her name pops up on my feed using my joke in one of her FB groups. Or she'll rework it into a story about her cooking or something on her own wall. And when we see her in person, especially if there are other family around, she'll bust out a couple of my jokes, like she's been saving them up. None of these are "just showing off my DIL's jokes!" because I'm never credited and she reworks them, so it's not like she's simply repeating them. She outright steals them.
I've mentioned that it bothers me to my husband and while he sympathizes with my annoyance, says it's not really worth getting into a fight with her for. But I disagree. My problem is, I can't block her from my page because it's public, and she'd notice. So I have to have a talk with her...but I have no idea what to say. "Hey don't steal my jokes" seems weird and petulant. Is there another way I can have this talk with her? Christmas is coming, and since my husband and I just did a private ceremony this is the first time my family is meeting his family. So I know the joke theft will be rampant because of her large audience, and I'd like to have the talk before then so I don't explode.
TLDR; My mother in law steals my jokes; how do I talk to her about this?
Submitted December 22, 2020 at 11:44AM by 123LaffingMatter https://ift.tt/3peqrlC
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