CINCINNATI—After firmly telling them that she was okay paying city prices and that she would not move back to her hometown just because it was cheaper, local woman Ellen Wallace, 40, confirmed Thursday that winning an argument with her parents has become much less satisfying as they have gotten older. “We used to get into these half-hour-long ordeals where we’d both get pretty worked up, but now they seem to run out of energy pretty quickly and just stop talking if I go on for more than a few minutes,” said Wallace, who explained that she used to relish those times when she could get her parents to give some ground on a disagreement, but that their advancing age had left them unwilling, or unable, to put up much more than a meager challenge that she could easily shout down. “They gave me a little pushback just now when I insisted that living in the city was better than living in the suburbs, but then they were quiet the rest of the time and finally just said ‘Well, you’re an adult’ when I was done. There’s no pleasure in winning like that.” At press time, Wallace’s assertion that she was still single out of choice had been met with the unsatisfying response “I guess only you know what’s best for you.”

Advertisement