Good Times, Bad Times

In the days of my youth, I was told what it means to be a man,
Now I’ve reached that age, I’ve tried to do all those things the best I can.
No matter how I try, I find my way into the same old jam.

-Led Zeppelin – Good Times Bad Times

One of the biggest challenges with using successful game in a LTR is that it offers the opportunity to embrace a false sense of security. The man is tempted to rest on yesterday’s laurels instead of acknowledging today’s challenges. The more successful yesterday’s laurel, the greater the temptation to avoid today’s challenge. One assumes that his lover is riding the same endorphin high, tempered by logic, that he is. Unfortunately, your lady’s endorphin surge often leads her in radically different, and less logical, directions than does yours.  Whereas you’re thinking, “Hey baby, isn’t it about time for you to make me a sandwich,” she’s thinking, “Now is the time to ask if I can waste some money on some extraneous item to be added to the museum of never used items (formerly known as the storage room) in the near future.”

Your divining rod may have just dominated the dojo, but your brain is about to lose the debate.

Here’s how it shook out for me this past weekend. I paid my dues. Penelope was a happy woman. A conversation over children’s patio furniture, specifically a little plastic picnic table, arose. This thing costs $30. Rather than reframe and steer the conversation into more fruitful territory, or just placate her and wait for another impulse to flit through her cranium, I dug in my heels and argued against this picnic table. It may only cost $30, but you cannot get to $100 or $1000 or $10000 without first crossing $30. “Fine! Our daughters just won’t go outside then since they won’t have a place to sit.”

At this point, there were myriad options. The field was dangerously level and poised to tilt. Nevertheless, a quick, “That’s my goal. I want the girls to spend all their time inside so they’ll be pasty and fat. That will save me from killing a plethora of teenage boys when the girls are older,” or something else, anything but what I did, could have tilted the field toward me.

Alas, I am not that smart. I engaged Penelope in the battle she wanted. When it comes to tendentiously related facts and circuitous logic, I am especially disadvantaged. Before I knew it I was arguing against the notion that the purchase of new tires for my car, those things that support a vehicle that conveys the family and which are showing some wear, are comparable to the purchase of a picnic table. Tires cost hundreds of dollars and the picnic table is only $30. What’s the big deal? Tires for me, picnic table for the girls. Everybody wins!

This tilt-a-whirl of illogic continued apace, I let my emotions gain control, spoke sharply and then went and talked to the dogs. The dogs thought I had done a good job in purchasing the peanut butter flavored treats, but that I had done a poor job in letting my emotions get the better of me. I had to concede they were right about the second point. As to the first point, I just took their word for it. I petted them for a while, thanked them for their always sage advice, and headed back to Penelope. When I found her, she had retired to the bed, but had just done so and was still awake.

I apologized. I didn’t apologize for my thoughts, but for my actions. Rather than being the rock, I had been a clod of clay. I didn’t articulate my apology thusly, I just said I’m sorry. I don’t have such a list of wrongs that I had to specify which one I was apologizing for. More important, the second I’d finished uttering those two words, I ripped off my pants and gave Penelope a proper apology. It was long, firm, and heartfelt. She graciously accepted it.