Chris Herrington, Contributing Writer
Well, it’s time for the brutal truth. I don’t mean that I am going to tell the truth in a brutal way, but I do mean that my subject will be the brutal truth; the “brutal truth” is what I am going to talk about.
When people preface something they are about to say with, “To be perfectly honest….” I always wonder if they have been lying to me the whole time we’ve been talking and now they are going to begin speaking honestly.
There’s a similar thing going on in my mind when people tell me that they are going to tell me the brutal truth. I wonder, “Have they been soft-soaping this the whole time and now they are going to knock me upside my head with some devastating news about who my real parents were and that I had been living a lie with a family that took me in after the government put my biological parents into a witness protection program?”
I always wonder, I do that a lot, if in our relationships we mean to be mean or if after a while we simply give up on the niceties: “Put the toilet seat down when you get finished, You Moron!” There were all the lessons on raising the seat in the first place and now there is the antithesis, putting the seat back down when done.
This seems so important to women; I wonder if they really wanted a person who thought that it was important to think like a woman if they shouldn’t just marry women to begin with and save all of that arguing and maligning conversation. I use this example freely since my own wife says I do well on this point. I am sort of androgynous.
There are other points I am not so well-versed in, and these boundary disputes lead to epic battles based on, you guessed it, “the brutal truth.” I’ve known my girl for 42 years. We met when I was only 15. I’ll leave out the part where you can reverse engineer her age and get straight to the meat of the matter, my mouth. I’m tough as nails, play racquetball 8 hours a week, and have been a public educator for 33 years, retired as you know just of late. I say all this to remind myself that there is nothing in my make up that makes me especially weakened to the powers of a person who is half my size, but I have to give it to her: She packs a wallop.
Some people just seem to have a special power over us. They can get to us, get under our skin, wear down our defenses, or otherwise upend to us. She points to her dainty foot, squints her eyes, and says those magic words that can turn my 220 pound mass into a bowl of quivering Jell-O, “Don’t make me put my foot down.”
My friends have asked me what happens when she finally does put her foot down; I sincerely don’t know. I’ve never pushed it that far. I’ve seen glimpses. When she looks at me in that special way, I know all about the brutal truth. This is far beyond the usual devices like, “That’s fine.” Sheesh! Or the omni-directional, heat seeking, “I don’t care.” It sounds like a footnote from “Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson.” It reminds me of:
“And this is the simple truth – that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce.”
Soren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855)
I often find myself in this position: Rabbit has just left the stage in the first battle scene of the movie “8 Mile,” and his entire life is up in smoke. His friends are supportive, but they know that he has taken a major hit and may not ever get up again. Now, what to do? I was down for the count. Flowers, chocolates, dinner, a show, I had no idea, so I bought her a metal sign that reads, “Vampire Parking Only….violators will be bitten.” We were extras in the movie that is being filmed in town, Lansdale’s “Christmas with the Dead.” I was in no way saying that she was a blood sucker, so wipe that grin off of your face for thinking that I am in worse shape than ever. Is it too late to take it back? 1,440 minute rule, right?
Okay, so part of the problem is that I use allusions and anecdotes that do not conform to her experiences and interests. I’m working on that. I‘ve only known her for 42 years, and I am a man, so that should buy me some slack, right?
Okay, so let’s get on with it, the brutal truth. The brutal truth is that I am not particularly well-suited for domestic life. I get up early and start the day with a flurry of alternative choices. I say this because everything from the food I eat to the TV I watch and the books I read is an alternative to the choices she would make. In fact, we have so little in common it is a wonder that we ever met. We divorced and remarried after a 19 year separation, so that’s something we have in common. The brutal truth is that we are very different people, and I have no idea what she uses as a basis for making her decisions in life. She has hard and fast rules that apply to everything in the world; I don’t know where she stores the physical text of these rules, but the whole thing would not fit on a microchip a foot in diameter.
I have 3 rules: Number One….Don’t tell me my food looks awful. I cook my own food, and it stands to reason that it would look just like you wanted it to if you would cook it for me; this is the alternative to that thought; you can see how I have a habit of getting into deep trouble. Number Two…Don’t wake me up by trying to stand in front of me and poke or shake me. I am very reactive when first coming out of sleep, and I can’t be held accountable for my actions under these circumstances. Fair warning. She does well on this point, but there was a learning curve. Rule Number Three: When I am hungry, it is too late to ask questions that require an immediate answer. I have low blood sugar and by the time I feel hungry I have already reached critical mass. These are things my friends all know about me, and they pay strict attention. One of my best friends said about my hunger, “I know how you get.”
If anyone attempts to control, lengthen, manipulate, or vex the time periods having to do with my eating, they earn what they get. That being said, I try to travel with food as often as possible, and I try my hardest to be a solid citizen. I am human, and I often run into trouble about my habits, actions, mouth, and my intentions. My apologizing for who I am often gets in the way of my accomplishing other things, so I have choose my battles wisely, which is problematic in and of itself. Thank you Lady Gaga and Jenna Marbles.
All this being said, I have no excuses, and I am not trying to get out of anything. I will talk about anything, anytime, anywhere, except when I am hungry. Unless you just need to stand clear of your own boredom, and then come ahead. “Zombie Parking Only……”
runningturtle87
Having completed 33 years of public school service, Chris Herrington lives, with his wife, in Appleby, Texas, and his writing consists of blogging and essay writing concerning an array of topics including education, mediation, self-development, and human interests.
Chris Herrington can be reached at herrington@everythingnac.com
