I have been known to have cause to say to my wife Debra, “The cat is not a toy.” And she has been known to respond, “Yes it is!” while continuing to swing the cat’s forelegs as if they were the arms of a dancing puppet.
The point is, Debra and I have different ways of relating to cats. For me, it’s all about respecting the cat’s innate dignity. When Mary Beth, a gray-brown tabby with a long and elegant tail, comes to me for affection, I’ll generally stroke her head and back, scratch under her chin, and rub her belly if she asks me to. When she’s in Debra’s hands, I’m as likely as not to see Mary Beth’s ears being held back to make her look like a rodent, as she protests (in Debra’s imitation cat voice), “Dat’s not diggified!”
I must quickly say that none of this hurts Mary Beth, who is a very patient cat. Debra loves animals and would do nothing to cause them pain. She just feels that there’s no point in having cats in the house if you can’t have fun with them. I, on the other hand, am the sort of person who says “Excuse me” if I have to maneuver around a cat who’s in my way.
As you might expect, our contrasting ways of dealing with cats reflect our ways of interacting with the world. If a house is for sale in our neighborhood, Debra has no problem with touring the house even though she has no intention of buying it; I worry that I’d be wasting the real estate agent’s time under false pretenses. If we’re walking through a narrow residential alley in China, I’ll be careful to keep my eyes forward so as not to accidentally see into anyone’s window. Debra, while not actively peering through the glass, believes that whatever she happens to catch a glimpse of as we walk by is fair game.
For the most part, we’re tolerant of and accustomed to each other’s styles. I will cringe at some of Debra’s behavior, and she will roll her eyes at some of mine, but neither of us will start an argument about it. The only time I can remember Debra seriously objecting to my conduct was when we were racing through an airport to catch a soon-to-depart connecting flight, and I was repeatedly stopping to let people go by. Debra told me, in an unmistakable tone of anger and frustration, to stop doing that.
The surprising thing — and one of the reasons why our marriage has lasted as long as it has — is that our styles of behavior complement each other. Neither one is clearly superior; sometimes Debra’s way is effective, and sometimes mine is.
The first place we lived in together was the ground floor of a house whose upper story had been converted into an apartment. Our upstairs neighbors were a pair of young women whose favorite activity, at the end of a long work week, was to invite a pile of friends over, play loud music, and drink and dance. The thunder of footsteps above us was deafening, and I often found myself having to climb the stairs late at night to ask them to tone it down. As you might expect, that didn’t sit well with them, and our relationship deteriorated into simmering antagonism.
Finally, I had an inspiration. Debra and I had made plans to go away for a weekend, and so I told our neighbors, “We’re going out of town, so this would be a really great time to have a party.” They were pleasantly surprised to be told this, and sure enough, they had a no-holds-barred party while were away. This happened a few more times, and we were pleased to see that they gradually made more of an effort to be quieter on the nights when we were home.
One day, one of the women came to tell me that her roommate’s birthday was coming up, and that they really wanted to celebrate with a big blowout. Would we be willing to go away that weekend? That was a major thing to ask, and she knew it, but we so appreciated her sincerity that we said, “Yes, we’ll find someplace to go.” We went away, they had their party, and from that time on we became friends. This is my favorite example of how instead of meeting resistance with anger, it’s often more effective to meet resistance with niceness.
On the other hand, sometimes it isn’t. When I was having a wisdom tooth removed under sedation in an oral surgeon’s office, my blood pressure suddenly dropped to a life-threateningly low level. The surgeon had to abort the operation, and I was rushed by ambulance to the emergency room. Because it wasn’t clear why this had happened (and because having a wisdom tooth removed when you’re in your 60s is a much bigger deal than when you’re in your 20s), the surgeon was reluctant to attempt the procedure again. He suggested instead that I have it done under general anesthesia in a hospital setting, where they’d be prepared for anything that might go wrong.
We found an oral surgeon who had admitting privileges at a Kaiser hospital (Kaiser Permanente being our healthcare provider), and he tried to set a date for the operation. But to the surprise of all of us, Kaiser turned him down, saying that there was no medical reason to use an operating room for a wisdom tooth extraction. Debra (who, incidentally, was once a lawyer) appealed the decision, submitting affidavits from a variety of medical professionals saying that there was indeed a medical reason — namely, that I had almost died the first time. Still, Kaiser denied the appeal.
At this point, I was ready to back down. Maybe it really wasn’t medically necessary; maybe the blood-pressure drop was just a fluke and I should try again to have the procedure done in the oral surgeon’s office. Maybe I just shouldn’t have the wisdom tooth removed at all. But Debra would have none of it. She pursued this case with various Kaiser representatives, making herself into the world’s worst pain in the ass and refusing to leave them alone until they reversed their decision. They finally did, a full year later — and even then, they refused to concede that use of the operating room was medically necessary. They said that they were permitting it “as a courtesy,” meaning that they were doing it just so they no longer had to put up with Debra. So sometimes it doesn’t pay to be nice, and I’m happy to still be alive to admit it. After that, I can’t really complain when she does funny things to the cat.
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