Feeling Like a Winner

MY CAT SITS NEXT to her food dish, telling me with body language that she wants yet another serving. Noting that she's already consumed enough calories to sustain a cat house for a week, and that she needs to lose a bit of weight, I pat her sweet head, and rub her belly. NO more breakfast, however, until dinner time. Besides, when baby eats too much, baby pukes. But that only strengthens her manipulative behavior. I pick her up, put her on my lap, and start hugging and kissing. She jumps down, and returns to her food dish. The message is clear; no kitten sugars until baby has another serving of purina! How surprising! Or, how human-like. My position is that there will be no more kitten chow until its healthy to do so, so we might as well have a little sugar. Mutual manipulation, a mutual attempt to impose wills. And so it goes in the animal kingdom. Now here come the people. My incredible and elderly mother gets on the phone with me, says hello, I say hello, and off she goes, into a monologue the likes of which makes Ted Cruz look like a sound byte. She, who suffers from chronic respiratory congestion, can talk for ten minutes without taking a breath. The listener could put the phone down, grab a quick shower, run out and get something to eat at a drive thru, and get back in time to resume listening, without missing a beat. To her the importance is not in what is being said, but what relationship is being built, and who's doing the talking. The lady likes control. I oughta know; when I was two years old I never experienced the "terrible twos". If I had, I wouldn't be here to talk about it. With regard to wanting to be in control, my cat and my mother are members of a large club whose membership includes at least two hundred and fifty million Americans, and who knows how many folks in Russia, China, and India? It is rumored that people in those other countries are more humble, and less inclined to be assertive. Sounds plausible. To control one's environemnt in order to enhance one's survival chances is as humanly natural as subordinating one's self to one's mother or one's cat. All humans are born (genetically) similar. Then enter the cultural influences. The moslems I have met, especially the ladies with hidden faces, are passive and demure to a fault. Ditto the graduate students from India and Pakistan. I've only met three Russians and four Chinese people, but they all seemed considerably less aggressive and dominant than, oh, just about any American I have ever known. And may the dear lord bless us all for our cultural traits! While waiting for upper middle class ladies to ask their future dinner party guests to vote on the choice of entree dinner cuisine in advance, don't hold your breath. But, beware, when in America, do as the Americans do; never yield to anyone who is cutting in front of you. Just go right ahead as if the cutting in were a mirage, and if you have a head on or a rear ender, at least you didn't allow the bastard to control you for even an instant, and you went home feeling like the winner.