Real Joe

Today’s Arlo ‘n Janis is on the familiar theme of husbands not listening to their wives.

I get particularly deaf during the holidays and this week even my daughter said to my wife, “Dad doesn’t listen.”

I’m generally okay when the subject and tone are serious. But when it involves instructions or Uncategorized descriptions or upcoming appointments or most any kind of social chatter and the setting is mundane — house or car — then I’m bad, amazing even myself. My wife’s pretty tolerant, unless I’m running a deficit in our emotional bank account. Then she gets offended.

I’m thinking there’s a simple two-person solution to this for a happily-married couple like us, but I’m stuck on what it might be.

Ron describes a road rage incident between himself on a Harley and a guy in a pickup truck, thirty years ago.

I risked my life to make a point? Ego? Whose? Not mine.

Sure it was. You and your buddy were more than just threatened by the asshole. He was trying to intimidate with his truck, his unconscious brain thinking something like: “Here are some tough-looking fuckers on their motorcycles. If I can freak them out with my truck, then that means I’m tougher than them.”

Nobody likes being intimidated or having our lives endangered but if our ego is additionally threatened — our image of ourselves as guys — then we think we have to take additional action to save face, even if it means taking a risk that could hurt us.

If that was a little old lady who endangered you and your buddy because her eyesight was failing and her reflexes were shot, you would likely have had a very different reaction — maybe you would have made sure you got her license and reported her to the police in hopes that they’d contact her relatives to get her the hell off the road. Or maybe you’d let the air out of her tires or yank her spark plug wires at the next gas station.

So trying to teach this guy a lesson by out-intimidating him, man that’s an ego orgasm I’ve dreamed of having ever since I was a kid and my dad accused me of being a wimp. I’ve desperately wanted to be that tough, and only have one measly fight as a 5th grader to relish.

But consider this: even though you know it was a dumb-fuck thing to do, there’s probably a part of you still trying to have little ego orgasms over it 30 years later. I got tons of examples of me doing the same. Stay tuned.