Negotiations Are for Turkeys

I'm shoring up shopping plans for tomorrow. This, of course, means consulting a half dozen cookbooks and the Thanksgiving Spreadsheet. The following conversation with Husband ensues:

ME: We need to buy a turkey of 12 to 14 pounds.
HIM: What, now? I'm not wearing pants.
ME: No, tomorrow. When we're at the store.
HIM: Hmm. Okay.
ME: Good.
HIM: Wait. I think we need a bigger turkey.
ME: No, we don't. Remember last year?
HIM: No, it's more than a week ago.
ME: Last year, you picked out the biggest turkey they had. Kitchen disaster ensued. And we had waaaay too much turkey.
HIM: No such thing.
ME: Yes. You even admitted as much.
HIM: That doesn't sound like me.
ME: I don't know what to tell you.
HIM: Shouldn't we do some math, figure out how many pounds of turkey per person?
ME: Who's eating POUNDS of turkey?
HIM: Me, easy.
ME: Listen, it's like four people who will actually eat turkey, and you're one of them. I think 14 pounds of turkey will suffice.
HIM: I don't know...
ME: Pal, this is not a negotiation. We are getting a turkey of 12 to 14 pounds.
HIM: 14 pounds, then!

ManTrap™

Like Chess, or Othello, ManTrap™ is a game that takes moments to learn, but a lifetime to master. This is especially true when the game is played by strategians, like Husband, or derby gals, like me.

GAME PLAY

The goal of ManTrap™ is to pin your man to the bed, by any means necessary.

A game of ManTrap™ sneaks up on you. What seems like a sweet hug between husband and wife can turn into a shoving fight to the mattresses. Hone your reflexes, and in the immortal words of Mad Eye Moody (or rather, Barty Crouch, Jr.): CONSTANT VIGILANCE. 

APPAREL/EQUIPMENT

Hardwood floors and sock feet work to your advantage. Catch your man wearing socks on a hardwood floor, and half the work is done for you. Just be sure to leave your own socks behind; the disadvantage works both ways.

COUNTER-MEASURES

ManTrap™ truly evolves over time. As you level up your own skill set, your opponent does the same. You develop new strategies, new measures to ensure your success. Your opponent learns to counter them. And the Chess match begins.

Leverage

I bend my knees, get low, lean into my man, and brace a foot on the ground. As I do, I visualize myself as a large boulder, an immovable force of nature. 

Counter-Measure: Husband counters; he pushes my arms up above his shoulders. Pinning my arms at this height keeps me from lowering my center of mass. Tricksy.

Counter-Counter-Measure: To resist, I keep my arms low and minimize his ability to subvert them. I think about the gap between my side and my arms; then close it.

Bed ninja rolls

Once Husband has been pushed into the bedroom, he senses defeat is imminent. His last-ditch effort, his Hail Mary pass, is the Ninja Roll. He disengages from my loving embrace, races into the room, and jumps on the bed, hoping I will give chase. Once he has me on the side of the bed, ready to follow him, he Rolls, his feet tucked close to his body and his knees creating an L with his legs. Ninja Husband rolls from one side to the other and hops off the opposite end of the bed. (Nine points on the dismount from the Canadian judge, only 6 from the Russian judge.) The confusion of the direction change and the heat of the chase buy him a few extra seconds to make a run for the door.

Counter-measure: Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice…well, you know. Now, when Husband breaks away and makes a run for the bed, I do not give chase. Instead, I center myself between the door and the bed. Like a fucking athlete, I widen my stance, bend my knees, keep my weight on my toes, shifting lightly from one foot to the other. I am a tiger, ready to pounce at the slightest movement. My prey is trapped. Until…

Level UP: +1 to Magic Socks spell

Husband was trapped on the bed, rolling back and forth on his back. Slowly, without so much as a change in expression or break in eye contact, he reached down and pulled first one sock, then the other, off his feet. With a faint glint of mischief in his eyes, he began balling up the socks and passing them from one hand to the other. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Charging up a spell.”

My attention and readiness did not waver. When he rolled off one side of the bed and ran toward me, I was ready. But then. Then, Husband hurled the socks at my face and yelled, “Magic Socks!”

Even so, my jungle cat instincts did not let him pass. As he rushed forward, I stepped into him and pinned him to my armoire. “Oh noooooo!” he cried, dismayed at his surprising defeat.

With my Husband still pinned, I laughed. 

     And laughed. 

          And laughed. I doubled over with the laughter.

Seeing his chance, Husband spun and danced away, crying “Lingering Effect!”

Even in the face of defeat, it didn’t matter. I was still laughing.

My imaginary son Scooter.

Few things can delight, inspire, agitate and confound all at once quite like a trip to the land of Hypothetical. Everyone's had that conversation around the water-cooler at work about what they'd do if they won the big lottery jackpot. The truly prepared among us have even cemented their zombie-apocalypse survival scenarios. The surreal joy comes when you find yourself in a horns-locking beast-battle of an argument with somebody over a scenario unlikely ever to unfold.

Megan and I tend to spend our Sunday afternoons or evenings huddled up in some cozy booth somewhere being catered to by a helpful wait-staff. This weekly ritual has become our time to let go and relax, catch up on the escapades that we each encountered on our respective weekends off (having an off-hours schedule for me means we sort of have our own weekends), share any interesting things we've read in the week before as well as strategize on the week ahead. The topic came around to a favorite rant for us; children at restaurants.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, we're completely fine with kids of any age at a restaurant, that is, so long as they are seen and not heard. Nothing quite ruins a relaxing and expensive meal like hearing a toddler shrieking across the room as if it were a South American Howler Monkey being tortured by a logger. The topic started off this time thanks to a heated debate that went on the prior week on a blog we both follow. The blog, Etiquette Bitch, is a younger, hipper Miss Manners and it amazed me that when the author merely suggested that adults tend to their screaming children in public, she received some rather heated exchanges from some parents out there. How is it scandalous to expect parents to actually parent? We both pondered this as we set about scanning Fuddrucker's to see a number of families all with well-behaved kids. Parenting did seem possible without the drama.

It was on the way home we got to take our stroll down Hypothetical Lane.

"Megan, you'll love this. You know that family of four that came in before us?" I asked as I weaved my way through traffic towards the highway on-ramp.

"Yeah, what about them?"

"Well I was in the restroom stall next to them when I heard the dad and son come in. While the dad was using the urinal his kid was just jabbering at him and I heard the kid inform his dad that the woman's restroom had chairs and a couch and a fireplace!"

"Wow, they must have really remodeled since I last used it," she told me.

It was here I felt justified in explaining why I'd be a poor father and should never be allowed to procreate.

"Thank god we aren't having kids, because our kid would be either the most agile-minded or warped thing around. If that were my kid I'd have told him there were also gingerbread cookies in the woman's bathroom and a magical elf."

She was quick to note that this would neither make our child smart or warped it would just make the kid never trust daddy. I reflected on the victory this would be for me since Scooter (at this point I felt the kid deserved a name and why not one that would guarantee him a beating in school to give him character and harden him up) wouldn't come to me for help with homework. She took that in stride, but I couldn't help pondering further and worrying about Scooter's education.

"Of course, if you taught him, he wouldn't ever learn any history."

"I know history, you bastard!" she shot back.

A quick query on name of the 16th U.S. president vindicated my thoughts that this wasn't true, though she stuck by her guns that after I revealed the name she KNEW who the hell Lincoln was, thank me very much. Fortunately her good sense reigned in the novelty of the conversation-which-bordered-on-argument.

She asked, "Um, are we fighting over how we're going to raise our ridiculously named imaginary child we're never going to have?"

"I don't know," I countered. "Let's just agree hypothetically to never have kids."

"It's a deal."