Behaving Well

I spend a lot of time in mental warfare.  I'm a warrior of the mind.  I don't actually fight anyone or anything in the real world but the battles in my skull are epic and bloody and fierce.  People are getting fucked up in my head.  You do not want to go toe to toe with me in my own head.  This is home territory for me and I'll smoke your ass if you trespass.

One of the companies that holds some of the money that my parents have saved doesn't seem to me to be too fired up about . . . you know . . . giving it back.  Oh, sure, everybody knows how to take the money.  Everybody is taking, taking, taking all the time.  It's the returning of the money that seems to be the problem.

So I'm calling this guy and he's not . . . you know . . . calling me back.  This aggravates me.  I am Little Stevie Seaweed and people shall call me back.  They know who I am or they should be ashamed of themselves for not knowing who I am.  And to compound this assault on my Ego there is also Money involved.  If I was having Sex with this guy and he was withholding that while disrespecting me and keeping my money we'd have a perfect storm of Offended Instincts.  Being a competitive, easily annoyed, impatient, judgmental, intolerant, Type A psychopath I take these offenses to heart, and get all jiggy.

After several active hours of mental warfare spread over several days I actually get the guy on the phone.  Here's the thing: my folks really liked him and he really liked my folks; he works for a pretty good company; and he's going to do the right thing.  And here's the other thing: he's not thinking about me at all. He's not doing anything to me.  He's flailing around in his own worldly soup, trying to keep his head above soup, like the rest of us.  He had finally returned my call when I was flailing around in the lap pool, trying to keep my head above water, and he left a really nice message about my folks.

So I start out by asking about his son.  He had not been able to return my first phone call because he was in Florida helping his son get settled in school.  Now I could give a flying shit about his son, to be honest about it, just as I could give a flying shit about anything that doesn't have something to do with me.  Really.  Seriously.  I'm not making this up.  I have found out, however, that when I feign an interest in someone else then I start to  generate some real interest in them.  I know, I know, it make my head hurt thinking this way, too.  He was happy to talk about his son.  I think his son is probably pretty important to him.

Then I told him how much I appreciated his kind words about my parents (you know how we are about our folks - someone says something kind about them and we think: "Really?  Dad?  My dad?") and that those sentiments had been reciprocated.  My folks really liked the company he worked for, one associated with the church denomination that they attend.

The rest of the conversation was fine.  It was just fine.  I pretty much knew I was going to behave well.  I pretty much knew it was going to take some serious prep time to psych myself up into behaving well.