The Petty Tyrant

Judge, Jury, and Executioner H needs to lighten up. His routine is wearing thin.

Every evening, he comes home and asks an innocuous question. I take the bait each time, forgetting that JJ&E H has an agenda. He needs to exert his power over his subjects daily. For example, a question about how my day went might lead to a comment about the #1 son refusing to get out of bed to get ready for school, and shouting at me to shut up and get out of the house. This leads JJ&E H to declare that he doesn't understand why the two of us can't get along. He completely misses the point about an adolescent trying to cut the apron strings and make his way in the world. An adolescent who needs to become acquainted with more acceptable ways of asserting his independence.

In JJ&E H's mind, every conflict has two sides: right and wrong. Of course, I am always the wrong side. How dare I expect my sixteen-year-old son to refrain from telling me to shut up and get out of the house! The very nerve of me! I just can't get along with anybody.

When that size eight-and-a-half is on the other foot, JJ&E H comes to me to complain that #1 is out of control, and, much like the space grunts in Aliens, on an express elevator to hell. And that this is my fault, because I coddle him.

Another tactic employed by JJ&E H is the stern talking-to. Oh, not to the kids. To me. Moi. One Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. Let's say that I walk through the kitchen and stub my pinky toe on the stool that somebody not me has neglected to push under the cutting block. Not stub my pinky toe to the extent that Kramer's girlfriend lost her pinky toe in a street sweeper accident, necessitating Kramer to pick it up and put it in a Cracker Jack box filled with ice, which he rushed to the hospital while driving a city bus, and making all the stops. But stub it in a manner that calls for a loud exclamation of pain and annoyance with the person who left the cutting block stool out of alignment.

Normally, such a declaration of pain would not require a response. But because JJ&E H inserts himself into every situation, he begins a harangue from his La-Z-Boy listing the errors of my ways. Such as how I don't look where I'm walking, how I'm not hurt that bad, how the stool could only have been a smidgen off, how I always look for something to complain about, how I can't expect everyone to be as perfect as I think I am, how I'm not the first woman ever to stub a toe, how he stubbed all of his toes clean off and needed toe transplants and a blood transfusion and he didn't make half the noise I make, and how I should expect stubbings to happen if I'm going to walk around with five toes on each foot.

I am so over this petty tyrant.