Good Hawkins post. It starts thus:
Imagine if you will, a marriage on the rocks. There's a lot of fighting, a lot of strain, & things seem to be getting progressively worse.
But, all is not lost. The couple's 10 year anniversary is coming up, the husband is promising to take a week off so he and the wife can go on a surprise trip the next Friday. This idea thrills the wife to no end! Are they going on a Caribbean cruise? To Vegas? Maybe they're even heading to London! The wife doesn't know where they're going; she can't wait! Things may not have been so great lately, but this trip is going to turn things around. She just knows it!
So, the wife's bag is packed, she has told all her friends about the romantic "mystery trip" her husband is going to take her on, and she is so excited she can hardly think straight. Then her husband walks in the door and asks her if she's ready for the "trip?" She says, "yes," looks expectantly at her husband and he reveals that -- drumroll, please -- they're going on a trip to the bowling alley every day for the next week! Hip-hip-hooray!
The wife's jaw clenches, her hands ball up into fists, and she gets so angry she looks like she's about to explode. "The bowling alley," she says? "But, you know that I don't like bowling."
"Oh, but it'll be fun, honey! It'll be just you and me, bowling all day long! It'll be a blast!" Then, he starts to notice that his wife's face is getting red, she's breathing harder, and her teeth are clenched.
Then one thing pops into the husband's mind, "Uh-oh."
The wife erupts, she's livid, she's outraged, and she starts looking at her suitcase and mentions something about, "going to her mother's house for a while."
At this point, the husband has a few different ways that he can proceed.
#1) He can try to show his wife who's boss and demand that she go bowling and like it!
#2) He can spend the next 20 minutes talking to his wife and trying to sincerely convince her that she'll have a great time bowling. Then, if and when he fails, he can just throw up his hands and tell her that bowling is her only option.
#3) He can say: "Sometimes I am so thoughtless, I just don't know what I was thinking. Forget about bowling. Instead, right now, right this moment, I'm going to get on the phone and book a flight for the two of us to London. You've always wanted to go there, right? Well, we're getting on the first flight out, we're going to have a wonderful time, and then when we get back, I'm going to romance you like I did when we were first dating."
Whether the husband thinks his wife is overreacting or not, if keeping the marriage together is important to him, he goes with option #3.
Today, George W. Bush is in the same situation as the husband with a significant percentage of his base.
No comments:
Post a Comment