Rewind ... Snap!

Deb: Remember in Annie Hall when Woody Allen was trying to win an argument with a pretentious knob in the movie lineup? In order to put a stop to the inane back and forthing and secure himself as the winner, Woody casually goes behind a cardboard movie marquee and guides Marshall McLuhan toward his opponent, whereupon Mr. McLuhan puts said knob in his place.

How many times have we wished for that moment in life? How many times have we fantasized that we could call upon irrefutable proof when we are defending ourselves?

Art by Deb's finger

Last week we endured a huge kafuffle when someone in our lives angrily insisted that I had failed to impart to them some extremely important information, thus causing them undue stress, anger, and fear. They were very upset and proceeded to tear a strip off of me and three other innocent parties. The people he was dressing down had no idea to what he was referring as they had done nothing wrong. They were confident that I had done my part as promised and yet they were being lectured by this irate person.

The thing is, I had done my part. I had delivered in detail every piece of essential information needed, leaving no stone unturned. But my angry friend would hear none of it and insisted that the conversation had never taken place. I was miffed and frustrated. It had taken place. This I knew. But how to prove it?

Grasping at straws, I glanced around to see if Marshall McLuhan was maybe waiting for his cue in our powder room or crouched beside our piano, but he wasn’t.

So what does one do when these unfair moments occur?

I will admit that many times a day I may not be able to remember why I came upstairs, or what your name is, but when it comes to important conversations, I have a mind like a steel trap. As I was being dressed down by this irate person, all I could see in my mind’s eye was the replay of the exact conversation that had taken place between us. The problem was, only I could see it.

In the end, I was saved by my husband who piped up that he had been there for the conversation, and that I had indeed imparted every single morsel of information. Bless his beak!

But what about the other times when you do not have a trusty witness to jump to your defense? What then?????????

My husband, as I have reported before, often laments the “heinous lie” that was the jet-pack. He was positive that by now he would certainly have his own jet-pack charging in the garage. He does not give a damn that they have not cured the common cold. In fact he would be perfectly happy if they would give up trying for a cure and put all their brainpower behind his beloved, unrealized jet-pack.

Me? I want an earring. Just something simple, maybe a tiny gold stud ... but with the ability to instantly playback moments in my life in a full HD 3-D projection that also includes any person I am trying to prove my point to.

A sample usage might go this way:

Doctor’s secretary: ”Ms. McGrath, I am going to have to charge you for your missed appointment last week.”

Me: “But I called more than 48 hours before and cancelled my time.”

D.S.: “Sorry, Ms. McGrath, but I have nothing on the record to indicate that.”

Me: ”Well, I called and I spoke to a ‘Diane’ who took the message.”

D.S.: “Well Ms. McGrath, there is nothing in the record, so...”

Slowly and without emotion, my hand reaches up towards my gold stud and I tap it, ever so slightly. Before you can say Princess Leia, out streams a tiny projection flowing freely between us, showing clearly and with stereophonic sound, me making the call a full two days before the appointment. The projection ends with “Diane” hanging up the phone, spilling coffee on her desk, cleaning it up, and resuming her duties, the conversation with me, gone from her mind.

I tap the stud. Projection ended. I look the receptionist in the eye, my face neutral, my demeanor calm.

SNAP! BAM! GOTCHA! EAT THIS! SUCK IT!

Oh what joy that would bring. Oh the satisfaction of it. I would have to go home and nap after such a triumph!

Okay, yes, I have allowed myself a generous helping of petty today.

But oh ... oh ... ohhhhhhhh, wouldn’t it be swell? Oh the places I could go. Oh the conversations I could recreate! Oh the points I could make, the proof I could offer.

Now I should say at this point that I am not an obsessively “right” person. By that I mean I do not always have to be right. Far from it. I am the first to admit wrongdoing or mistakes and I always apologize immediately and profusely.

But when I am right, when I have done my due diligence, when I have covered my bases to the nth degree and it is denied me in a loud angry tone?...

Where is Marshall McLuhan when you need him?

Barbara: Oh, Deb, this made me laugh so much!! And I know the actual situation you speak of because I was there when it was going down. This is so much more frustrating than the simple “two different versions of a story” because there were real repercussions here. I always like to imagine what would be the most beneficial response to any complicated human shenanigan, but, damn, if I can’t think of anything else for this sitch. I think you handled it perfectly by simply stating your case, presenting your defense, and finally letting it go. That said, I LOVE your earring idea. That is by far a more elegant “final word” than anything I could’ve come up with! 

Reality Versus My Reality

Deb: Recently a friend shared a recollection with me, my husband, and a group of our mutual friends about an event that we all shared. He was so passionate about this memory and so very detailed that it was stunning.

It was stunning because it barely resembled the truth. The rest of us involved in the event all remember it unfolding in the exact same way and yet it was nothing like our friend described it.

What made it most interesting to me is that on the day the event unfolded, he was the bad guy in the piece. By that I mean that we all feel he made some selfish and self-serving choices that day. The most fascinating part of the whole thing is that clearly his brain set to work on spinning the story that very day. His brain realized that he could not resolve himself to be the bad guy and so his brain set about the task of having the incident rewired. And believe me, when he recalled this event at our social gathering you could tell, really tell, that he believed every single word he was saying. He was truly not trying to pull the wool over our eyes. The event had become history to him, his history. But it was quite a distance from the truth.

And it made me think about perception, point of view, personalizing and spinning. I am the queen of it. I have memories that I hold dear and memories that shock and sadden me, but I wonder: Are they real? Or at least, what part of them is real? Do we all do this?

Is there any real event with one point of view?

Life is like the telephone game. We take, we add, we embellish and we pass it on. It got me to pondering specific moments in my life, old family lore and scandalous stories from days gone past. How much of it is true? Do some moments from life get spun so fast and furiously that they end up without a shred of truth in them?

I know that I like to embellish. I have always liked to embellish because I have been a storyteller since I was a kid and I always wanted to go for the “awe” factor. Ramp it up, keep it interesting, hook ‘em in. I never meant any harm. I still don’t. But I know I do it constantly and without even thinking. If someone says, “Wow, I bought three little bags of groceries and it cost me $120.00! Invariably my story will come out of my mouth as one bag, no meat or fruit––$150!!!  Can’t help myself.

I have been thinking of this lately as I have a dear friend whose husband calls her out each and every time she exaggerates. He feels it is beneath her, and maybe he is right. My husband does not call me out, bless him. I say "bless him" not because I think I am correct in doing this, but because I would be really embarrassed if called out in front of people. Had an old boyfriend who made it his life’s work to call me out.

But it made me wonder if I shouldn’t start to monitor this myself?  And then came the night when our friend recalled this unrecognizable event and I thought, “Yeah, I better.”

Barbara: I’ve always admitted I have a terrible memory, so I’m usually not surprised to find out I’ve remembered something wrong (or forgotten it altogether). But I am often surprised to hear stories through more than one perspective and to hear how much they differ, like in your story, Deb.

As for your friend’s skewed perspective of the past (hisstory, as it were ;-) ), I think this is at the heart of most of our skewering: in order to accept our weaknesses, we alter the truth to turn them into strengths, buffering our psyches with padded costumes.

Siblings will probably have the most opposite memories of childhood events because our immature psyches will twist events as we process them. My mother and I were just talking about that the other day. She was bemoaning the fact that grown children often talk about these catastrophic moments in their upbringing that “scar them for life”, and that their parents usually have no idea that anything profound even happened. As we compared notes about what we remembered from her perspective as a parent and my own as a child, we ended up laughing uproariously at how she’d completely forgotten things that “haunted” me (me sticking my tongue out at her when I was five and she slapping me soundly across the face––I actually remember feeling I totally deserved this), and I’d completely forgotten things that haunted her (calling me a “stupid goat” at much the same age in front of a neighbour—my mother does not and never did think I was a stupid goat … even when I was/am).