Psychology 101

Whenever the wife gets mad at me, for any of the million reasons she does (justifiably so in most cases), I have a certain tactic I like to use to defend myself.  Rather than face my own shortcomings and try to improve myself, I like to mention other people who are worse than I am. I think this tactic deserves a name so let’s call it the “It Could Be Worse, At Least You’re Not Married To Tiger Woods Strategy” or “Tiger Tactic” for short.  Yeah, I like that last one better.

Now, on to a practical approach to the Tiger Tactic.  Let’s imagine a completely fictitious situation.  I dunno…maybe I write a post on my blog about pushing little kids around and include pictures of me doing something completely absurd like throwing a three year old 9-10 miles into the air.  Wow, that sounds really ridiculous, maybe I need to think of a more realistic example. I mean, who would actually do something like that, right?  Anyway, now let’s suppose people don’t really approve of this action and I get some negative feedback.  In this situation, most people would recommend explaining that I really don’t push little kids around and that the pictures are misleading.  Another option might be to express remorse, apologize and promise to never let it happen again.  Well I’m not most people.  The following is a story on how to properly apply the Tiger Tactic:

The wife teaches Sunday School at Church to the 15 and 16 year old youth. Sometimes I like to sit in with her while she teaches.  In case you live in a cave, teenagers have a very short attention span (especially at church) so it’s important to mix things up a bit to keep their attention.  One activity we do to break up the monotony is asking the kids to tell a funny story about their parents.  Yes, parents would kill us if they knew so please don’t rat us out on this one.  Anyway, here are a couple of funny stories they told us.

1-     My dad has a really bad temper and used to use a belt on me when I’d misbehave.

2-     My dad got really mad and threw a wheelchair down the stairs (no, nobody was actually in the wheelchair when he threw it). 

3-     Once my mom got really mad and disappeared for a week and wouldn’t answer her phone.  We think she stayed in a hotel, but aren’t really sure.

4-     I wanted to jump on the trampoline but my sister was sitting on it playing her guitar.  I dunno, I guess I was just feeling kinda weird so I broke her guitar.  My dad grounded me so I snuck out my window cause, I dunno, I was kinda freaking out for some reason.  Later he came into my room and asked me if I wanted to go for a ride.  I hate it when he does that cause that just means he wants to talk (yes, in case you couldn’t tell, this kid is a football player). 

There, in comparison I’m not such a bad guy, am I?  Oh, by the way, if you happen to be one of these examples I apologize for knowing but promise your secret is safe with me.  Trust me, we all have our moments.