Complimentary Nuts

Pam: Have you ever been insulted in a way that could actually be taken as a compliment?

Ann: Okay…you’re going to have to explain that one.

Pam: Remember Patty? You met her on the trip to Kansas. She was the pretty lady who worked at the reception desk.

Ann: The one in the flowered dress? She’s a little older, right? Creeping up on fifty…

Pam: That’s her. But she’s fifty-five.

Ann: Wow! She looks great.

Pam: I think so too. Anyway, we were chatting on the phone yesterday and she told me that a guy really insulted her by asking her if she was expecting a baby.

Ann: Oh no! I can’t believe any man would make that mistake! I’d be crushed.

Pam: Yeah, at first she was upset that he thought she looked fat. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized it could actually be taken as a compliment that he thought she was young enough to even be pregnant.

Ann: Hopefully she took it in the good way if it helped her feel better. So have you ever had an insult that could be a compliment too?

Pam: I guess so. At work the guys are always saying things like, “You never know what’s hot on television”. They’re accusing me of being out of touch with pop culture. The thing is, they’re right. They mean it as a dig, but I consider it quite a compliment. How about you? Ever get insults that you consider flattering in some way?

Ann: My ex used to always tell me that my standards are too high. Coming from him, I considered that a compliment.

Pam: Well obviously he was wrong…you married him didn’t you?

Ann: Let’s not go there….More often I have it happen the other way around—where a compliment feels more like an insult. Like when someone says, “Wow, you’ve lost a ton of weight!”

Pam: Yeah, I never say that to people because it’s just saying, “You’re not as fat as you used to be.” When I see someone who’s lost a lot of weight I usually say, “You look terrific!” They know what I mean.

Ann: I know people who have actually perfected the art of the backhanded compliment.

Pam: My mom is the all time master! I’ll never forget when my grandmother asked my mother what my husband-to-be was like. My mom paused, looked up, hemmed and hawed a bit, and finally came out with, “Well…he’s a hard-worker.” As if she had to struggle to think of anything at all and then that was the kindest thing she could think to say.

When I called her on it she feigned surprise and told me, “Whatever do you mean? It was a compliment!”

Ann: When I first thought about dating again after my divorce, a friend set me up with a guy she knew. While we were at dinner he said to me, “Dating pretty, young women was fun for a while, but now I’m glad to be out with a woman who’s intelligent instead.”

Pam: Yeah, too intelligent to go out with him again. A guy at work actually said something similar to me. I always say ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘would you mind’, and ‘when you get a chance’. Well, this guy tells me, “That’s what I like about you. Pretty, young women are always so demanding. You older women who can’t rely on your looks are always so polite.”

Ann: My most recent favorite backhanded compliment came from the father of one of Hannah’s friends. When he picked the girls up I was in the garage installing a new garage door opener. I was still at it when they came back several hours later. He said, “Wow, you’re very persistent. Most people would have given up and called someone competent by now.”

Pam: You don’t do so bad for a hard-working woman who can no longer rely on her looks.

Ann: Oh how sweet. You’ve become so extremely polite lately.

Pam: Oh shut up.

Guilty As Charged

Pam: Sometimes I feel guilty for not feeling guilty. I see other people wringing their hands over stuff that just doesn’t bother me.

Ann: Yeah, I know I’d feel better if you felt worse. What’d ya do now?

Pam: I told a white lie about why I missed my coworker’s wedding. The truth is I just couldn’t stand to watch him exchange “lifetime vows” for the fourth time.

Ann: Consider yourself lucky. I would have gone to the wedding and spent the entire ceremony feeling guilty about my silent predictions for their future…or lack thereof.

Pam: Heck, I don’t feel guilty about things I actually do and you feel guilty about things you merely think.

Ann: Obviously we went to different Catholic schools.

Pam: I think it’s not different schools, it’s different mothers. My mother taught all of us kids not to let people manipulate us with guilt. My sister called it a guilt-ectomy. Boy was my mother frustrated when we became adults and she realized she’d disarmed a mother’s most powerful weapon.


Ann: Well my mother always had a full arsenal and to this day I still feel as if I have a target painted on my back. I think I feel that way because my mother used to punish us for things she thought we might do while she wasn’t looking.

Pam: That goes to show you how different we are. When I got punished for something I didn’t do, I considered it a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. If I got away with something later, I figured we were square.

Ann: So that guilt-ectomy…do ya think it’s covered by my health insurance?

Too Much Stuff!

Ann: My house is overflowing. I’ve got to get rid of a bunch of my stuff…but I’m so sentimental I just can’t part with most of it.

Pam: What kind of stuff?

Ann: Toys my kids played with, clothes they wore, anything they made, or looked at for that matter. I know they’re grown now but….it’s so hard.

Pam: Just focus on the good part of clearing out stuff…the tidy spaces, the ease of finding things you decide to keep, and the enjoyment your stuff will give to someone who really needs it.

Ann: That’s the problem…what if it’s ME that needs it someday. As I look over each thing I plan to get rid of, I keep thinking I might need it someday and if I get rid of it then I won’t have it. But I have so much stuff, that even if I do need something I absolutely know I have, I can’t find it anyway. You wouldn’t understand. You’re so organized…

Pam: (Laughing) It’s all smoke and mirrors! You know very well if you open any drawer, cabinet, or closet in my house the terrible truth is told. I’m a mess. I can prove it. About a
month ago I bought one of those books about how to bring structure and organization to your life called, Clutter's Last Stand. I got it home and put it on my nightstand, but could never quite find the time…and by time I mean motivation…to read it. So yesterday to eliminate the constant visual reminder of my shortcomings, I decided at the very least I could put it on the bookshelf. That’s getting organized right? So I take it to the other room and go to place it on the shelf and I discover I already own a copy of the same book! How sad is that? I’m so disorganized I accidentally bought two copies of the same book on how to get organized.

Ann: Books don’t count. Remember Saint Brigit of Sweden? She and the nuns and brothers of her order, the Brigittines, lived very austere lives. They took a vow of poverty and didn’t own property at all with the exception of books. They could own as many books as they wanted. Eventually their monastery became the literary center of Scandinavia.

Pam: So you say the ten thousand paperbacks you have overflowing your office is justified by the fact that your home may someday become the literary center of Texas? That’s one of your better rationalizations.

Ann: I don’t know why I’m like this. My mother kept a meticulous house. A place for everything…and all that. Maybe it’s rebellion….who knows.

Pam: There may be something to that. I grew up in a pig sty. It was beyond disaster. I rarely brought friends home because I was embarrassed by the mess. Now I’m the opposite. Anyone could drop into my house at any time and, although it will look lived in, they would describe it as very tidy. I have to admit, I’m a bit compulsive about it.

Ann: Here we go blaming our mothers again! How will we feel when our daughters decide to hold us responsible for every one of their shortcomings?

Pam: Yeah, well, that’s another discussion. Let me tell you what helps me. When I’m trying to clear out clutter, I think of it as putting my house on a diet. You can even make a game of it, weighing the bags and boxes of stuff you carry out the door on the way to the garbage or the donation center. When I think of it that way as I clean out each closet or cabinet, I actually enjoy finding more stuff to get rid of…anything to add to the “weight” heading out the door.

Ann: Oh great! Another diet for me to fail….