Put On Your Big Boy Pants

We’re Sorry You Weren’t Thrilled

Carrie and I had put our twin two-year-olds to bed around 8:30 two nights ago. I then drove to the Del Amo Mall and had my friend who works there, Sean, re-fit my two Invicta Ocean Speedway watches, adding a half link as they had proved to be too snug.

When I got home, Carrie was in the kitchen standing over her smart phone. She looked pale and stricken. She said to me, “Listen to this message.”

“Who’s it from?” I asked.

“The owner of the restaurant,” she said.

I felt sick. Earlier that evening we had had a date night for our ten-year anniversary and the entrees at the upscale eatery had proven to be inedible, so bad in fact that we when we got home I posted my distaste on my blog with the title (and I now omit the name to protect my wife): “Restaurant XYZ Serves Hog Slop to My Wife and Me at Extravagant Prices.” I went on to say that the pasta tasted metallic and worse the meatloaf had a mealy texture evoking the taste and feel of Alpo. Because my wife paid on her credit card and made the reservation, the owner had her phone number and called her, not me.

As Carrie was fumbling with her phone to let me hear the message on the speaker, she said, “I’m mortified.”

Then she finally played me the owner’s frantic words: “Hello, Carrie, we saw your blog about how you weren’t thrilled with your dinner and we were absolutely horrified. If there’s anything we can do, to rectify the situation, please call me.  We’d be happy to reduce the charges on your credit card or give you a voucher for another meal, complements of our staff. Again, I must personally say that I was absolutely horrified by what I read on your blog. Please call me and see if we can work this out.”

Carrie looked up at me. “Why in the hell is she calling me? I didn’t write it. You did. I’ll never show my face there again.”

I called the restaurant, left a message telling the owner that it was I, not Carrie, who had posted the unflattering words, then promised to delete the post. I did so mainly for Carrie’s sake. I felt nothing wrong with telling the truth about the quality of the entrees. My critique was fair. I praised the server and the appetizers and the wines and the dessert, a Nutella chocolate cake with vanilla gelato. But I felt I had to be honest about the entrees, especially the disgusting meatloaf. In hindsight, I should have been forthright with the waiter when he came to the table in the middle of the meal and asked what I thought of it. My candor would have produced a better outcome than “horrifying” the owner with my blog post.

The one thing that stands out was the owner’s use of euphemism: “We’re sorry you weren’t thrilled with the meal.” Not thrilled? I never expected to be thrilled so much as I didn’t expect meatloaf to have the texture and flavor of something expectorated by a dog.

In any event, I lose Man Points for not graciously and honestly telling the waiter about my displeasure with the meal and for causing my wife embarrassment. I hope I learned a lesson. 

 

Do We Really Have Free Will Or Do We Simply Avoid Unacceptable Consequences?

 

 

 

In Sam Harris’ slim, pamphlet-sized book Free Will, he argues that free will is an illusion, that the choices we think we make from our own volition are analyzed by us after the fact, that brain activity occurred before these “choices” that determines our actions. By understanding and acknowledging the deterministic factors that control our behavior, we can, paradoxically, be in more control of our lives than if we live under the illusion of free will.

It appears some things we can control more than others. For example, I don't make friends easily. My wife says I'm too picky. She's partly right, but also I'm hardwired in a way that I'm not open and relaxed and secure in a way that draws people to me to form friendships. I wish I were hardwired differently, especially as the father of twin toddlers: I want my children to have a father who has a normal circle of friends, but I seem limited to my anti-social and, yes, I'll say it, egotisitcal, hardwiring in this regard.

On the other hand, I can assert discipline when the fear is great enough such as going to college and staying fit.  I’ve always questioned my own free will and would shudder with embarrassment when people would congratulate me for getting my BA and Masters degrees. What was my choice? Manual labor? I matriculated college feeling like there was a gun to my head. Fail at higher education and live in squalor and misery.

Or when people say I’m in good shape for being fifty. What’s the alternative? To look like a tomato with four toothpicks sticking out of it? Again, there’s a gun to my head: Eat right and exercise or be an obese cripple subject to a myriad of obesity-related diseases. I am enticed by rewards and repelled by punishments. I seek success and avoid unacceptable consequences. I hardly call this free will.

The thousand-pound man featured on Oprah who was trapped in his bed, who needed a crane to lift him and out and take him to a hospital lacked the sense that there was a gun to his head. Why some of us feel the cold metal against our skull and why others do not remains a mystery.