“I Should Have Known Better”… when I asked Dwayne to proofread the following piece of writing, he took it upon himself to name it! It is an anecdote of an occurrence that has occurred more than once and gave rise to my thoughts on consequences and the question of who can learn from them!
The above-mentioned ‘occurrence’ occurred on a day not long after we arrived and anchored off of Phuket Yacht Haven. Dwayne had spent the last day in bed with a dose of Thai tummy, and he was still not feeling the best. Most women know that when a man is not ‘feeling the best’, he is best left to himself or pampered like a sick child. I had done the pampering thing the day before, and I was now leaving him to himself. This involved walking around on eggshells lest I bring down upon myself the wrath of a cantankerous old man… which is precisely what I did!
It was time to put the dinghy in the water so we could get ashore. I hooked the dinghy to the halyard and began to winch it up, only to stop when I felt it get too tight. Shit! Shit! Shit! I knew what I’d done, as I had made the same mistake before. A quick glance up the mast and my fears were confirmed. I had forgotten to check that the halyard was unencumbered – which it wasn’t – and as a result, the halyard was wedged in tight behind the steaming light.
With clear rhetorical intentions, Dwayne then asked, “didn’t you check it?”
“Well, dah, obviously not.”
As I fruitlessly tried to unhook the halyard from where it had wedged, Dwayne muttered, “go and get the bosun’s chair.” That was all he said… but that was enough. I could feel the malevolence radiating from him and quickly did as I was bid. I at once proceeded to get myself rigged up in the chair, knowing I was the one being sent up the mast. I didn’t need Dwayne to tell me I was going up the mast; it was evident from his mood.
Dwayne winched me up the mast to the offending tangled mess. After I had corrected my misadventure, I was promptly lowered back to the deck. I am scared of heights, and once safely back on deck, I said with a shiver, “god, I hate that”. My caring and compassionate husband retorted, “you won’t do that again then, will you?”
So my question is this… Why is it Dwayne thinks I can learn from the consequences of my actions when it seems that he very rarely learns from his? He has been known to turn on the generator fuel pump only to forget it and fill the bilge with diesel… more than once!
From there, it was a natural progression for me to begin to wonder, ‘if Dwayne believes in the ability of the fear factor to change one’s mistakes from occurring, how would this work in the case of altering one’s unpleasant behaviour?”
By this, I mean, can I change Dwayne’s annoying habit of leaving his used toothpicks on the saloon table – along with his beer can, food scrapes and serviette – by putting him in a position of discomfort?
As it stands now, I sit in the comfort of my saloon penning this anecdote, and I have within my view Dwayne’s orange peel and his used serviette from last night. I will, as always, leave it there, hoping he will clean it himself; then, when I can bear it no longer, I shall berate him and throw it in the bin myself.
Or should I take a leaf out of Dwayne’s book and, as he is a little claustrophobic, lock him in the wet locker for a few hours?
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