‘Til You Use Me Up

If you can successfully emotionally manipulate me, I say good on you. Well done. 

Like, if you're a couple, and you're 78 and 83 years old, and you're walking past me on the street holding hands and then you—the wife-half of this eternally dedicated partnership—turn to wipe a smidge of strawberry preserves from the snow-white whiskers of the husband-half of this eternally dedicated loyal forever coupling? I salute you. You have not tugged these strings in vain. 

However, if you are the director of the Sarah McLachlan animal cruelty video—or, for that matter, the producer of a Sarah McLachlan song: for shame. You are a monster, and you have made a mockery of my compa$$ion.  

And if you fall somewhere in between that spectrum, I think what I can offer you is a shrug and pat on the back.

Because I love and hate this so much that I think I've spun the pendulum back to love:

Because it's not coy or clever. Not even a little bit. It is blatantly manipulative—but its flagrance somehow counteracts any shame- or guilt-inducement. And frankly I just respect it.

And you better believe I tried to adopt that 2.5-lb. chihuahua, Wesley. I had already renamed him Atwood. Or maybe I was gonna keep the name Wesley.

Either way, I salute you, manipulator. Or maybe I just wanted that freakin dog.

NOW:

Please help me continue to blog by clicking through and reading some of these recent posts: 

• The Time My Garbage Car Got Cleaned Out by a Thief 
• Feminism, Mayonnaise and a Scandal-Induced Shame Spiral 
• Adverbs Adverbs Adverbs
• Vide-ohs