Yella has been avoiding the house because she gets upset every time she visits, so she hasn't gone in about a month. But, I knew she needed to see the progress because she will be unhappy with the work if she doesn't at least try to get what she wants.
Bad idea...really bad idea!
When we get to the house, she starts getting steamed about this and that. I don't even notice yet. I'm wandering around fat, dumb and happy, looking at the progress that I have been pushing for over the last 2 weeks. You may recall that I decided to become my builder's best friend. This was my last line of defense before completely abandoning the project and fleeing for home, defeated.
And, my "best friend" campaign has been yielding results, abiet s-l-o-w-l-y but, never the less, progress.
While I was feeling satisfied about some of the work...
Yella was working up a homicidal rage!
She is commenting about all the things that are wrong, not as requested, stupid and just plain bad with ever increasing anger and smoke coming out of her ears. (This is a sign even a husband can read--eventually!) She starts on a litany of all the things "SHE CAN'T HAVE!" This list goes on for an impressive 10 or 15 minutes, all the while building in frustration and rage.
I am now seriously worried about the life longevity of our builder. Fortunately, we didn't run into him while Yella was on her toot.
That was Saturday.
Sunday and Monday went downhill from there.
We requested a meeting to try to resolve some of the problems. He was supposed to meet us between 9 and 10 on Monday morning and, of course, this didn't happen. I do hate being stood up by anyone and this is the 11th time for me, but who's counting. Only, this time, Yella was involved.
Bad idea. She actually expected him to show up. Expectations always cause massive problems in Panama.
She finally reached him on the phone about 3 pm Monday. I don't know how this happened, maybe divine intervention, or maybe satanic intervention or in the end, plain dumb luck.
But not for the builder.
She pulled out the Number #1 tool for women, the nuclear weapon against men, the creme de la creme of feminine power...tears.
Panamanian men are especially not equipped to deal with this. She got stuff out of him that is unheard of: an apology (Panamanians do not EVER apologize or admit a mistake), a PROMISE to meet tomorrow at 11 am (a first), another apology and much backpedaling and eating of humble pie.
Way to go Yella!
To bad the personal emotional cost to her was so high because, man, was she effective.
I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow...if he shows up!
3 comments:
I hope he shows up - if not he should just cut off his own balls - to save himself the trouble. :)
Tears! Why didn't we think of that before? Here's a possible future weapon: have Yella show up at Toto's house when his wife is there and start crying mournfully... come across as really sad and broken... communicate that Toto has hurt her. If she gets the wife on her side, then Toto is screwed! He'll be hearing about it every day at home and will push to get the project (and the wife) out of his hair!
Now we're talking! We just needed a strategy that actually works!
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