Okay, “Torquemada” is a bad metaphor, because I’m talking psychological torture rather than physical. Maybe I should have said “the Stanford Experiment.”
Anyway, the situation is A) Propose Horrible Thing; B) Take Horrible Thing Away; and C) Reinstate Horrible Thing. Which makes the horrible thing about one thousand times as horrible. I’m sure there is a lot of precedent for this.
Here’s the sitch, in hyperbole form:
FRIDAY
Ukulele Lady: I have some bad news. Next Friday you have to get your arms nailed together at the elbows.
Me: What? What the fuck? Are you serious? I’m not going to have my arms nailed together at the elbows!
Ukulele Lady: BOO HOO HOO! You don’t love me! It’s imperative to my happiness in life that you get your arms nailed together at the elbows!
Me: Well, fuck that.
SATURDAY
Me: Oh, all right. I’ll have my arms nailed together at the elbows next Friday night.
Ukulele Lady: Good.
FOLLOWING TUESDAY
Ukulele Lady: Well, you’ll be happy to hear this. I have a work complication, so you don’t have to get your arms nailed together at the elbows on Friday night.
Me: Oh thank god.
THURSDAY EVENING
Ukulele Lady: I can get out of the work complication early, so you’re going to get your arms nailed together at the elbows tomorrow night after all. I’ll meet you at the arm-nailing emporium at eight.
Me:…
I didn’t put this thread in the Pit because I don’t just want to bitch about my godawful wife; I have intellectual curiosity about the precedence for this sort of thing in torture circles, and am also curious about how you folks would deal with the situation if it came up in your lives.
BTW, we live on low floors, so throwing her out the window isn’t a good solution.
Postscript: “Arms getting nailed together at the elbows” = “Dinner party thrown by work friend and her husband, attended solely by other work friends you have never met”
Something very similar as that was my guess. I just consider shit like that as short mandatory acting gig. My only requirement is that she drives, so I can drink.
Next time, after she cancels the Horrible Thing, immediately schedule an expensive event that you know she won’t want to miss. Tickets to a concert, for example, or an overnight mini vacation, or a dinner-cruise. Make it something that you’ve already paid for, ideally, non-refundable.
This way, insisting on reinstating the Horrible Event will come at a cost to her commensurate with the cost to yourself.
Also, my screen name has no connection with reality. I am a terrible failure at stringed instruments. I DO play cornet, saxophone, flute, tuba, and piano.
I suppose I could bring the flute and play pantsless Celtic folk tunes.
Just learned that the guest of honor is a hapless alcoholic, and that the hostess plans to serve no beverages other than hard liquor. Things are looking up. Thank god for the NYC publishing industry.