Ah when I made this thread I was just kind of shocked in a way, I mean it wasn’t like the tadpoles were my pets or anything.
Yes ZipperJJ pretty much covered the background, I’d add that my wife’s grandmother bought a large plot of land and now there are 5 and soon to be 6 houses on it with her various descendants inside. This is not at all odd locally, pretty common in fact.
I moved to Trinidad because my wife at the time was the sole caretaker for her terminally ill mother, so I was basically sick of it and said fuck it(sick of being apart from my wife, I absolutely understand her reasons).
Anyway I have never encountered the frog phobia in my time here, no one explained it to me and it did not come up in chit chat. So I just filed it under other superstitions. I brought them inside once and when my wife objected took them outside, the second time my wife was asleep and I was trying to do something with the aquarium so I brought it inside and then fell asleep(it was my intention to return it outside). So she says from her perspective she woke up to gross vermin on the coffee table and she thought I did it to gross her out and she was sick of the joke. She did not think I viewed them as a pet like a dog, or important she thought I was trying to mess with her.
But she didn’t explain how gross she found them, hell even today she said in conversation those people won’t want to occupy that building any more due to “jen-gay” so I asked what is jen-gay? She goes ahh I hate explaining this stuff you should know what I mean. I was like well don’t angry when I accidentally do jen-gay whatever it is, I guess google will be to the rescue.
She just wants me to read her mind, which sounds like a relationship stereotype but there you go.
EDIT:I think what bugs me is I have never, ever said don’t ask me to explain stuff when asked shit like “What is Roe vs. Wade??” I just explain the obscure cultural crap, but she is like you should know by now. Well unless it comes up in your life, no it is hard to know.
When I was unconscious and blue due to an asthma attack, and she called for an ambulance and was told it would not arrive in time she manipulated the local police department to transport me to the hospital by claiming I was a tourist and did they want that on their record and the media would surely pick it up?
It worked, and I was revived in the ER with her sitting next to me BAREFOOT because she did not have time to put on shoes.
I really think you need to redefine evil if she qualifies.
When she explains the stuff, how do you react? It would be hard not to exclaim over how ridiculous it is, but doing so may be making her reluctant to tell you. Explaining Roe vs. Wade is unlikely to incite the same kind of response.
I’ve never laughed if she is just explaining it, I have laughed at other people’s genuine belief in stuff like sweat rice(men believing a woman can enchant them via vaginal sweat on rice or food).
When I first came here I was staying at her brother’s place, away from her home. So she would show up at 7am with some takeout breakfast food. I asked what is this? She said buljol http://www.trinigourmet.com/index.php/buljol-recipe/ mostly saltfish.
Later when we were sitting with her brother, his wife and son they asked if I was hungry and I said no I ate grude’s wife’s bul…uh saltfish this morning I am fine.
Cue endless laughter from all present except me going and my wife blushing. When we were alone she revealed saltfish is not only a food it is also slang for vagina. Heh.
EDIT:I never expected I would have to be a Trinidad anthropology expert, kinda learning on the fly.
She knows you think the superstitions are silly, so she might be embarrassed to tell you about them. Maybe you can ask someone else to tell you. She’s probably keeping the craziest stuff from you anyway, but someone else will be happy to educate you.
Yea I have been doing that, or googling. I have never ignored something she is really upset about, but when a lot of things are deadly serious but not really you get complacent. It doesn’t mean I disrespect her beliefs, but it is like living with a germophobe eventually you will start getting complacent.
I mean hell I laugh at USA superstitions too, so it isn’t like I’m picking on Trinidad. I just find superstitions silly.
Unless you’re on some crusade against irrational behaviour, it literally does not matter if somebody says “God bless you” or taps a can before he opens it. Such quirks of behaviour do nothing and hurt nobody.
Using poison irrationally is not a harmless quirk of behaviour. Even assuming whatever she did posed no danger to the child living in the home, she still killed Grude’s plants and a bunch of animals that objectively speaking are not harmful.
This seems to me to put a somewhat one-sided burden on the grude.
I mean, didn’t mrs grude know that grude considered the tadpoles harmless but interesting. Indeed, hasn’t she already had the opportunity to have the very conversation that would have lead her to the realization that her irrational superstitions are just that?
Trinidad is not a cave on the dark side of the moon, wilful ignorance is wilful ignorance there too.
I do not accept that “It’s normal to be irrational in every culture”, but even if it were so, I see no good reason to pander to it.
Objectively to you, they are not harmful. But subjectively to her they were harmful, they were pests, not beneficial and a bad omen. She could take them outside again but grude might bring them in again, and they had risked the bad juju twice already. She thought he was messing with her and must not have felt he would abide by her wishes not to have them in the house.
Also, per grude, the poison was likely some normal household item like hydrogen peroxide, not a deadly poison and she did not leave it laying around where the child could get into it. She does not sound like she’s actually some mad poisoner running around with wild hair, giant bottles labeled with a skull and crossbones and laughing maniacally as she takes out any unsuspecting plants and baby frogs or anything else that gets in her way. … Okay, I may watch too many Disney movies.
Look, Mrs Grude made it clear that she didn’t want them in the house. Mr Grude brought them back into the house and accidentally left them. Upon discovering this (and believing that Grude had done this to gross her out) she killed the tadpoles.
It wasn’t ignorance or irrationality but her preference not to have tadpoles in the house, and all our preferences are not based absolutely in logic. For example, I hate the smell of fried liver and when my wife cooks liver she does it when I am out of the house and tries to vent the kitchen afterwards. It doesn’t really matter if my preference is based on believing the smell will kill me or being forced to eat it as a child. I don’t like and my spouse respects that.
This whole situation has everything to do with communication (or lack thereof) and spinning it as an irrational ignorance makes little sense.
Bottom line, grude should keep tadpoles out of the house because that’s his wife’s expressed preference and it an absurdly minor adjustment to make to live happily married.
It may be one-sided, but in this instance, it’s pretty small.
I don’t like to pander to irrationality either, but one does get tired swimming upstream all the time. Fighting against irrationality is not necessarily the rational course of action.
I thinks it’s the killing of them folks are responding to. She could have taken them out herself, woke grude up and yelled at him to get them out, went out until he woke up etc etc. Absolutely he should respect this minor request, but her response was to kill something he was saving. That’s the part that makes me lose sympathy for her. She’s not some fragile, helpless being. She had choices too and killing them seems vindictive.
Agree that there are better ways to have handled it but if she viewed as a tired old joke by grude to gross her out then killing them is understandable. Especially if she views them as a blight or pest.
To be clear, I don’t think it particularly good behavior but not on the order of truly disturbing or troubling. It suggests that some better communication and understanding on both sides would be useful but that be said about any marriage.
I guess that’s where I disagree. If my husband destroyed anything of mine because he thought I was teasing him or thought it was worthless, when he knew it was something I wanted I’d be beyond upset. Sure, the communication would be the issue, but to go so far as to destroy something he knew I valued (even if he didn’t) would be too far. Now, I’m sure grude’s wife a lovely person and this is not her normal MO, but I think grude has every right to be upset and think it was utterly unexpected. She gets to be really mad at him, sure. To destroy something of his- too far.
I was like well don’t angry when I accidentally do jen-gay whatever it is, I guess google will be to the rescue.