Listen here, boy, why you gonna do something that doesn’t work when you could just as easily do what does?
I’m convinced that Aaron Gleaves is a country boy. If I had any doubts before, they were laid to rest in my last therapy session with him.
See, sometimes when a country boy gets upset he does something called Laying Down the Law. It’s when he tells you the way something is or the way it’s gonna be from now on. It’s like he’s stating universal facts or the Word of God, something he feels right serious about, and whatever it is, he’s already decided on it and in his mind, that’s the end of the discussion. There’s no space for disagreement or resistance. When he’s put it to you in plain terms with that air of authority, he goes on with the rest of his day, thinking he took care of it once and for all.
Trouble is, Laying Down the Law don’t work so good on some people, particularly country girls. Any self-respecting country girl will hear what he’s saying and then she’s gonna go right out and do the very thing she’d planned on doing in the first place, as though his unfortunate decree never occurred.
And that’s what happened you see, Aaron Gleaves tried it on me, and now look at where we are. I did not disappear quietly into the therapy night like he wanted me to.
He really ought to have known better than to behave like a dictatorial asshat in the first place. He’s a smart guy, so I blame the copious amounts of book learning. It’s a well known phenomenon that when some people get fancy degrees, they sometimes forget real basic shit. Now I got nothing against being educated, mind you, I’ve dabbled a bit in college myself—but I think people ought to be careful because all the excess knowledge they accumulate can end up pushing the simple stuff to the back of their minds, making it harder to get to.
I don’t think Aaron’s a bad person. I think he’s basically good. I think he’s smart enough to realize when he’s fucked something up and I think he tries to learn from his mistakes.
I also think that like any good country boy, he’ll eventually come ‘round to doing things in a better way than he did before.