Denial is Her style

Kootch has come a long way since the days in Salina. As she was eating her fish and rice tonight I was playing last night's tape of Leno. Kootch actually laughed out loud several times during the replay. She rarely watches Leno or any other late night TV because she usually hits the sack early, and American humor has always been near the bottom of her list. The reason for this - as Kootch herself remarked - was that for the first twenty years in America she usually failed to 'get' American jokes. But she laughed out loud at Leno several times tonight and as a result she said to me proudly, 'Now I get American jokes!' I thought, 'Cool!' Later, after the tape, we were watching CNN. An Aussie reporter was doing a story about something. I asked her whether she could pinpoint his accent. I was interested in how well she perceived the nuances of English pronounciation given this good news about jokes. She watched and listened for a while then said something like, 'Maybe European.' A bit later she allowed that maybe it was British. Close enough.
Kootch went on to finish her 'saba' (mackrel), and when Wild On began to run on the tape she departed diplomatically, leaving me alone to finish (mostly) fast-forwarding (being gassed here) this particular show.
Kootch is a sweet girl. And not as dumb as she might sometimes appear. She went to work at K-Mart in the late '60s. Her personality and hard work won her immediate recognition at K-Mart and she eventually rose to the level of office manager. She retired after 30 years of impressive service and she now enjoys her retirement. Immensely. I also enjoy her retirement immensely.
Not that our marriage has been 'idylic.' Not at all. Our marriage has had its ups and downs as well as its ins and outs. Which brings us to the title of this post, Denial is Her Style.
Women seem to think differently from men. Kootch would probably agree with that. This idea dawned on me in a most unpleasant way in the early '90s when I attempted to (boom) explain (boom) to her what I meant by the term, 'Mad Mirror Molester.' Let me explain: from the late '80s to the late '90s I was 'harrassed' by some dude who followed me around from (stomp) time to time. This sucker obviously had a key to our car, because (he) would open the locked automobile, reach in, and rotate the rear view mirror all the way clockwise to the stops. (He) would then re-lock the car. When I returned to the locked car I would not at first notice that the rear view mirror had been molested. I would start up, put the car in reverse, check the rear view mirror... and find it skewed. And it was always skewed (tap) in the same way at first: clockwise to the stops. I formulated from those experiences that, (1) Somebody had the keys to our car; (2) Somebody was keeping track, at least occasionally, of where I drove that car; (3) Somebody wanted me to know that. Further conclusions could be drawn but these three are the primary undeniable conclusions (several faint booms from above). This went on for years. The frequency of MMM events varied over the years from a few times a week to a few times a year. Occasionally, instead of tweaking the mirror MMM would turn on the wipers. (Wipers were most effective, by the way, because of the startle value. Mirror tweaks were subtler but almost as effective.) Kootch did not believe me, apparently, when I told her about this phenomenon. This infuriated me. In my (boom) determination to make her understand one day (squeak above me) I cornered her in the car. I pulled over into a parking area. I explained to her using absolutely pristine logic what was happening. I tweaked the mirror duplicating exactly the MMM style. I asked her, based on my impressive demonstration, to draw a conclusion. 'Nobody would do that,' she explained.
Since that day I have learned (boom) to understand Kootch on a deeper level. I now understand that her style is denial. Kootch finds this particular emotional style best suited to her psyche. Nowadays I honor that. As a result we now get along famously. I have at last learned to accept (huge stomp just above me!) Kootch just the way she is. I have learned to trust her method of coping.