Mongooses and self-pity, a deadly combination

I was innocently doing the Times crossword puzzle. It's one of my addictions, and I do it when I'm trying to procrastinate or generally relax and get completely absorbed in something that shuts out the world. For several years I've done them online, and even though I don't like to use Google to find obscure answers, sometimes I have to admit defeat, and as a last resort, I'll look something up. I must have done just that some time in the past couple of weeks, because why else would I come across a PDF on my desktop with a mysterious name, click on it, and see the following title:

'Spatial dynamics of mongooses in the rain forest of Puerto Rico: implications for rabies transmission.'

I'm NOT making this up. I do remember a question about a rainforest mammal in a puzzle, and this is the only explanation I have for why this was on my desktop. Just glad I'm not dating the author! I can so picture some guy going on and on about this very subject over dinner at a fancy restaurant while his date tries to stay awake until the entree arrives.

My own boyfriend is obsessed with swimming, swim meets, the water temperature of the pool where he swims, which is a whopping two degrees too hot for his taste, and therefore a source of hours of discussion and indignation. I'm not sure what mutant gene it is that makes people think their obsessions are interesting to others past the thirty second mark, but there it is. When I called him at work last week to tell him I was going to the hospital for tests, I found myself listening to the details of a re-scheduled swim meet within fifteen seconds of saying hello. I tried again, to touch on the subject of BEING SICK AND GOING TO THE HOSPITAL, but it was no use. He just didn't get it. Sympathy was not happening. Maybe the mongoose guy would have stopped in his tracks and said,'Pooooor thiiiiing' but not Mr. Swim Meet.

I actually trained one erstwhile boyfriend, Thor (yes, really) to say it. POOOOOOooooor thiiiiiing. It was a joke at first. I'd tell him about something at work, or some unfairness, and instead of getting the requisite sympathy, he'd take the other side just to play devil's advocate, which made me even more upset.

I just came out and told him that he was getting it all wrong, that when a girlfriend told him something, his job, his absolute mandate at that moment, was to say, 'Pooor you. You're right and they're wrong. Stooooopid ol' them." or something to this effect. I pointed out that to do any less would be to court danger in the form of an angry girlfriend, not just me, but any and every girlfriend he would ever have. I had him repeat it a couple of times, until he could do it with a straight face. He began to do it totally in jest, but when he saw the amazing results, that we fell for it every time, no matter how insincere, he began to get it. Twenty-some years later we're still friends, and he has thanked me many times over for teaching him this important lesson.

And by the way, I pride myself on seeing the other person's side and admitting it when I'm wrong. It's just that psychological salve on the initial wound that I need. If someone else feels sorry for me I don't have to drown in my own self-pity, and I can then be rational and go about my business.

Well, sorted the huge pile of papers that had accumulated in my classroom, I've rambled from Mongooses to sympathy, and now I must go home and feed my poor neglected dogs, after which I will try to make sense of the latest school paper and try to get it patched together so we can get it published before Halloween. Or maybe I'll just do the Sunday puzzle...