M-a-n-i-p-u-l-a-t-i-o-n Part 2

So it takes one to know one which simply means I am one and I know a few, OK, several. Manipulators that is. I can think of 4 that I'm related to off the top of my head in my immediate family. And yes, that is my entire family. It's a gift. Some families have musical talent or athletic abilities, we're master manipulators.

It wasn't until quite recently that I realized just how masterful some of my family members are at this particular skill. Tim has a special gift of not only manipulating but confusing the hell out of me so I don't even know when I'm manipulated. He's so good at it I just figured it out last week. Since we've been married almost 18 years I'm either really, really slow or he's really, really good. I'm going to go with the latter.

Let's just take a little walk back in time and consider where this most valuable skill might have developed. I envision cavemen, cave women and cave kids all doing what cave people did when they lived in caves. The men would go out and stalk prey and kill something and bring it home to cook over a fire. And like today I'm sure they spent most of their day "making" that fire and then discussing their accomplishments. The women were out gathering berries one at a time and green leafy things with a baby tied to their backs. After spending 9 hours picking wild berries, taking care of their cave kids (since they were raised in a cave you know they never listened the first time) and dodging saber toothed tigers they came back home to a messy cave (probably full of deer innards) just in time to whip up that wild greens salad with the 8 berries she found (OK, they were probably a little more plentiful).

But that point is, and I do have a point, is that by the end of that long cave day that cave woman had as much interest in reproducing her species as I did while breastfeeding twins. That is where manipulation comes in. 'Cause you know and I know that that caveman was just like any other man and he wasn't closing his eyes until he tried his caveman moves. Now some people might call it seduction but I'm talking about a hairy caveman with b.o. and maybe a few teeth. Seduction isn't even on the table. M-a-n-i-p-u-l-t-i-o-n.

And I'm not done yet.