The Tone

If you have teen or preteen (or maybe even younger) girls, you know all about the tone.

It is the voice that says, without saying anything, "You are by FAR the most STUPID human I have EVER encountered in my ENTIRE life."

I hate the tone.

But I have made the mistake two many times of trying to stop the tone by consequencing it, arguing with it, getting sucked into a discussion about it, or trying to make a girl aware of it. So, even though I still make that mistake occasionally, I've decided to start going with it.

and pretending to acknowledge my stupidity really goes against the grain of my personality.

But today I was successful. I had some misinformation, provided to me by said girl, though she denies it, that made me arrive at a conclusion that didn't make sense to her. "NO," she insisted, using very effectively THE TONE, "that wouldn't make any sense."

I quickly responded, "Oh, you're right. I must have misunderstood. I thought you said...."

and the conversation moved on to other things.

What did I want to say??? I wanted to say, "You think I"M the stupid one? YOu're the one who gave me the information in the first place. Where do you think I got my information? It all came for you. I'm so sick and tired of you treating me like i'm an idiot!"

But I've learned that that would have done no good at all.

But tomorrow I might say exactly that, you never know. Because it takes a while for me to learn. After all, I'm stupid, remember?