my father… king of pavlovian conditioning
In honour of my Dad, who is currently sleeping in our guest bedroom:
My father knows how to get his way.
Growing up, when he and my Uncle Dave were asked to do the dishes, the fight would be over who got to dry the dishes — the actual washing of the dishes being seen as the suckier of the two jobs. Well, my father, never one to allow a situation to go unhacked, started to offer to wash the dishes. His strategy was two-fold: 1) By always asking to wash the dishes, he would subconsciously train himself to prefer the job, training himself to believe it really was the job he wanted to do, and 2) By always asking to wash the dishes, he eventually made it seem the more desirable job, thus making my Uncle Dave feel cheated out of the really great job of washing the dishes.
But the better story is the tale of the custard.
Everyone in his house growing up loved to have some Bird’s Eye Custard. Mmmmm… custard. However… my father — when making custard for himself — felt that if he was making the custard, he should get to enjoy the all the spoils, free of moochers and johnny-come-latelies. But how to get them to keep their grubby paws off his custard? Thus came the addition of one special ingredient into his unique custard recipe: green food colouring.
All the custard was his for the taking.
And my sister and I were not exempt from his little reindeer games. Oh no. Here is but one example:
Throughout our childhoods, every time either of us had an ice cream cone — EVERY SINGLE TIME — my father would oh-so-helpfully offer to “clean it up” for us. He bloody well trained us to see the melting ice cream on an ice cream cone as undesirable and somehow beyond our abilities to remedy. So, when presented with his purely self-serving offer to “clean it up”, we would willing — nay, eagerly — hand over our cones to his gloating embrace.
…
He’s asleep right now.
I think I’m going to go dip his hand in a bowl of warm water.
If I do it enough, maybe eventually I train him to like peeing in bed.
December 8th, 2006 at 8:50 am
Your Dad rocks!
December 8th, 2006 at 9:20 am
I was hoping for more of a “Oh, you poor boy, here have some cookies to ease your suffering” sort of response.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Your dad rocks! Deny yourself some cookies to reinforce your sense of suffering.
MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Ridiculous I know. Of COURSE you will - nay, SHOULD - have some cookies. Find some other way to suffer; no sense being all like, inhumane.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Ah yes, a smart man your father. However, revenge is deserv-ed…. give him the water torture.
I’ve used a similar trick on my little sister since she was but a wee lass.
I trained her from a young age to think it’s in her best interest to make sure I taste test yummy treats first to make sure they’re up to snuff or not laced with something that might harm her. I know, it sounds sick, but it’s so much fun. I welcome her vengance and own form of retaliation one day.
December 8th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Your Dad is subtle.
My Dad used to snag things from my plate during dinner by saying, “Oh, Shit!” with a wide-eyed look of terror and then, when I turned to look at what had alarmed him, stabbing stuff with his fork and puting it into his mouth before I turned around.
He’d do it just often enough so that I didn’t stop going for it until I was a teenager. D’Oh!
December 9th, 2006 at 12:52 am
Your Dad rocks! And he’s subtle too!
Heh heh heh.
And, by the way, I was performing a useful service when I cleaned up your ice cream cones. You’re just ticked because I enjoyed doing it.
If and when you have kids, of course, you won’t offer to clean up their ice cream cones for them, will you?
Green custard tastes extra good.
December 10th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
Here’s something quasi-Pavlovian for you: a lovely meme ‘tag’.
December 12th, 2006 at 11:11 am
I don’t remember my dad ever cleaning my ice cream cone, that was my mom’s job. BUT the man did play the ol’ fool the kid game of farting resplendantly and blaming it on a mouse. I spent many a moment as a young kid searching under his lazy boy recliner and other furniture for said mythical farting mouse .
There isn’t enough therapy in the world for stuff like that…sob…
December 12th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
You have learned from the master! I hope you certainly will utilise these very useful tips - my father used to teach us to fix things… like broken kettles, and toasters, and diagnose car problems… unfortunately whenever I now see something that needs fixing I can’t help myself. Needless to say the Beau is happily pleased about this as he has no idea how to change a lightbulb!
Ah well…
December 14th, 2006 at 11:27 am
Thank you all. You have made my father so happy.
Great.
Just what I need.
My father getting positive feedback for his jedi mind tricks.
*grumble*