Anecdotal Precedent

They say that some men struggle to listen to their wives. I imagine it must be the same for wives listening to their husbands. After a while, our partner’s reaction to a situation will rarely come as a surprise, so why not tune out?

I’ll tell you why: anecdotal precedent.

Anecdotal precedent paid off big time for me this week when I was late picking up my wonderful wife.

To be honest, I am rarely late. I’m more likely to be ten to fifteen minutes early than I am to be even a minute late. But this time, I was at the gym, in the zone, and I lost track of time. I was almost fifteen minutes late picking up my wife, who I knew had already had a bad morning at work.

I was in trouble.

What to do?

Option #1: Speed as quickly as possible to minimize the damage.

I immediately discarded this option. For one, I was already late. Showing up a few minutes later wouldn’t change that in my wife’s mind. Also, throw in the risks of a speeding ticket or traffic accident and it was definitely not worth it.

Option #2: Excuses!

Well, I have been without a watch for a few weeks now, so how can I keep track of time?! My watch has an extremely thin clock face, which I love. However, jewelers will not change the battery in it because it is so fine. So I had to send it away and make do. What’s a watchless husband to do?

Discard. There are clocks at the gym and my wife pointing this out would not do me any favors.

Option #3: Admit to wrong doing, but do not apologize more than once.

I went with Option #3 the second I thought of it. I knew it would work because my wife recently told me a story about a woman that is always late, but never does anything more than admit to wrong doing. My wonderful wife thought this was a great way to act when one is late.

So I had her on anecdotal precedent.

And it worked!

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