Ann Story Part 33: A Night With Friends

To the social worker
March 13

Wednesday night my friend “Polly” and her kids, “Josh” and “Ella” came for dinner. After dinner the kids were all downstairs and though I never figured out all of what happened here is some of it.

According to Andrew an "insult competition" was developing. Things were beginning to get out of hand and Josh said to his sister, "If you don't cut it out I am going to beat the crap out of you." Now everyone understood that “Josh” would NEVER hit his sister, and under normal circumstances “Ella” would just realize that she had pushed about as far as she should, but this was different. Ann came to “Ella's” defense and told “Josh” that he better not even try because she would stop him. Ann was seriously angry and Andrew thought he might calm everything down by telling Ann that she should back off "because I got the goods on you." Of course Ann did not hear that as a joke either and was even more upset. She came upstairs to tell me that Andrew was threatening to tell her private information to everyone.

After Ella and Josh left Roland and I had a conversation with Ann and Andrew. It was interesting. We explained to each where the other was coming from. We tried to get Ann to understand that Andrew and “Josh” both had clear boundaries that they would not cross and that their threats were along the same lines as my saying that I was going to hang a kid by the toes and tickle him until he barfed. And we explained to Andrew that in the "world" that Ann came from threats like that are serious and that even though he and Josh were kidding, that is the sort of thing that would not be a joke for Ann. Roland said that in Ann's world you don't laugh, you duck.

Anyway, I got the feeling that they both got a picture of a very different way of living in the world. It was odd...they both found the other perspective unbelievable. "There are people who really would/would not do that?

Part 34