How big is the crime?

My daughter, Sophi, just turned 10 and I watched as she ripped open the wrapping on the first of her presents as her friends, giddy with anticipation, gathered round her. Her eyes grew to the size of ping-pong balls as she pulled out the prettiest purple purse from a tissue-filled gift box. She let out a little squeal of delight that mingled in the air with everybody else’s “oohs” and “aahs.” She held up the purse for all to appreciate, clutched it to her chest, and then proceeded to sling it on her shoulder to check for fit. It was one adorable little lady purse and so much more! It was like a magician’s hat because as she stuck her hand in, she unearthed a bounty of pens, pencils, markers, notebooks, pins, a lucky hundred-peso bill, and a shirt. 

“Who is it from?” a chorus of 10-year-olds asked.

“From Alej” — a classmate — she announced.

Before Sophi had even opened the present, Alej’s mom recounted to me how he had insisted on picking the gift himself. “I hope Sophi likes it. It’s Alej’s taste; it comes from the heart.” she said. “That is so sweet,” I told her, infinitely touched by Alej’s gesture — all that concern and effort as to go out of his way and pick out a present for someone else, the attention to detail, the thoughtfulness, the deliberateness and the planning. Plus, the bonus was that the boy did have excellent taste.

When do 10-year-old boys made up of snips and snails and puppy dogs’ tails turn into grown men with emotional constipation, special occasion amnesia, and gift-giving incapacity?

This thought reminded me of a banker friend’s story about how one woman called their credit card department demanding to have her charges amounting to close to P1 million honored. Since hers was a supplementary card of her husband’s, they had to get his authorization before they could approve her purchase.

“What was she trying to purchase?” I asked.

“Cosmetics and slimming procedures — some beautification project,” she said.

Apparently, this was the dialogue between the account officer and the woman’s husband, while the woman was holding on the other line:

“Sir, your wife is holding on the other line. She insists that we must approve the purchase because it’s your gift to her?”

“What gift? What is she talking about? Can she hear me? Ah, good.  What the heck? A million pesos to fix her face? Did you say body, too? Even Michelangelo can’t resculpt that. No, I’ll call her. Don’t approve it!”

“Um, sir… well, she said to tell you, ‘Don’t come home if you don’t approve it; just go to your ugly mistress.’”

“Huh? Ah… Go ahead; approve it.”

And the line went dead.

One of us listening to the story said, “But of course it’s a federal offense against the wife — something so big it wouldn’t fit in the basin of the Iguassu Falls in Brazil even if you rammed it in, so the gift — the peace offering — must be commensurate.”

Another one among us said: “To allow her to charge a big sum for something that’s not electronic, has no remote control, and can’t entertain him for hours on end or something that doesn’t have an engine and doesn’t drive, fly or float in the ocean — he must be so freakin’ guilty and he will be so freakin’ poor in the next few days.” 

How warped is this worldview? How did we all get here and who’s to blame?

Yet another friend, who was also with us, pitched in, “Sweet boys don’t transform into unfeeling ogres overnight. Teenagers, college boys even, or those in their twenties, do fall hard for women. Older men, too — those in their thirties, even mid-lifers. Come on, people! This euphoria during the early stages of the so-called romantic love spares no one. They become giddy and all romantic, right? The young ones with zero disposable income spend their allowance on stuff like roses, chocolates, movies, coffee, cell phone load — all this junk!  While the older, more financially empowered men get the goodies — jewelry, cars, condos, trips. It’s us, hard as we try to deny it. We become paranoid, demanding, nagging bitches that get so caught up in the nitty-gritty of everyday stuff that the men learn to tune us out and look elsewhere.”

We all glared at her like she was our lunch.

“Say what?” the feistiest one among us piped up, ready to bite a big chunk out of her.

She adjusted her tone and backed off a bit, then added, “How sad is it that women these days have to wait for their partners to commit an indiscretion before they can receive a present they actually want?  And they don’t get it by sitting patiently and making nice with them; they Mafia their way into their finances by charging everything including the kitchen sink on their credit cards — the bigger the crime, the higher the stakes. And this supposedly works out quite well because the bank’s approval code is equivalent to modern man’s absolution. His slate is wiped clean and wifey is happy — until the next crime.”

Sad. 

My take on it is this: if a woman wants something she should just go ahead and buy it herself. If she can’t afford it, then tough! If her partner commits an indiscretion, she should be the one to give him a present: her tall man — the middle finger in her hand — stuck high up in the air, stiffly. Then she should walk ever so unceremoniously in the opposite direction, heading as far away from him as possible.

I remember years ago, my classmate (I’ll call her S), then a newlywed of around seven months, was sitting at the head of the table over brunch with us. She had herded us together at the crack of dawn and, over Eggs Benedict that were as runny as her nose and her eyes, she confided that she had just discovered that her new husband had been seeing another woman via a text message he had mistakenly sent to her. 

“He broke my heart,” she said over and over, her voice cracking at times; her tone, unsteady and tentative. “I was convinced that we were inside this protective bubble of genuine affection, respect, trust, responsibility. We were truly happy. At least I thought he was too because he kept telling me so. He denied everything for a while but eventually admitted it. Sure, he apologized, and swore to cut it off and to never do it again; but he had taken away the peace of mind that came with being in that special place which I thought to be impenetrable. Can’t buy that, you know. Can’t bring it back either.”

“Quit the drama!” one spunky classmate interrupted. “Hit him where it hurts most; don’t just get even, get everything, as Ivana Trump said.  Swipe his credit card until it’s demagnetized and buy something so big it wouldn’t fit in the crater of the Grand Canyon.”

S seemed not to hear any of it. Usually so animated, she sat there in her faded sweats and rumpled hair, saying not a word and staring at nothing in particular. She wasn’t with us. And I could tell that she wasn’t with her husband anymore, either.

Another classmate — this one more sensible and less contentious — proposed: “Leave him; just leave him. Once a cad, always a cad.  And even if you stay, you know that this is the beginning of the end, right? This slow, steady decline into a constant state of doubt and fear and suspicion that just eventually erodes the ego — yours, of course, and that ultimately makes you miserable. So just bail and dump the jerk. If you insist on staying with him you stymie all your chances at happiness. You’ll be stuck with that con artist, missing a chance of hooking up with Mr. Right who just might be right under your nose, or a chance at total bliss that staying single brings.”

S seemed to be listening intently but she wasn’t hearing any of it.  She already knew what she had to do.

“S,” I nudged her. “Let’s go across the street for donuts, your favorite… Might cheer you up, help you think better,” I told her.

“I hate donuts!” she snapped.

* * *

Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com.