This week, it’s really just for the laughs.
Because it’s true. I’ve written about it before, but there’s no harm in repeating the message. Midlife brings real changes to the way the female mind works. I like to think of it as my brain re-shaping itself into the kind of pointy helmet a cyclist wears. Streamlined. Hair thins as well, which also helps with the wind resistance, it’s just a shame it grows back in unwanted places … chins for example.
Anyway. In the past I’ve called these changes, Superpowers. Click here to read the first and the second.
I’ll continue with that theme.
So here it is. The third secret superpower of midlife, is a honed ability to spot and deal with the bully in the room. And there’s always a bully in the room.
I’ll explain.
Back in September we sold our apartment to a couple. I only ever met the man, I’ll call him M.
I didn’t like M. He’s a lawyer, and from the beginning I found his behaviour bullish. He came to see the apartment in the summer, before it went on the market. He was granted an early viewing on the condition that he understood the asking price wasn’t negotiable.
He agreed, and then put in an offer under the asking price.
Several rounds of negotiation went on, not over price, but date. Terms were met. He would pay the price, we could compromise on date.
Then he disappeared.
He reappeared in September, by which time it was on the open market. This time he offered an even lower price, confidant he was the only interested party.
Several rounds of negotiations went on. He made offers only to withdraw when they weren’t accepted. Eventually we reached an agreement. Signed the deal. Gave him the keys.
And then it started.
Because I didn’t like him, and because I needed to save every penny, we took everything that we were allowed to take. The new expensive curtains and rails only installed a year ago, the wardrobe interiors we had bought and installed – super expensive.
Cue furious emails from M, demanding, no DEMANDING, the return of the wardrobe interiors and compensation for the fact that his workmen had to spend extra time filling in the teeny tiny holes in the ceiling where the curtain rail had been.
The cat flap was next – a cat flap that had been on full view (for how can you hide a cat flap?), and never mentioned in any of the viewings. M demanded we take it away and make good the door. Make good the door? With what? A square of cardboard?
Then it was the small pile of sweepings I’d forgotten about down in the cellar. M demanded that we come around, with our own brush (I kid you not!) and sweep it up. Here it is. Unfiltered, the pile I forgot to go back and sweep up because … well keep reading.
All went quiet for a weekend.
And then we got another email. M had spent the first weekend in his new home poring over the paperwork (clearly looking for a legal loophole to tie us in knots with), and discovered he had been sold an apartment that was one square meter smaller, than the paperwork had promised. He wanted compensation! He demanded compensation! He’d worked it out and we owed him xxxx. Yes, he actually gave us a figure and, so inflated with his own importance was he, he went and copied the estate agent into the mail. She instantly responded saying any mistake on the literature was hers, and if he wanted to pursue it she would need to check her company insurance policy.
How do you think M responded to that?
Politely of course. A we don’t want to cause any bother for you kind of mail.
Because this wasn’t about an extra square meter. This was about power, and the need to wield it. Men like M, are two-a-penny. If they spot an easy target, they will take aim. What they haven’t yet learned, but surely will, is that middle-aged women are not easy targets. We’ve been there and done that. We have pointy helmets for brains and we DO NOT CARE.
I wrote him a long email addressing all his demands.
Re: the cat-flap? Buy a cat, I said.
Re: the teensy, tiny holes in the ceiling? Don’t look up, I said.
Re: the pile of dust in the cellar? I forgot, I said. I was pre-occupied. At the time my soon-to-be-ex-husband was away on holiday with … (well, you’ve all heard enough about that now and if not the archives hold it all).
Re: compensation for the extra square meter? Let it go, I said. You may need an estate agent again one day, and no one wants to get a reputation for being a dickhead.
(I didn’t say dickhead, I said petty and difficult.)
I signed it, Peace.
And that was that. Well not quite. The man continues. Six weeks later, I got a mail with a photo of the lockbox on the outside wall. A tiny box, useful for holding a spare key. Me, not my soon-to-be-ex … the mail was addressed only to me.
Code, M writes.
Did you mean, What is the code please? I write back.
A long diatribe ensues, using three hundred words to say what could have been said in fourteen, i.e. I will die before I say please to you. You, who dared answer back. (Doesn’t a lawyer have work to do in the middle of the day?)
Sorry, I wrote. The code has quite slipped my mind.
This is the second time this year, I haven’t held back. Haven’t let the constraints of polite society constrain me (for they do constrain; women, far more than men). The first time was when I bumped into the woman, who had flirted with my husband, in front of my son, and helped cause such chaos in my family. (All in the archive).
And it’s funny, in some ways this has been one of the hardest times of my life, but in other ways it has been the most liberating.
I don’t regret anything I wrote to M - except perhaps that I didn’t actually use, dickhead. Or anything I said to that woman.
I’m not out to hurt anyone, but I will not be bullied or cowed anymore. It’s a potent feeling, this super-power combination of nothing-to-lose, hard-won experience and pointy cycle-helmet brain. I’m enjoying every moment.
Until next time,
Cary
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Good for you Cary! As I approach 50 my motto is ‘Do no harm but take no s*@t’ . Some men are far too accustomed to dominating women in any given situation.
Yes Cary! I silently cheered and laughed out l oh d as I read this. Have a wonderful Christmas and don’t let the dickheads get you down. 😘