If Looks Could Kill

Marlene glares at me as I open the door to the waiting room. My customary smile freezes on my face. I’ve been seeing Marlene for over three years now and her connection to me is quite intense. As we walk toward my office I ask myself if there was there anything notable about our last session. I didn’t announce an upcoming vacation. I don’t recall a therapeutic breach. We talked about her father, a man she has been loath to take off his pedestal. 

Marlene drops into the chair, crosses her arms and legs and pointedly looks out the window, avoiding my eyes. She’s a tall, blonde woman in her mid-thirties who came into treatment because of repeatedly failed relationships she described as filled with betrayal and abandonment.   

We sit in silence for several minutes as Marlene’s anger fills the room. I’m becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Is that because I want to avoid getting caught in a power struggle? Or does Marlene’s anger feel too big to me, triggering my own discomfort with intense rage? I can’t tell. But I know I’m going to break the silence.

“You’re obviously really angry with me, Marlene. Can you tell me why?”

“I hate you!” Marlene spits at me.


Over the years, I’ve certainly had patients tell me they hate me. But the venom behind Marlene’s words is frightening to me, especially since I have no idea what’s fueling it. I do know her anger is triggering me, reminding me of the irrational, explosive rage of my father, but that awareness doesn’t assuage my anxiety.
  
“You’re just like my fucking mother! All you want to do is take him away from me. I can’t say you want him all to yourself, you’re too much of an old bag for Daddy, but you probably just want me to be as miserable as you.”

I’m getting a glimmer of what’s going on. That helps. But the paranoia behind Marlene’s words is still discomforting. 

“So in our last session you felt I was trying to take your father away from you.”

“I didn’t ‘feel it,’ you were. Telling me he never loved me!”

I feel I’m walking through a land mine. If I dispute Marlene’s account of what I said, we’ll only end up arguing about who said what. Yet I’m not comfortable allowing what I see as Marlene’s distortion to exist as fact. I decide to try to go underneath the rage and paranoia. 

“So if I was trying to take your father away from you I can certainly understand your feeling enraged at me. But what if in the course of our discussion you found yourself having some doubts about your father …”

“Never, bitch! You see. You’re doing it again.”

My anxiety is moving towards anger, just as Marlene’s anger covers her fear and vulnerability.

“Marlene,” I say with more determination. “There’s a lot going on here today. Even the intensity of your rage and your unwillingness to hear me out, speaks to your covering over lots of feelings. Something clearly got triggered in our last session. I’ve become the enemy. I wasn’t your enemy before and I’m not your enemy today. If you feel I was too harsh about your father, I apologize. But no father is perfect, no father can be 100% available and loving. And I think you got scared about losing your perfect father. Perhaps having him be less than perfect feels like he’s not there at all, sort of like with me going from friend to enemy, he went from being 100% there to being 100% absent and that was too painful to bear.”

Once again there is silence, but this silence feels more tolerable.

“I don’t know,” Marlene finally says in barely a whisper. “If I believe you, I lose him. If I stay with him… I don’t know. Does that mean I lose you?”

“The world isn’t so black and white, Marlene. You don’t have to choose between us, even though I know that is how it often felt with your parents. Neither your father nor I are perfect, but our lack of perfection doesn’t mean that you’re abandoned and alone. It means you get to take what you can from each of us imperfect people and that you can also look beyond us for close, meaningful relationships.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think.”

“What is it that you feel right now?
”
“Confused.”

“Anything else?”

“Kind of empty. It’s like I was filled with rage when I came in and now that rage is gone, but I’m not sure what’s there in its place.”

“I understand. We’ll continue to talk about it next time.”

Taking a Break

“I know we only have a few minutes left in our session,” Martha says interrupting her complaints about her work and her marriage, “But I wanted to tell you I’m planning on taking a break from therapy.”

Feeling immediately angry at this sudden pronouncement with almost no time to discuss it, I ask, “What led you to that decision?”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. We just don’t seem to be getting anywhere. I come in every week and complain about either Mitchell or my boss, my boss or Mitchell. It doesn’t change anything.”

I happen to concur with Martha’s assessment, but my sense is that my attempts to engage Martha in greater self-reflection, as opposed to her litany of complaints, has been mostly unsuccessful. 

“Martha, could you at least come for one more session to talk about what you think hasn’t worked and why, as well as giving us a chance to say good-bye should you decide to end.”

“I’m not ending. Just taking a break. Besides, I’m on vacation the next two weeks.”

Another surprise. Martha obviously had planned her leave-taking for a while, even neglecting to mention her upcoming vacation.

Aware we have no time left this hour I say, “Well, what if you come in three weeks from today so that we have a chance to talk and in the meantime maybe we can both think about why you chose to tell me about your break at the very end of a session right before you were going on vacation?”

Martha sighs. “I guess. This seemed like a natural break point, but if you want me to come in once more I guess I can do that.”
“Thank you. I’ll see you in three weeks and have a good vacation.”

I am definitely annoyed, feeling dismissed and discarded. I have no idea whether Martha will show for her session in three weeks and whether or not she’ll continue. I feel obliged to keep Martha’s time available even though she’s made no commitment to the continuation of our relationship. 

Martha does show in three weeks. She is, however, uncharacteristically late, leaving me again off-balance and unsure of her intentions.

“Well, I’m here,” she says. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Maybe we should start by talking about your anger at me,” I suggest.

“I’m not angry at you. I just don’t think we’re getting anywhere.”

“You tell me the last few minutes of an hour that you’re leaving, you’re late to this session and you seem annoyed about being here.”

She shrugs.

Here I am again, angry. My anger. Her anger. My anger. Her anger. Maybe that’s what’s going on.

“You know, Martha, I think what you’ve been trying to do – unconsciously of course – is help me to feel your level of anger, dissatisfaction, and powerlessness, whether those feelings are directed towards me, your husband, or your boss. Things aren’t going the way you want them to in any aspect of your life and you feel powerless to change them.”

“That’s exactly right!” Martha says brightening.

“But I wonder if you’re really as powerless as you feel,” I continue. “Or if you don’t know how to ask for what you want or don’t know how to make it happen. For example, I want you to stay in treatment. I do understand that simply complaining about what’s not working in your life isn’t helpful; that we have to figure out ways in which you can get what you need here as well as in other parts of your life.”

“But how am I supposed to know what I need? You’re the doctor, you’re supposed to know.”

“There’s an awful lot in what you just said, Martha. First, there’s a request to be taken care of and anger at not being taken care of. But there’s also a lot of passivity in your statement which only increases your feelings of powerlessness and makes you less likely to get what you want.”

“But I don’t know what I want! I just know I’m not getting it.”

“That’s a great insight, Martha. And it makes a lot of sense. When you were a kid, no one cared what you wanted. They were too busy with what they wanted. You don’t know what you want. But you do know you feel dissatisfied. And when you’re dissatisfied you complain or leave. I’d say we know what we need to work on, assuming you’re willing to stay and work on it.”

“I was sure I was going to take a break. But, yeah, I’m willing to give it another try.”

“Good,” I say smiling. 

Memories

“I can’t understand,” says Jackie, tears trickling down her cheeks. “I thought it would be so wonderful to return home, to drive through Iowa on our way out west, to look at the old farmhouse, to show my kids where Mom used to live. But it was awful. It was all broken down, dilapidated. Nothing’s the same. I remember the huge trees we used to climb when we were young. They’ve all been cut down.” 

Jackie pauses. “One thing’s for sure. Our work together has changed me. I didn’t go numb. I definitely felt my sadness.” 

I feel Jackie’s sadness as well. And my own. Although I have no attachment to my childhood New York apartment, the home I lived in on a small lake outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan during my 30s and 40s was my idea of nirvana. Leaving that home was gut-wrenching for me; seeing it again was worse. I felt as though both the house and the landscape had been defiled. The atrium had been ripped out, replaced by a slab of wood covered by a carpet and a piano. And my beautiful weeping cherry tree was no more. I couldn’t stop crying. And that was when my husband was still alive. Now when I return to the Ann Arbor area I can barely tolerate driving by the highway exit to what was once my home.

“But it is a bit silly,” Jackie continues. “I hadn’t been home for over 30 years. What did I expect? It’s not like my family’s there anymore. In fact, my Mom and sister are right here in Florida. Why isn’t this home?”  

The question of where’s home. “Well, why isn’t it?”

“It is home. My kids were born here. I feel as though I’ve lived here forever. And, as I said, most of my family is here. And when I talk about Florida right here, right now it does feel like home.”

“And your sadness lifts.”

“Yes, that’s true. But when I think about standing in front of that old farmhouse I feel lost.”

“’Lost.’ That’s a good word. Sounds like you’re saying that you lost your past, lost your home, lost your foundation. As if you were untethered, floating in space.”

“That’s exactly right.”

“And when you think about being here in Florida, about your life being here, you feel reconnected. This is home.”

“Yes. Right.” Jackie pauses. “It feels weird though. Like I’m split. If I think of being here, I feel fine. If I think of being there, I’m overcome with sadness.”

I feel shrouded with sadness myself and worry that my sadness makes me less able to be helpful to Jackie. Our stories aren’t the same. She does feel a sense of home in Florida, she does experience a sense of connection. I try to get outside myself and focus on Jackie’s feelings. 

“What about if you think of your childhood memories of that home, of, for example, climbing the trees, playing in the yard?”

“Well, right now it just feels sad. All I feel is the absence. There are no more trees to climb. But I think before I went back to Iowa it used to make me happy to remember. Not that everything in my childhood was so great, but still, I remembered the good times and it made me smile.”

“Perhaps as the memory of your present visit fades, those positive childhood feelings with come back.”

Jackie frowns slightly. “This seems like an odd conversation we’re having. It’s almost like we’ve switched places. I’m the one who’s feeling my sadness and you’re the one who’s trying to get me to stop feeling it.” 

I immediately realize the truth of Jackie’s statement. It’s as if the sadness was too much for me, not too much for Jackie; as if I wanted to escape my own sadness, not that Jackie needed to flee hers. “You’re absolutely right, Jackie. I apologize. You were feeling your sadness and doing fine with it.”

“Did you think it would be too much for me? That I’d start going numb again?”

“No, Jackie, I didn’t. Truthfully, this was more about me than about you. I think I’m the one who wanted to get away from my own sadness, so I was thinking I was being helpful by trying to get you away from yours.”

“Wow! I’m sorry I made you sad.”

“You didn’t make me sad, Jackie. We all carry sadness inside us. And when it comes to the surface we need to do just what you’re doing, feel it and feel it until you don’t feel it any more. It’s part of living life.”   

Russian Roulette

Two women occupy my office chairs today. I have seen Georgia, a tall, stately, perfectly coifed 49 year old woman on and off for 14 years. When I first began treating her, her daughter Tricia was seven years old. Now a beautiful 21 year old sits across from me, a straight A pre-med junior at the University of Florida.

Tricia’s success has been Georgia’s obsession. Through the years we have worked at diminishing her anger at her accountant husband for not being sufficiently successful to send Tricia to an Ivy League College. Although I always thought I came from an overprotective family that relentlessly pushed me to succeed, working with Georgia introduced me to a whole new definition of relentless, coupled with a rule-bound, rigid household.

It’s unusual for me to agree to see a patient’s family member, but Georgia pleaded with me and I thought the situation sufficiently alarming to agree.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tricia,” I say smiling. “I’ve certainly heard a lot about you over the years.”

“I bet!” she replies. “Sometimes I think I’m the only person my Mom ever thinks about.”

Good insight, I think to myself. “And how do you feel about that?” I ask.

“It gets old. I tell her I’m a big girl now. I can take care of myself.”

“Sounds like you’re getting right to the point of your mother’s concern, having unprotected sex.”

“I know the guys I’m sleeping with. It’s not like I’m hooking up with one-night stands. I know who they are, who they’ve slept with.”

“You don’t know, Tricia,” Georgia says, her voice tense and annoyed. “You can never know. I don’t understand why you’re being so reckless, playing Russian roulette with your life.” 

“Maybe that’s a good question. Why do you think you need to be reckless, Tricia?”

“I’m not being reckless. I told you I know who these boys are.”

I remember stories from Tricia’s early teen-age years when she would sneak boys into her room at home, often managing to get caught. I definitely understand her need to rebel, to break the shackles of her mother’s iron grip, but I don’t think Tricia is aware of the motivation behind her own behavior. 

“What were the messages you got from your mother regarding sex?” I ask.

“You’re kidding, right? No sex before marriage. Sex is holy. Only meant for a married man and woman. We’ll leave the same-sex part of that out completely.”

“What?” Georgia shrieks. “Have you had sex with a woman?”

“No comment,” Tricia replies snidely.

“That’s an interesting statement Tricia. Because it seems to me you’ve made many comments – directly and indirectly - about your sex life and I have wondered why that is. How does your mother know you’re having unprotected sex? How come she knew you were having sex as a teenager? And why did you just casually throw out the possibility of lesbian sex?”

“She asks me.”

“Tricia, I know you’re a very smart young woman. Yet you seem determined not to consider the meaning of either your statements or your behavior. For one, you already said you don’t think your mother thinks of anyone but you and that you don’t like that, but you manage to increase her thinking about you by being provocative. And, while you’re reeling her in on the one hand, you’re rebelling against her and everything she believes in on the other.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you’re not sure how close you want to be to your mother. You tell her everything to stay close and then rebel against her to move away. I do understand, Tricia, that your Mom has held onto you very tightly and that makes the process of separating more difficult.”

“So now it’s my fault,” Georgia says angrily.

Always the problem with introducing a family member into an ongoing treatment, the patient ends up feeling dismissed and betrayed.

“It’s not a question of fault, Georgia. It’s a problem that exists for both of you today. I know you want Tricia to be healthy and happy and have a full life and in order to do that she needs to separate from you in a way that’s not destructive to her.”

“She always makes it about her,” Tricia says, exasperated. “Of course, you’re making it about her too.”

I smile. “You really are a very insightful person. There’s no way I as your mother’s therapist is going to be able to help you separate. But I do think it would be a good idea for you to go into your own therapy, with your own therapist. As you said, you’re a big girl now and you need to take care of yourself.”  

Unmoored

“You’re sure you don’t know my husband?” Francis Browning asks again.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I reply. “You made it very clear on the phone that your husband is a psychologist in town and I definitely wouldn’t have agreed to see you if I knew him in any way.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just so hard to trust anyone anymore. I can’t even believe I’m willing to see a psychologist myself, but I have to talk to someone or I’ll go crazy. Sometimes I can’t stop crying. Other times I walk around the house screaming. I can’t believe he’d do this. Why drag me all the way here only to dump me?” Francis digs her fingernails into her hands, her face contorted with rage.

I remain silent.

“I’m from Kansas,” she says. “A Kansas farm girl. People in south Florida laugh at me. They don’t think anyone lives in Kansas. And they don’t believe anyone works a farm. I don’t know where they think their meat and produce come from. Just magically appear in the grocery store I suppose. I hate it here. People are incredibly rude, unfriendly. I never wanted to come here. But Richard loved it when we vacationed here, the sun, the manicured lawns, year-round golf. He kept saying as soon as the girls went off to college we’d move. I thought he was just talking. I went on with my life. It wasn’t a very exciting life, but it was my life. I kept busy with my friends and volunteer work. I never finished college. I thought I was so lucky that someone like Richard would want me. Ha! Guess that’s a joke.”




As Francis talks, I think about how painful my move from Ann Arbor, Michigan to south Florida was, how gut-wrenching it felt to leave my friends, my practice and my home, how alien south Florida seemed. I, too, left because of my husband, but we had a warm, loving relationship and although I sometimes felt angry, I knew the move was necessary. Francis’ story obviously has a different trajectory.

“So the girls went off to college,” Francis continues, “and Richard started making plans to move. I kept asking him if he was sure he wanted to start over again in his fifties, but I

guess I never gave him much of an argument.”

“Did you tell him you didn’t want to move?”

“He knew. But I always did what he wanted. He didn’t expect much opposition from me. So we moved and I hated it as much as I thought I would. Moving into a country club community was my idea of a nightmare. I don’t play golf or tennis. I don’t play cards, which kind of eliminates everything women do in those places. Richard was happy as a clam – working hard, I have to give him that – involved in all kinds of stuff at the club. He started watching his weight, coloring his hair. Wanted me to do all that too. Said I looked dowdy. I should have known. I should have realized he’d start looking elsewhere. I should have tried harder, done what he said.”

“You seem to go from being really angry with your husband to blaming yourself.”

“Yeah. Maybe if I’d done the things he’d asked we’d still be together. But too late now. Moved in with another woman. In the same club of course. Talk about being laughed at. I keep asking myself why I don’t move back to Kansas.”

“That’s a good question. Why don’t you?”

“Partly it’s shame. Not too many people back home know what’s happened. The girls of course, but I haven’t wanted to tell my friends. And I don’t know. I guess it’s silly, but I like Richard to know I’m still around, still watching what he’s doing, like I’m here and you can’t get rid of me so easily.”

“You know, Francis, I’m left wondering what you want for your life. What you’ve ever wanted for your life. You’ve spent your life wrapped around your husband and what he wants. What about you?”

Francis glares at me. “Typical career woman! You sit there talking down to me and telling me about my choices.”

I’m taken aback by Francis’ venom. Am I a stand-in for her husband? For the other woman? 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I just don’t know what to do with my rage.”

“You never have to apologize for your feelings here, Francis.”

“I never wanted to be a career woman. I wanted to be a wife and mother and look where that got me. I’m being punished for getting what I wanted. You’re not supposed to want. You’re just supposed to accept whatever God gives you.”

“It’s hard not to want, Francis.”

“Maybe. But wanting and getting burned is no better.”

Unleashed

“I didn’t want to come today,” Penny says quietly. “I knew I’d have to tell you what I did and I’m not sure I want to. I’m not sure I can.”

Penny’s anxiety is palpable and mine rises along with hers. It’s difficult when patients introduce a topic this way. I always think of something dreadful – she attempted suicide, she started cutting herself, she killed her daughter. I remain silent.

Penny sits looking downward, her dark, straight hair partially covering her face. She makes no attempt to wipe away the tears that fall down her cheeks.

“I beat up Jennifer,” she finally says in a whisper.

Even though my internal list of dreadful possibilities did include Penny having killed her child, I didn’t really expect to hear that Penny had done anything violent, not this petite, delicate woman who sits across from me. And what does she mean by ‘beat up’?  

“I swore I’d never be like that,” she continues. “I swore I’d never be like my mother. I waited years to have a child because I was so afraid of being like her. And then I am. I’m just like her, just as out of control crazy,” says Penny between sobs.

Penny’s mother was an enraged woman with an explosive temper who beat Penny and her sister with straps and belts and anything else at her disposal. Did Penny indeed lose control like her mother? No longer able to contain my own anxiety, I say, “Can you tell me what happened, Penny.”
 
“Bill and I came home earlier than we expected and there was my 15 year old daughter on the couch making out with this… this boy I’ve told her to keep away from. He’s one of those bad boys. I bet he never even finishes high school. I just snapped. I started screaming and screaming. Bill told him to leave, Jennifer started to give her father an argument and I just went over and slapped her across the face. Twice. She looked at me shocked. I stopped. I couldn’t believe what I did. I couldn’t believe I was just like my mother.”

I can feel myself breath again. Although Penny was briefly out of control her behavior was a far cry from her mother’s. In fact, I can remember a time in a somewhat similar situation when I was about Penny’s age when my mother slapped me for the first and only time of my life. It didn’t scare me. Just made me mad, even though I knew I’d been out of line. But Penny is now frightened of herself, beating up on herself not with a belt, but with self-recrimination and guilt.

“I can’t even look at Jennifer without bursting into tears. And yet I’m still mad at her. She knew she shouldn’t bring that boy into the house. I don’t want her near him anyplace let alone in my home. But I shouldn’t have snapped like that. Bill tells me I’m being too hard on myself, but he doesn’t understand.”

Remembering my own musings before Penny told me what actually happened, I ask, “Is it what you did that’s bothering you so much or what you felt?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if we just look at what happened: You come home and find Jennifer with a boy you don’t approve of. You get angry and yell and slap her twice across the face. The facts themselves aren’t so terrible. Maybe that’s what Bill means when he says you’re being too hard on yourself.  But the question might be, what did you feel? Did you feel so out-of-control with rage that you might even have wanted to kill Jennifer? And even if you consciously didn’t feel that, was it the extent of your rage that frightened you so much, made you feel like your mother.”

“I didn’t want to kill her!”  Pause. “At least I don’t think so. But I’ve never been so angry in my life.”

“You know, Penny, you present as this gentle, almost meek, little person who would never want to hurt a fly, who could never, ever feel angry at anyone. And maybe that’s the problem. You’ve been so intent on not being like your mother, in keeping any possible similarity to your mother buried far, far away that when that anger was unleashed it burst out like a volcano.”

“That makes sense. But I don’t know what to do with that.”

“Well, it’s too intellectual right now. But I suspect we’re going to need to spend more time looking back at your childhood and finding the anger you needed to keep buried back then, anger that’s still buried and looking for a way to get out.”

No Sadness

“I saw the stupidest movie this past weekend, ‘Inside Out,’’ says Stu, a patient who came into therapy at his wife’s insistence. “It’s supposed to be a kid’s movie so we took my five year old son. He thought some of it was funny, but I thought it was just dumb. These ridiculous Feelings running around in the brain controlling this girl, Riley I think her name was. Even her name. What kind of name is Riley? Anyway, of course my wife loved it and we got into a huge argument over the stupid thing.”

I loved the movie too, seeing it as an incredibly clever animated film that captured the need for humans to integrate all of their feelings in order to avoid becoming removed from themselves and others. I am not, however, surprised by Stu’s aversion to the movie. I remain silent.

“She just got so upset that I didn’t, as she said, ‘get’ the movie. She saw that as the root of ‘our problems,’ by which she meant ‘my problems.’”

“Can I ask you what you didn’t like about the movie, Stu?”

“It was just dumb.”

“Maybe it would be helpful though if we could figure out what about the movie you thought was ‘dumb.’

“Did you see it?”

I suspected that Stu would ask this question and knew that I would answer. “Yes, I did.”

“You liked it. I can tell.”

“Yes, I liked the movie, but my opinion really doesn’t matter. What matters is that you didn’t like it and that you thought it was important enough to bring it up here.”

“That’s because Brenda and I got into this big thing about it.”

“Okay. So can we look at what you thought was dumb about the movie?”

“It was just silly. All those Feeling characters running around telling the girl how to feel and making her act one way or another.”

“Was there a particular Feeling character you liked more than the others or one you disliked more?”

“Yeah. I hated that fat, blue Sadness, always moping around, seeing the worst in everything, having to be dragged around by Joy. But Joy was kind of stupid too, constantly seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. I didn’t like Fear because he was too much of a nerd and Disgust didn’t make any sense to me. So I guess I liked Anger the best, at least he was willing to do something.”

Stu has beautifully captured his own personality in his reaction to the various Feeling characters. But I need to be cautious in my response so that I don’t further heighten his defensiveness.

After a brief pause I say, “Anger was very helpful when he burned a hole in the glass and allowed Joy and Sadness back into the control tower to help Riley. That struck me as a good illustration of how anger or assertion can be used to motivate a person to take necessary action, to impel them forward in life. It’s one of the things you’ve definitely been able to do, use your aggression to become a successful businessman.”

“I didn’t think of that, but yeah, that makes sense,” Stu replies more thoughtfully than he’s been all session.

“But Anger could also have gotten Riley in lots of trouble,” I continue.

“You mean when she starts to run away?”

I nod. “And when she starts to run away, did you notice how she was shutting down? To leave, she has to remove herself from her feelings, to not care, for example, that she’s leaving her parents.”

“I get what you’re saying. Anger alone can spell trouble.” 

“Yes. And you notice what Joy does when she and Sadness get back in the control tower, she has Sadness take over. Riley needs to get back in touch with her sadness in order to feel that she’ll miss her parents, that she doesn’t want to leave them.”

“Good point.” Pause. “I guess the movie was deeper than I thought.”

Now that Stu seems less defensive, I’m comfortable being more direct. “Sadness – or fear for that matter – aren’t emotions you’re comfortable with. They make you feel vulnerable, weak. But unless you can feel the whole range of emotions, it’s hard to live a full life, with meaningful connections to others. You notice in the movie, it’s also Sadness who’s the most empathic character.”  

“Are you saying I have no empathy?” Stu asks, more harshly.

“I think you’re starting to put Anger back up, Stu, because even thinking about feeling sad or scared is in itself pretty scary.”

“Maybe,” he says. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Okay,” I reply, as the hour ends. Stu and I still have lots of work to do.