The Power of Ultimate Veto

The mister and I have a fairly non-traditional take on the division of labor in a marriage.  I suppose I could wax philosophical and pontificate, but it boils down simply to this: if there is something to be done, the person available to do it does it and if you happen to be good and doing something you take the lead.  Pretty liberated stuff for a two people dwelling in the buckle of the Bible belt, don’t you think?

Of course, in practice it works out to look far less libby.  Being a girl, I just happen to naturally be more gifted in the more feminine of tasks: things like multi-tasking, birthing babies, and finding matching socks.  And as a man, the mister is more inclined to be the master of the mechanical stuff, and so I happily relinquish that domain to him.  Unfortunately, we are both equally lousy at things like taking out the trash and cooking, so we split those duties equally. 

It’s a sort-of non-traditional, yet gender aligned mishmash, but it works for us, especially because once we have self assigned our jobs, we have enough confidence in the other to leave them to their task without interference.

You have to understand this most intimate of job divvying to really grasp the monument of the conversation that occurred in at our kitchen table on a rainy Saturday afternoon.   As we endeavor to take our family on an RV trip around the country, there is a huge learning curve to understanding the equipment that goes along with the territory.  We didn’t grow up doing this sort of thing.  Towing an entire house and its contents behind us is an entirely sink- or- swim kind of experience.  The mister, being the master of the mechanical stuff, took it upon himself to learn the ins and outs of safety for this part of the trip.

So that Saturday, the mechanical master was researching safety and wind speed, when he had the misguided audacity to call me over to show me this video.

Parents and anyone else who worries about safety, DO NOT watch this video.  Really.  Trust Me.

**There is some language in this video that might not be suitable for children**

 

After the horror of watching that, I drew in a ragged breath and stated simply: “I want ultimate veto power for whether we travel in high winds or not.”

The mister raised his eyebrows, as if to remind me of the oddity that I would encroach on his territory and almost began a well thought out list of why I need not employ the power of ultimate veto.  I shut that down with an eyebrow raise of my own and the utterance of one word.  Sailboat.  Without another word, he conceded and the power was mine.

Seem like an easily fought battle?  Oh, how I wish it was.  For you to understand the power of the word sailboat I will have to weave you an ancient mariner’s tale.  It is a ragged and wretched tale, as only a story that could gain ultimate veto power could be.

Many moons ago, we were trying out the waters of extended family travel when the mister announced that he would like to try some sailing, maybe even sail around the world.  Seemed reasonable enough to me, but we thought we should give this lifestyle a try before we pulled up anchor and hit the high sea.  So, we purchased a small, used sailboat to putter around the lake. 

After some repairs and some test sails, we were ready for a proper sail.  The mister invited his parents along for the ride and we settled on a sunset cruise.  As we were pulling into the marina, I remarked about the ominous clouds that seemed to be appearing on the horizon, but we quickly checked the radar and determined that we were out of the path of any storms.

Our intrepid little vessel was stuffed to the gills with passengers, including the mister and his parents, our two boys, ages 4 and 2, and me-great with child at 36 weeks pregnant.  Precious cargo, certainly!

Our initial jaunt across the lake could only be described as idyllic.  The wind was perfect.  The sunset was melting orange-pink into the inkiness of the water.  Spirits were jovial.  A light rain began to gently sprinkle over us, but we were so blissfully cheery that we stuck out our tongues and tried to catch the drops.

From his post at the tiller, the mister announced calmly, “If you don’t want to get wet, you should go under.”  I looked to our rear as a living, breathing wall of grey pounding rain reached out to engulf our little boat.  I pushed two curly red heads into the hold, and then waddled in myself just in time to get out of the driving rain.

We had just settled and I was thinking of getting the boys a snack when we were thrown violently from one side of the boat to the other as the sail of the boat dipped parallel to the water and close enough to skim the surface.  In the next instance, we were thrown back to the other side of the boat and we would have been thrown a third time if I had not wedged the three of us in the very bottom of the boat. 

Not forgetting that there were three other passengers still above deck, I passed life jackets up to them and then quickly huddled back in the bottom of the boat with the boys.  The life jackets were for naught, as the others could not let go of their posts for fear that we would begin to pitch and yaw wildly in the howling wind.  Clearly, it was not merely a summer storm we were up against, but a full-fledged squall.

Ideally, we would have been able to take down the sails and ride out the storm like a little cork, but the wind was too violent that we feared the mister would be thrown overboard if he tiptoed his way to the front to release the sails.  Moreover, he was the only one on board who really knew how to operate the tiller, and if he let go for even a minute, we would begin pitching violently again.

The only option was to hold steady through the storm, which lasted right at one hour.  In the hour, I learned two things.  I learned that my husband was an amazing sailor and I learned that singing Sunday School songs to soothe my hysterical children kept me from becoming hysterical myself.

As the storm let up and we all began to breathe again, we began to assess the damage.  We knew we were lost.  All the twirling and twisting in the wind had left us without any bearings.  Of course, the sunset we had enjoyed the hour before meant we were now in the pitch black.   In the final trifecta of misery, we learned that the tossing had disabled our lighting system, flooded our engine, and misplaced our compass.  We were definitely up a creek without a paddle, or in a sailboat of horror with no conceivable way home.

By miracle, and no thanks to our malfunctioning equipment we made it somehow back to the dock.  The details of the trip back are fuzzy now, but I do know I spent the better part of the trip back plotting a way to abandon the death ship and swim to shore with the boys on my back. 

That was the last time the boys and I ever set foot on that boat, although it was the not the last time it was mentioned in our home.  For months after that night, the boys would climb onto the couch and pantomime a sinking ship, complete with pillows flying wildly and wind howling and people falling overboard and nearly drowning.     I guess this form of preschool PTSD processing was cheaper than therapy.  We sold the boat a few months later. 

And that is the story of how I earned total weather veto power.  A well earned privilege that was not without cost.