The Bullfight

Kellie and Joe

I am The Bull. Unfortunately, Kellie is The Matador. And if you know anything at all about bullfighting, you know that the bull never leaves the ring alive; although, I do occasionally get lucky and give her a good goring. Whenever Kellie wants to get her way, she slowly wears me down, lancing me repeatedly, bleeding away my resistance until enfeebled and exhausted, my slaughter becomes inescapable. 

In the first stage of a bullfight, the matador and the banderilleros antagonize the bull, provoking him to charge so they can gauge the beast's strength and aggressiveness. Likewise, during the initial stage of bending me to her will, Kellie confronts me, observes my reaction, and cooly calculates her strategy for my demise. Her first challenge is typically a simple, direct, verbal taunt.

“I think I need another dog.” The thought of a third dog boils my Mediterranean blood. Enraged, nostrils flaring, I charge to attack her.

“There’s no f@#$ing way we’re getting another dog,” I huff and snort.

To check my fierce resistance, Kellie transforms into the picador and begins the spectacle of draining my will. She stabs me between the shoulders with a blunt assault. “Well, too bad,” she declares, “I’m getting another dog.”  Even at this early stage of the contest, the outcome is certain. After delivering the inevitable verdict, she promptly exits the arena.

During the second stage of a bullfight, the banderilleros consort to further weaken and tire the bull by planting six barbed sticks, called banderillas, in the bull’s shoulders. In this phase of the ordeal, Kellie recruits the kids as banderilleros. Each time my youngest daughter dashes by me, she jabs me with quick barb. “Mom said we’re getting another dog,” she darts.  After a while, the constant poking leaves tired and weak. My shoulders sag and my head drops in the forlorn knowledge of my impending defeat.

It’s now time for Kellie to deliver the coup de grâce. In the final stage, Kellie enters the ring unaccompanied, a lone matador, waving before my eyes a drape of consumer electronics, daring me to pick one in exchange for a dog.  Once she’s maneuvered me into position, she quickly strikes – a deal. I’ll get a new 27-inch iMac in exchange for a Yorkie. This is the traditional ritual of compromise that Kellie and I have devised to satisfy our urgent desires.

We haven’t finished the third stage yet, but as satisfaction for accepting two dogs and ridiculous number of cats, I’ve already received: an iRiver MP3 player, a Konica Minolta Dimage A2 8MP digital camera with 7x anti shake optical zoom, a Sony portable minidisc recorder, a 4-terabyte Western Digital RAID-5 network attached storage device, a pair of Bose acoustic noise canceling headphones, an Amazon Kindle, a 52-inch Samsung high definition television, an iPhone 3GS, an iPad2, and a MacBook Pro. At this point, I think I know the outcome of this particular running of the bulls.
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Today's post is part of the starting lineup for Dude Write #4 and was also submitted to the Yeah Write #65 summer series.  Please stop by both sites and take a look at some of the fine writing from a great group of bloggers.